More Spring Clean Up - Early May 2018

May brings with it not only the sunshine, warmer weather , the leaves sprouting on the tyres and the return of the tulips and the song birds, it also bring a lot of yard work, and flower bed clean up.

May 2 and 3
As much work as I did in the fall in my beds to cut down the perennial stems,  dig out weeds and quack grass and wrap rose bushes, theres still much to clean in the spring. (Mainly because I'm of the mind that if it's still alive and especially if it's blooming, don't snip it off.)

Pruning:  I clipped back some of my small shrubs (May 2 and 3)
2 Quick Fire Hydrangeas
1 Invincible Spirit II
1 False Spirea and 2 raspberry bushes

Also I trimmed the dead vines off my 2 clematises, Ville de Lyon (new last year to replace the old Nellie Moser which almost refused to bloom (1 flower in 2016.) So far there's no signs of life from them but they are slow to sprout compared to most perennials.

More tomatoes, glads and spaghetti squash up top, started from seed in early April.

Tomatoes, 2 Lavatara flower and Red Thompson Dahlia, tubers I have had for 14 years

May 3
I started 20 more glass bulbs in a tray of water in the house (mostly to give away.) The glads in the green house are all in individual containers in soil now and are growing tall.

I planted some herb seeds in pots in the greenhouse,
2 cilantro (which doesn't like to be transplanted  but maybe one pot will survive. Last year- none. )
dill
basil
tarragon

and 2 pots of Zinnia seeds

Checked other greenhouse seed pots in the living room: 2 spaghetti squashes are coming up, as well as 1 English cucumber and 1 green zucchini  (I don't know why the zucchini seeds are so hard to germinate!)
Chris potted them up and they are in their new home in the greenhouse.
There's 1 tiny Patio sprout that just came up, but none of the second batch of lavatara seeds have sprouted. I might just have to buy some at the greenhouse.

Side of house bed with lots of tulips now growing like gangbusters!

Tulips at side of house have buds now

The tulips are looking so good now (May 4/18). I hope they get lots of buds and beautiful flowers. Some of them probably need to be divided.

Dahlia Tahitian Sunrise Tubers were over wintered from last year

Gladiolas is greenhouse

May 4
May 4 saw some major work in the yard. Helpful husband removed all the rocks off the sides of the rock garden and helped me dig out all the quack grass roots and dead brown tops which have tried to take over in the last few years. I dug out all the sedum around the top edge removed all the quack grass roots I could locate, then added some fresh soil and compost and replanted some of the sedum and the small Edelweise . It looks really good now and the tulips there are healthy and should bloom soon.

I have loads of sedum left over to plant someplace else or to donate to the Stettler Plant Swap next weekend.

The bottom section of the rock garden still needs work. More rocks to remove and white daisy babies to dig out at the edges then add some sedum there. Quack grass to dig up, too.

Diligent husband finished cleaning the pond, then he hooked up the pond filter and added fresh water to the pond. The goldfish currently residing in the laundry room will be happy with their fresh outdoor home.

I have begun to unwrap my rose bushes now. That means, removing the layers of peat moss and the mulch covering the bottoms.  None of them show any buds yet.
I also spent a lot of time digging up quack grass roots, and oops! replacing the odd tulip bulb or lily bulb that got dug up in the quack grass eradication.  It's a lot of stooping work and all in all after 2 hours,  I'm only about one third done my stack stone bed.  More clean up in that bed to do today! :(

Happy Gardening!