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It's the first day of spring! We celebrated by spending the day outside. In the morning we worked on Operation Destroy Bamboo, Phase 1B: we finished loading the truck with that rotten wood pile, which I had started on Thursday; took it to the dump; came back and filled the truck again.

While we were working, Georg figured out where the wood came from: previous owners had had an aboveground pool in the area which became the bamboo patch. We know this because we found pool cleaning tools in the shed, and there's a large metal ring in the ground which must have been the foundation of the pool. The wood must have been used for either a frame or deck around the pool. When they moved out and removed the pool, they stacked up the wood and left it in the back of the yard. And we didn't care about the yard when we moved in, so we let it lay until now.

I must say, moving a pile of wood that's been allowed to rot for over a decade is ... gross. It's really gross. Crumbling, turning to sawdust, full of creepy crawlies. The rusty nails in every board just add that je ne sais quois. We've been using the wheelbarrow to carry the wood to the truck, so we wouldn't have to touch the wood more than necessary. Good thing too, because in the bottom of the wheelbarrow we found a spider that we think was a brown recluse. (We looked at a photo online to identify it.) I had heard that brown recluses like rotten wood. Because I'm a sucker for living creatures, even horrible poisonous spiders, we didn't kill it. I went over to a corner of the yard and tipped the spider out. Maybe it will find a fallen tree in the empty lot to make a new home in.

By the time we got the truck loaded again it was too late to go back to the dump, so we went out to lunch and then did more yard work in the afternoon. Georg cut down volunteer saplings in the bamboo patch, while I weeded out front and then dug up a forsythia by the shed. I want to plant hollyhocks in front of the shed so all the vines and scrubby shrubs have to go.

It was positively hot out in the sun, so we took frequent breaks. During which I obsessively read Twitter updates on health care reform. I wish I could watch the vote on CSPAN tomorrow. Alas, I'll be on the air until 4, and then there's a mandatory DJ meeting. I'll just have to play lots of long songs so I have time to check Twitter constantly.

On breaks I also checked the locations of various perennials, to see what's starting to come up. The brunnera Jack Frost is looking good. It's a beautiful foliage plant for shade, which needs moist soil, so I planted it right next to a rain barrel. All the hostas I planted last fall are starting to sprout! We got all big ones, mostly blue: Blue Angel, Krossa Regal, Sieboldiana Elegans, and Hollywood Lights. I never planted hostas before so I'm excited. Also very excited to see sprouts from the calanthe. It was a splurge last fall from Plants Delight, and when we checked out the guy said "Whoa, Orchids 202!" That made me a little nervous -- I do all right but I've lost more than my share of plants, and this one was expensive -- and it was such a wet winter, that I'm incredibly relieved to see the calanthe survived. We passed Orchids 202!

Now we are both very tired. I'm so glad we had nice leftovers and didn't have to worry about cooking.

Here's a photo of something besides bamboo! Last fall I planted these tiny "Pixie" irises by the back door. I had no idea what they were going to look like. They're cute! It's going to look great in a few years when they multiply.

Okay, I did a little bit of Operation Destroy Bamboo today. I took the truckload of cut bamboo to the city dump. I took Jane with me, which was probably a mistake. She's a nervous dog, and the truck is a lot louder than my car, and then there was all kinds of heavy equipment at the dump. So she spent most of the trip clinging to me and/or shivering. Poor thing! I wonder if taking her with me again would help her get used to it, or would just scare her even more.

Phase 1 of Operation Destroy Bamboo is complete! !! !!!
Well, almost. All the bamboo is cut down, except for there's a stack of old lumber on the left by the fence, which we think was there when we moved into the house (we can't find any photos old enough to confirm this), and a pile of yard waste on top of it which was ahem gifted to us anonymously. There are about a dozen stalks of bamboo growing out from under that.

You can see in the above photo, on the right, that Georg started raking up the leaves & debris from the ground. We thought this would make Phase 2 (find and knock down shoots as soon as they emerge) easier. He said he saw lots of roots, no shoots. I'm sure an explosion of bamboo growth will start soon enough.

What I'm calling Phase 1B will be the removal of the pile of yard waste and lumber, cutting down the last bit of bamboo, and removing the mountain of cut bamboo which currently takes up almost as much space as it did when it was still standing.

Phase 1B begins tomorrow, when I take a truckload of bamboo to the dump. Alas, the photos above show the mountain of cut bamboo after Georg filled the truck.

It may be worthwhile to rent a big wood chipper and see how much of it we can grind up in a weekend. We have a small electric chipper which works well on sticks, but as I recall it can't handle bamboo leaves. If we had to trim every stalk and feed them into the chipper one by one, that would take forever.

The neighbors put up a privacy fence yesterday, or at least most of one. I'm not sure if they plan to finish the fence or if they're going to leave that gap.

That reed mat isn't ideal; I was thinking about planting climbing roses along that fence but I fear it would be too heavy and pull the reed mat down. Then again since it was no cost or effort to me I guess I can't complain.

The upper level, up behind the parking area, is a revelation. It's been hidden by the bamboo for years.

Shame about this tree. It has a nice shape but the bottom 2/3 of the branches are dead, and that kind of evergreen never grows back. I think it was a cypress.

Georg has been cutting down the volunteer trees, which were mostly if not entirely dead already. I think we're going to leave the one in the foreground of the above photo, and put a birdhouse on it. It's the least we can do for the birds who lost all that greenery they used to hang out in. On the other hand, the hawks love this new clearing we've created. We've seen more hawks in the past two weeks -- sometimes so close you can almost count their feathers -- than in the previous two years. Happy hunting!

A couple of photos of our latest progress on Operation Destroy Bamboo. We're working on the upper area now, above the wall. It's going faster because the bamboo mostly isn't as thick up there. First the before:

Now the after:

All those volunteer saplings will be cut down. They're mostly dead already, smothered by the bamboo. That wooden fence in the back is going to be in full sun. Maybe that's where we'll plant the Russelliana rambling rose. The soil up there is surprisingly good. I guess because leaves have been falling from the trees and just rotting where they lay for years. And the bamboo never got too thick because it was shaded by the thicker bamboo in front of it, in the parking area? Not sure. In any case, my hope is that we'll be able to plant up there, if not this year then maybe next year.

We also spent some time cutting vines off the chain link fence (on the left in this photo) because our neighbors are going to put up a privacy fence. Just reed mat but it will get the job done. It turns out that while the bamboo was going crazy in our yard, they started cutting it back, last year I think. And they only have one spot near our yard that still has bamboo, which they worked on cutting down today. It was kind of weird for us all to be out there working at the same time.

No progress today but here are a couple of photos I took this morning. First, the lower area is clear!

The fence is still pretty messy from dried up vines and stuff growing in it. We're going to finish cutting the bamboo first and then go back to tidying jobs like that.

The pile of cut bamboo is on a slope, so I think it's an optical illusion that makes it look taller than the truck.

I think it's an optical illusion. Anyone need cut bamboo? Anyone?

I think I mentioned over the weekend that I expected an explosion of bamboo growth after we started cutting back, and was surprised not to see it. Well, I can stop being surprised. I was working on the bamboo today, and a few times I brushed the dried leaves away to look at the ground. And several times (not everywhere, but several times) I saw little bamboo shoots, lots of them, just starting to poke out of the ground. I don't know if it's because of the cutting, or because it's just the time of year for it to come out of dormancy. Whichever, here it comes!

We had decided a few days ago that we'd wait until the parking area was clear, and then rake up all the leaves so we can watch for new shoots. Which is good timing, because I just about finished the parking area today! I found this foam block used for yoga, and used it to kneel/sit on while working on the bamboo. What a godsend. The bamboo was so thick where I was working today that I wouldn't have been able to kneel on the ground like I had done over the weekend.

Besides growing really thick, the other annoying thing about the bamboo by the fence is that it got all tangled up in vines and tree branches. So when I cut a stalk, instead of falling over the cut end would bounce up into the air & it would just hang there. So I had to stop every few minutes and yank everything I'd cut out of the tangle.

While I was working, I had this horrible vision of falling and impaling myself a dozen times on the punji sticks. Yes, I'm a worrier! It's a good thing I don't have kids because I'd make them live in a plastic bubble. I didn't stop working, but I did get my phone and kept it in my pocket. I figured if I stabbed myself on the bamboo, at least I'd be able to call 911.

There's still a massive pile of cut bamboo and debris to be cleaned up, so I didn't take any photos today. It looks like a hot mess & I thought photos would just bum me out. We talked about it and I think we're not going to try to chip all the bamboo. There's just too much of it. We'll start taking it to the dump next weekend.

It's really weird to have the chain link fence between our yard and our neighbors suddenly exposed. I hated that bamboo but it did an excellent job of creating privacy. I'd love to plant rambling roses along the fence. I've been wanting a place to plant Russelliana, a dark purple rambler. Of course it will be a long time before we can plant anything in that ground. In the meantime maybe I'll get containers and plant an annual like morning glories, which will grow fast and give us some privacy, and then go away at the end of the year.

The silver lining to the sudden lack of privacy between us and our neighbors is that Jane finally noticed the dog next door. He's been mooning over her for years, while she's never even known he's alive. Well today she saw him! They had a nice little tail wagging nose nuzzling moment.

When we started, it seemed like half the bamboo was in the parking area and half was up above. Now that the parking area is clear, we can see that the area above is much smaller. Georg said he thinks we're 2/3 to 3/4 done. Woo!

I had a fun show this afternoon! I tried to play lots of jazz and swing, since next week is going to be so pop. Also had a lot of birthday tributes to cover. I got a few requests, including a very frustrating series from one person: they wrote to the request line and requested Frank Sinatra singing "Moon River." Well "Moon River" won an Oscar so I'm already planning to play it next week. Which I said on the air, and invited them to request something else. They wrote in a few minutes later ... and requested "Moon River," sung by Audrey Hepburn! Okay... obviously they were not listening to me the first time, so I just ignored it & didn't bother explaining again.

Didn't get back into Operation Destroy Bamboo today, although Georg did some work this morning. I had planned to work on it after my show, but when I got home it was 45° out and the place where I needed to work was in shade. My rule of thumb is, if it's at least 50°, or a little colder and I'm in the sun, then I can warm myself up enough just by working. Cold than that is just too cold for me.

Maybe it was better that I took a day off, because I was really sore last night & early this morning. I think I need to balance my movements better. Because my right knee & shin are all scratched and scabby, and my left arm is scratched up too, and my left shoulder hurt a lot last night (as in, I woke up in the middle of the night and it was kind of numb down the left arm). I think I must get into a rhythm where I kneel on my right leg (so the right knee gets all scratched up by the punji sticks, thank you Raynor Grace for that term, it's very helpful), lean forward on my left foot, and do all the work with my left hand. It makes sense since I'm left handed.

I did spend a little time outside, since Clovepod alerted me that bamboo can actually be rooted from cuttings. I'm planning to use a bunch of the cut bamboo to trellis up my peas, which means sticking the cut stalks into my vegetable garden. I sure don't want to accidently spread the bamboo to my vegetable garden! I did some research and it sounds like bamboo isn't that easy to propagate from cuttings: you have to keep it warm and moist, get it into rooting medium right away, keep the leaves attached, etc etc. I figure leaving my stakes outside to dry out, and freeze every night, for weeks ought to prevent them from rooting when they finally do go into the ground. Also I went out this evening and cut all the leaves off them, just to be safe.

While I was at my show Georg brought the grow lamp in, and tonight I got a bunch of seeds started! I planted up two trays, about half of what I'm planning to start indoors. Plus there are a bunch of seeds that will be sown direct outdoors, after it warms up. It was a little alarming when I laid all the seeds out to sort through them. Did I really order that many?

I have to say, Fedco is my new favorite seed supplier. They have a great selection, and they offer these mini packets which are priced like the big box stores (around $1 a packet). There's only a few seeds in a mini packet, which is perfect for a home gardener like me. If I'm only planning to grow 4 of a plant, then I'd rather pay $1 for 10 seeds than $3 for 30 seeds. The excess is wasted, and it really adds up when you're buying dozens of varieties.

Johnny's Seeds is geared more for small farmers & they're still a better deal for large quantities. So I'll keep ordering from them to get things like cover crops and sunflowers, which I plant a lot of (also Johnny's has an incredible sunflower selection, I never knew there were so many kinds). But next year I think I'll do most of my seed ordering from Fedco.

Also, note to self, next year I have to get myself one of those little squeezy things for measuring out tiny seeds. Every single year I wish I had one.

Due to weather and work, "week 2" is a slight exaggeration. It's been 2 full days and 2 half days of work. (Last Saturday and today were full days; Sunday and Monday were half days.) And I'm really happy with our progress:

The parking area is almost completely cleared! There's just a narrow strip along the fence on the left. Georg and I worked for a couple of hours this morning, then after lunch he had to go to the radio station so I worked alone all afternoon.

We're still using the same method: cut the stalk close to the ground and immediately press a sponge soaked with Roundup against the cut end. It's slow going as opposed to, say, spraying the entire area with Roundup, waiting a few days and then chopping it down with a machete. That would be the easy way. I'm happy with this approach because so much less Roundup is used. Using a sponge there's almost no excess Roundup going into the ground.

I had expected an explosion of new bamboo shoots during the past week: bamboo is infamous for fast growth, cutting a plant back always encourages new growth, that whole area is getting way more sun than before, and we had heavy rain early in the week. I thought we'd spend a long time this morning cutting new shoots, before we could get back to clearing the older growth. To my surprise we didn't get that at all. There were a few new shoots, I found maybe about a dozen and a half. And all of them were in the area we were newly clearing today, none where it had already been cleared. Maybe the Roundup really is slowing it down?

The massive pile of cut bamboo has grown even more massive. We're planning to shred it, though I'm not sure if we need to let it dry out first. Our shredder is fussy about bamboo: it can cut stalks but jams up on leaves. I guess we'll just have to try a fresh stalk and see how the shredder does. We can put the leaves in the compost pile.

A couple of unpleasant discoveries today: first, the retaining wall which had been hidden behind the bamboo for years is in serious disrepair. I wonder how difficult it will be to fix.

Looks like it's going to rain today. Dang! I was hoping it would hold off until tonight. Since I can't work outside today, I took a few photos of our progress.

Here's the "before" photo. The bamboo patch fills the parking area and has spilled out into the gravel driveway.

Here's where we are now. We cut the whole thing back a couple of feet, back to the front of the parking area, then we focused on the right half and got about 3/4 of the way back.

We did it that way because our neighbors (the source of the bamboo) were out in their yard having a barbecue on Saturday, and we thought it best to stay back from the fence while they were right there. It would have been really weird for us to suddenly emerge from the bamboo in the middle of their barbecue. We're going to have to figure out something for that fence when the bamboo is gone.

Here's what the ground looks like as we work. Whatever you do, don't fall!

Does anyone need bamboo? After I take all I need for trellising the sugar snaps, we still have hundreds of canes. It's about 1/2" thick and 10-12' long.

Unfortunately today was my show, so we were only able to work for about an hour on the bamboo. Very frustrating considering what a nice day it was! While I was at the station Georg moved the pile of bamboo. It was getting difficult to walk in and out of the bamboo patch because the pile of bamboo covered the entire front of the area, and the stalks would slip under your feet. So he moved it out of the way, and set aside a few dozen nice straight lengths for me. I'm going to use them as stakes, to trellis the sugar snap peas.

We've been using bamboo stakes I bought at big orange a few years ago, and over the years they've gotten nasty and mildewed. I was thinking I would have to bleach them before putting them up this year. Instead I can throw the nasty old stakes in the compost and make new ones from the bamboo forest. I don't know why I never thought of this before. What was I thinking, buying bamboo stakes when our yard is being taken over by a field of bamboo.

I also did a couple of non-bamboo yard tasks: cut down the butterfly bush, which we do every year about this time, and started removing straw from the tender plants. They don't need to be protected from the cold anymore; now they'll do better if the ground is warmed by the sun. Best discovery: the alliums are starting to come up! Last fall I planted 25 Globemaster alliums in the backyard -- those are the ones that grow 3 feet tall with a giant purple pompom-like ball of flowers -- and 25 tiny little blue ones (called allium caeruleum) by the back door. As of today, 14 of the Globemasters and over a dozen of the tiny ones are up. So exciting! I can hardly wait until they bloom. I know it will be months from now. I'm so ready for spring.

The first day of Operation Destroy Bamboo went pretty well. We spent about 8 hours working on stage 1, cutting down the bamboo. It's a two person job: one person cuts the stalk a few inches from the ground, then the other paints Roundup on the cut end with a sponge. The Roundup has to be applied immediately, like within 15 seconds, because the sap draws down as soon as it's cut. If you wait too long then the Roundup just sits on top and doesn't get down into the rhizome. At least, that's the theory. We'll find out if it works or not.

It was slow going, and harder work than we expected. It's all the crouching and stooping. The person with the loppers can stand and crouch over, but the person with the Roundup sponge has to be down at the ground. And once we got into the middle of the bamboo patch, the ground was covered with pointy bits of bamboo sticking up. It was hard to find a place to put our feet, and forget about kneeling comfortably. I was terrified one of us would fall and be impaled on dozens of bamboo spikes. Really, the ground is starting to look like a set from The Most Dangerous Game. Luckily, as we got further back into the bamboo patch it thinned out somewhat and became a little easier to kneel on the ground. Georg speculated maybe because there's less light back there, it can't grow as close together. Or maybe because the soil is poorer & sandier back there.

So we worked for about 8 hours. Part of that time I was on my own -- Georg had to go to the radio station -- but most of the time we worked together. And we got close to half of the parking area done. Less than I had hoped, but when I look at the area we cleared, and the size of the pile of bamboo on the ground, I'm not disappointed.

The bamboo is skinny, the stalks range from 1/4-1" in diameter, and 12-13 feet tall. They have leaves only at the very tops. The stalks are green, and have a sort of husk attached to the ridges, so they look striped: half green, half tan. I should take a picture. Now that I think about it, I should post on Craig's List and see if anyone wants it. I know someone who wants bamboo but he needs it much thicker, more like 2" diameter. He wants to make candle holders out of it.

We found some interesting things in the bamboo patch. A bird's nest on the ground. We don't know if it fell out of the bamboo, or if the birds nested on the ground. Which would have been really stupid seeing as there's a dog running around in there every day. A rodent's nest inside a plastic bucket. See, the Durham County landfill used to sell mulch and soil. The price was fantastic and we used to buy a lot of it. The only drawback was, since it was made from other people's yard waste, it was always full of bits of trash, mostly plastic bags. We used to keep a bucket nearby while we were unloading the mulch or soil, and every time we found a bit of trash we'd throw it in the bucket. Well, one of those times we apparently forgot to empty out the bucket. We must have left it at the front of the bamboo patch, and then the bamboo grew around it and we forgot it was there. And eventually it tipped over, and rodents found this little hidey-hole full of scraps of plastic, and decided it would make a great nest. It had little soft things like fabric scraps and clumps of dryer lint in it. Alas for the rodents, we threw it out. It didn't look like anyone was still using it. We also found a rubber snake, the kind used to scare away birds and rodents. Which was obviously not very effective since we found it a couple of feet from the bird's nest and the bucket nest.

By the end of the day we were exhausted. We got cleaned up and had a lovely dinner at Spice & Curry. A paneer dosa, aloo palak and chicken pasanda, which is my favorite thing they make. Great food and we have lots of leftovers. Now we're sitting in front of the fire and watching the Olympics.

The only really annoying thing about the first day of Operation Destroy Bamboo is the well-meaning people on certain social networking sites who feel compelled to tell me ad infinitum how much I'm doing everything wrong, and how I should be doing it their way instead. I'm happy for advice and suggestions, in fact I've gotten some great suggestions. What I'm not so thrilled about is being scolded by someone who isn't offering to help, just to tell me how wrong I am. Actually I'm just cranky because I spent all day chopping down bamboo and now I'm tired and sore. (Note: I'm not talking about anyone who reads this blog.)

This evening we had our first zucchini from the garden! Four small ones turned out to be just the right amount, when Georg sauteed them with onions and mushrooms and peppers. They say that when you grow zucchini, you should always try to pick them small. Otherwise you end up inundated with humongous zucchini, foisting them off on people and so forth.

The zucchini plants have some pests. Not the evil squash beetles yet; it's cucumber beetles, which are smaller and apparently not as destructive. I mixed up some Neem oil and sprayed them. After we picked the ones we ate, of course! I saw the beetles hiding in the mulch so I sprayed the mulch good too. I hope it helps.

We've been hearing the owls a lot lately, and tonight was no exception. It always makes me happy to hear the owls. They've been moving around a lot from the sound of it. I suppose they're hunting & that's why we hear them from all over.

Tonight after dinner we did see something unusual: a deer! We heard Jane barking again, and our first thought was, oh crap, the snake again. We went outside and saw that she was standing at the fence looking out, which suggested it probably wasn't the snake. It's pretty dark out here at night, but there is one street light, and we could just make out the deer, standing in the middle of the yard a couple of houses over. At first I thought, "hey, did they put in a deer statue without our noticing?" They already have a fake mini wishing well so a deer statue wouldn't be a surprise. But then the deer moved its head and we knew it was a real deer.

There wasn't much more to the interaction. We stood there watching the deer, the deer stod there watching us. Eventually we went inside and the deer took off. At least now we know what's been eating the tops off our sedum down by the road.

All in all I think this has been the best day ever for Jane. First a snake, then a ride in the car, then the snake again, and then a deer! What a day! Then again, as the Onion reminds us, best days aren't that hard to come by for a dog.

This morning we met our newest neighbor: a 5 foot long black rat snake. I know what you're thinking, people always overestimate the length of snakes. Well, this guy helpfully stretched out next to a concrete block wall, allowing us to measure him with fair accuracy.

When we first saw the snake, his whole body was crinkled up in this weird pattern. That actually made him easy to identify. He lay perfectly still while we stood there trying to figure out what to do. Then Georg went inside to research the snake, and I walked around to the other side of the garden. At which point the snake disappeared. Kind of freaked me out, until I saw his tail disappear into a watering can. It must have looked like the perfect hiding place for a snake.

Black rat snakes aren't venomous and only bite when they think they're being attacked. Still, we put heavy jeans and shoes on just in case. We got a large clean trash can with a lid, scooped the watering can inside, and slapped on the lid. Then carried it over to the empty lot behind the house and dumped it over the side. Poor snake! He fell partway out of the can but he didn't move. I brought Jane over to the fence near the snake, to try and scare him into heading the other way when he was finally ready to travel.

I had a few errands to run and it wasn't that hot, so I took the dogs with me. We had only been home for a little while when we heard Jane barking again. Sure enough, that danged snake was back!

This time we had a plan to put him in the trash can, drive to the Eno park (about a mile up the road) and release him. There must be plenty of wildlife in the park for him to eat. We spent a little time trying to coax him into the other watering can, when he suddenly decided he was tired of us and slithered off into a hole in the retaining wall between our yard and the next.

I guess that must be his home. He went straight to it, so he must have known the spot. Once I got over my horror at the sheer size of the beastie, I had to admit that the black rat snake is actually not a bad snake to have around: a non-aggressive, non-venomous snake who eats rodents. And we've got a lot of those.

My only concern is that Jane may try to play with him and get bitten. We discovered the snake in the first place because Jane was barking at it in her "Hey! Pay attention to me!" voice. However, we're willing to live and let live if he'll stay out of Jane's way. Which I hope he'll want to do after today. Poor snake. I feel kind of bad for him. He must have been scared.

It was kind of neat to watch him watching us: while he was hiding in the can, every once in a while his head would peep out, spot us, and sink back in. Then later, when he was lying by the wall, I watched him scope the scene: he'd hear us and get all crinkled up, then when we were still he'd wait a few minutes, stick his tongue out a few times, then gradually relax his body and start moving. Then someone would make noise (usually Jane) and he'd freeze and crinkle up again. I read online that the crinkling is a response to stress.

I forgot to mention that Jane really impressed me today. When we saw her barking at the snake, we only had to call her once and she immediately came to us. How many dogs would abandon a live animal right in front of them, on the first command? Well okay, a super well trained dog definitely would. But Jane never even finished beginner obedience classes. And she still minded us without any complaint or hesitation today. We spent several hours dealing with that snake, and never had a single problem with Jane. She is the best dog! (I suppose Thirteen is even better, since she spent the entire incident sleeping inside and never even saw the snake.)

Famed mail order nursery Bluestone Perennials is having an end-of-the-season 50% sale on everything until June 1! The prices are outstanding: packs of 3 perennials for $6 - $7. I didn't go crazy, but I did order a few things. Mostly blue and white flowers, which we're trying to get more of in the garden.

It's kind of getting late in the season for planting perennials, especially little mail order perennials. I think we might just  stick them into a bare spot in the vegetable garden where they'll get regular irrigation. Maybe even leave them in their pots and sink the whole pots into the veg beds. Then in the fall we can find permanent homes for them in the flower garden.

I have to plug the Durham Garden Center on Hillsborough Road. Georg heard a radio ad for them, and we went out today. It was great! A really nice selection with excellent prices. It's not as big as the plant section of a big box store, but way more of their stock is the kind of plants I like. They had some things I had never seen before, like pink verbena-on-a-stick.

They also sell pots -- not that many but again, mostly in styles that I like. They even have rough dishes and troughs made of a course concrete mix, like hypertufa (although I don't think it actually was hypertufa). Really pretty! I'm going to look around the yard and see if we have a good place for one of those. And they have a small indoor shop with organic fertilizers and pesticides.

I'm so happy to find a good nursery with good prices that's 5 minutes away instead of 45 minutes. Since they're so close, we didn't have to load up like we would at the farmers market. We got a few things: two packs of gazanias (which I think are among the cutest annuals out there, and I don't understand why they aren't as popular as petunias or marigolds), a pack of white-and-green shade annuals for the new bed, an african daisy with really interesting spoon-shaped petals, an ice plant with yellow flowers, a "ham and eggs" lantana, a peach verbena and a hardy geranium.

In the fine tradition of directions that make no sense to anyone but me: take Hillsborough as if you were coming to my house, but instead of turning onto Cole Mill, keep going. Go past the part where Hillsborough runs parallel to I-85, past the transmission shop that was so nice to me a few years ago, and it's on the right, just past the office of the persnickety plumber who redid our bathroom. If you get to Sparger you've gone too far.

Yesterday we went to the big open house at Plants Delight. It was great fun, as usual. The best part is their extensive garden, where you can see how the plants look massed together, and in combination with other plants.

We only bought a few things, that we haven't seen anyplace else: a hardy fuschia (wow!), a bright blue hardy geranium, a spreading ground-cover-ish perennial called fringed campion silene, a crazy-cool phlomis with a tall stem and a series of yellow pom-poms of flowers, and best of all, a cross between hardy amaryllis and crinum lily called amarcrinum.

Today we finished adding soil to the new bed, which is looking nice if I do say so myself. The zinnia seedlings are starting to come up and we're slowly filling it in with other plants. The big thrill of the day was that Georg put a drip irrigation system in the vegetable garden. Yay! While he was doing that I planted everything we had bought yesterday. I didn't want the amarcrinum to suffer the same fate as our hardy amaryllis (eaten by voles! Heartbreaking!) so I made a wire cage to plant it in. It was kind of a pain to clip all those wires, and I tried to do a good job of folding all the cut edges in so no one in future will accidently cut themselves digging in that spot. I accidently made it way too big, but what the heck, now the amarcrinum has lots of room to grow. At Plants Delight they had an amazing clump of hardy amaryllis. I can dream that someday our amarcrinum will be like that.

ps: I almost forgot: we have a tomato! One tiny little green Early Girl tomato. Today at lunch we had a salad with mint, green onion and sugar snap peas from our garden. I have to say, just-picked sugar snaps are a revelation. Almost a different vegetable. It's like the first time you eat a home-grown tomato. I think it's partly because they're so fresh, and partly because we're picking them younger than the ones you get at the store. My only regret about the sugar snaps is that we didn't plant more! Each plant doesn't make that many peas. We might only get one or two more meals out of them. Next year I'd like to plant two or even three times as many.

It's been 2 months since the new roses were planted, and today Georg and I took a gander to see how they were doing. It's been raining so much that we haven't needed to water them, and so I hadn't taken a close look at them in a couple of weeks.

Mme. Alfred Carriere: Dead, dead, dead. Our one major rose failure. My fault entirely. I had ordered 5 from Ashdown, and they shipped four in one box and one -- this one -- in a small box by itself. The other four kept themselves moist enough, but Mme. Alfred Carriere dried out more by itself. I didn't realize this, or didn't realize how important it was. I watered them all at the same rate, which wasn't enough for poor Mme. Alfred Carriere.
      By the time I realized what was going on it had died back mostly. But three little shoots of new growth showed up, and I thought it was going to be okay. Then we had that hard freeze over Easter. All the new growth froze off, and it's been dead as a doornail ever since. Alas!

Crepescule: Has bloomed several times already, with three more buds ready to open and several more tiny buds. It has lots of new growth, seems to be growing fuller rather than throwing out long canes. It will get more sun when it grows taller, though it seems to be doing fine now. A touch of powdery mildew, nothing to worry about.

Colonial White (Sombreuil): The smallest of the roses that survived, it's doing well. Has two new canes up. May not flower this year, but that's okay!

Awakening: Looks great. Growing fast, sending out lots of sturdy canes. Only problem is, they're growing straight up. We want them to hang down and cover that slope. No big deal, we can peg it -- bend the cane down and attach it to a peg in the ground. In fact I should do that soon. I hear it's easier to do when the canes are young and still flexible. It has one big bud that will open soon.

Reve D'or: I think this one is doing best of all the Ashdown roses. Growing fast, in just the shape we want, has bloomed several times. I need to weed around it though. I'm going to try and do that tomorrow.

Secret Garden Musk Climber: These two came from Roses Unlimited and were planted much later (one a month ago, one only two weeks ago). They both look fine and are starting to send out new growth. Though of course they haven't had time to establish as well as the others. No flower buds yet. I've read that you're supposed to pinch off the flowers in the first year, so they put all their energy into root growth. Yeah right! I couldn't stand to do that.

Cutting: Two weeks ago I knocked a small branchlet off one of the Secret Garden Musk Climbers, and tried to root it. It's supposed to take two to three weeks, and I think it is starting to take root. It doesn't look at all wilted, and when I gently tugged on it, there was resistance. If it hadn't rooted, I guess it would have pulled right out. My only concern is that the leaves are turning yellow. Maybe it needs more light? Tomorrow I'll move it into a spot that gets some direct sun.

Mystery Rose: Cleaning up some debris on the sunny side of the house, we found a mystery rose growing against the wall. It must have been there all along, and I don't think it's ever bloomed. The plant looks healthy though. I'm going to give it this year and see what it does. If it doesn't bloom, or we don't like the flowers, we'll dig it out this fall. (The rose people call that "shovel pruning.")

I finished the path! Fourteen bags of mulch in all.

The hardest part was moving Tiki Man. He weighs 180 pounds and I probably should have waited for Georg. I just really wanted to do it myself. I had a hand cart -- which we found in the shed a couple of weeks ago! We have no idea where it came from or how long it's been in there. Maybe it came with the house? Anyway, good thing we didn't buy one.

The hardest part actually was when Tiki Man tipped over and I had to lift him up. Well no, the really hardest part was when he tipped over the second time. I almost gave up then. But I got him upright, wiggled him into place and then stuffed more dirt under one side so he would stand up straight. I think maybe I should plant something in front of him. Maybe nasturtiums.

The Massive Archiving Project is done, at least the copying phase. My friend Joe's duplication equipment made things go about 4 times faster. The burn time is about the same as my computer, but my computer only has one drive. Not having to rip to the hard drive, then burn onto a blank doubled the speed. Plus Joe has two duplicators, doubling the speed again. I spent about 11 hours over there last week! I hope I didn't wear out my welcome.

Next we have to make labels. Which might turn out to be even more time-consuming of a job. Because I am a perfectionist who isn't happy with the labels iTunes prints, oh no. We can't do anything the sensible way. (Well, we did the duplication the sensible way. But not the labels. Definitely not.) I have a label template set up in Quark Xpress that I really like, and I'm trying to figure out how to import label information from iTunes into my Quark template. My main problem with the iTunes labels is that they lack key information, like composer, featured artist (i.e. if it's a duet with a guest singer), and label (i.e. Capitol or Decca. Too many uses of the word "label" in that sentence).

Today I was tired after all that copying yesterday, so I only did a little yardwork. Put in a few eggplants and a purple verbena, and made a path from the sidewalk to the vegetable garden. Well, I didn't get the path finished because I ran out of mulch. I always drastically underestimate the amount of mulch I'm going to need. If I think I've got way too much, I'll run out. And if I think I've got it just right (as I did today), I've got less than half what I need.

So I weeded the path -- this was the hard part, digging out those hateful vines -- laid down landscape fabric, and put down the mulch I had. This evening Georg got more mulch, which I'll put down tomorrow. It will be a nice path when it's done, I hope!

For dinner we made a sort of hash, with leftover chicken and fresh vegetables. Including an onion from the garden, and the rest of the spinach. It was all bolting so we pulled it all out and cooked it. Ah well, it was nice while it lasted. We'll plant it again in the fall and hopefully we'll get a couple of months out of it again.

I was reading an article somewhere -- it doesn't matter where, somebody runs this same article every spring -- about how everyone wants to grow vegetables and then people inevitably realize that with all the money and labor they sink into the garden, they are growing tomatoes that cost $5 each or what have you. I think that, first of all, equations like that are meaningless because few people grow food crops to save money. A suburban gardener isn't a small farmer; they're doing it for fun! Just like the reason I make clothes: so I can have exactly what I want that fits me right, and because I like sewing. That's pretty much exactly why I grow vegetables. So I can have unusual varieties, that taste good and fresh, and because it's fun.

Secondly, those appalling cost analyses of your home-grown produce are only that appalling in the first year. When you add up buying soil, the lumber for your raised beds, tools, tomato cages, fertilizer, etc etc etc ... yeah, you're spending an awful lot of money and you haven't even bought your plants yet. Not to mention the backbreaking work of creating the beds.

But the costs -- both in money and labor -- drop enormously in subsequent years. (And I also think the harvest gets better as you gain experience, which further improves the equation.) This year we spent ... well about $3.50 on compost to add to the beds, and how much on seeds and plants? Probably about $20 total. No, wait, I splurged on those fancy-pants fingerling potatoes. Let's say $30. I think that's a fair investment for as much as we're getting.

I got so wrapped up in the bolting spinach problem that I forgot about today's garden work. Well, this morning we planted the last rose out front by the road. Again this meant a lot of bed preparation. Mostly weeding. I had to use the mattock because the roots of those weeds are so entrenched.

When the rose was in we went to work on a new bed at the end of that bank. When we tilled up there a couple of years ago, and planted all the dayllilies, we just didn't go all the way to the end. And the last few feet on the end got all nasty and weedy like the whole bank used to be. Today we dug up the most aggressive weeds, covered the rest with cardboard, and piled a thick layer of soil and leaf mulch over top. It's a small area -- about 4×5' -- but it's been looking bad for a couple of years now, and I'm so glad to finally have it dealt with. In theory it should take a year for the cardboard to break down, which should be enough time to kill the weeds underneath.

While planting the rose, we accidently knocked a branch off of it. I had read that roses can be propagated from cuttings, so I figured I'd try it. It was kind of ridiculously easy. Just strip the bottom few leaves off, score the length of the stem, dip it in rooting hormone, stick it in potting soil, water and cover with a plastic bag.

My only concern is that I didn't do the rooting immediately, I spent some time reading about how to do it, and during that time the top of the cutting wilted. I read that wilted cuttings are less likely to take root, and I really hope I didn't let it go too long. I misted the cutting to try and rehydrate it. I hope that was enough!

By this point it was time for lunch --great salad at Nosh, yum -- and Divaville. After the show I went back out, sowed sunflower seeds in the new bed we made this morning, and did some more weeding. It was easier to work in the evening, much less hot. The weeds grow so fast out there! I got the weeds cleared from two of the roses, which leaves two more to do. I still want to go back into the bed and weed around the daylilies, but the critical weeding -- the part that 1. can be seen from the road, and 2. is in danger of smothering the roses -- is mostly done.

Whew! I guess we got a lot done. I didn't even mention how Georg bought a four-way splitter for the outdoor faucet and completely reorganized our hoses and soaker hoses. That is going to be so nice, to have easy access to water wherever we need it. The only place we'll still have to lug watering cans to is the roses way out front.