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Just when I was thinking about putting away the sweaters and cracking out the sandals, another cold snap. Here's hoping this is the last!

I didn't get nearly as much done in the yard as I had hoped, due to the weather. All I managed was to plant some wave petunias on the slope down by the road, where Georg had weeded a week ago. I don't know if these wave petunias really perform as advertised, but if they do they'll cover the whole slope with flowers all summer.

At the farmer's market, besides the wave petunias we bought some more verbascum, and a couple of peach-colored coral bells. I think they'll look really nice with the purple ones we already have. Unfortunately the guy said we need to put them in partial sun to keep that bright peach color, and the place we want to put them is full shade. So we're not exactly sure what to do with them.

Georg also started digging up these volunteer shrubs from behind the butterfly bush that have been a pain in our butts for years. They grow straight up, no branching at all, and they look like hell all year long. They're big and right up against the foundation of the house, so a real challenge to get them out. He dug out about half of the biggest one. I'm hoping we can work on them together over the next couple of days. The butterfly bush is growing so fast now that it will soon impede working back there.

Yesterday I wanted to do more digging in our future cutting garden, but every time I went outside it was cold and windy. So instead I did some housework, and we went out for a drive with Thirteen. The cold weather was an advantage because there was no worry about her overheating in the car. We went to lunch, a shopping trip to Target (where we did not find any outdoor chairs we liked, but we did very much like the hammocks, but we need to get the mosquitos under control before we could even consider buying a hammock), and a trip to the library.

Last weekend was "Herb Days" at the farmer's market. They had several additional vendors selling herbs, though I still ended up mostly shopping with the same nurseries I go to every time. I try to be careful never to buy more plants than I can get into the ground that same weekend, and I managed to limit myself to only a few things. Now I wish I had bought more! Let's see, we got a purple sage, dill -- which I hardly ever use, but I hate having to spend $2 on a little packet of fresh dill on the few occasions that I do need it -- two unusual black-eyed susans, a couple of hollyhocks that promise to be really really tall, cardinal flower, something just called "Hummingbird Flower," and a scabiosa. This is going to sound silly, but the word scabiosa reminds me of the Harry Potter spell leviosar that they learn in the first book. Whenever I think of the plant I see Hermione Granger in my mind's eye, waving her wand in her cute snippy way and saying "Not scabiosA, scabiOSa!" Maybe scabiosa is a spell that gives you scabs.

Anyway, the scabiosa, hummingbird flower and cardinal flower are all for the flower bed by the oak tree, where we want to attract butterflies and hummingbirds. The hollyhocks are for the sunny side of the house. Which I have finally measured and planned out and started work on this week. The first task is to dig a path. Not only because it's a big bed, but also because we need to provide access to the crawl space and utility meters. Digging the path is actually easier than I expected. The soil in this bed isn't quite as wretched as down by the road. It's still heavy, stony clay, but I can actually get a shovel into it. I was really afraid I was going to have to dig the entire path with the mattock, but yippee, I can use a shovel.

So I think the procedure is to dig out a layer of soil where the path will go, smooth it out, then add whatever path material we are going to use. I would love to have beautiful stone pavers, but looking at the budget we may end up with black plastic and mulch instead. I've worked a couple of afternoons now on the digging phase. If I had pushed it I could have probably gotten the whole first part of the path (from the driveway to the crawl space) done today. But my plan is to work only an hour or two each day, working steadily but never overtiring myself.

Besides, this evening after work and yardwork, we took Thirteen out for a walk with Lisa, Chris and Lizzie. Which was great fun. Lizzie was curious at first but then mostly disinterested in Thirteen, which was perfect. Thirteen is fairly shy and likes other dogs, but doesn't like it when they get in her face and jump all over her. I think she really enjoyed walking around in the same general vicinity as Lizzie. And everyone was really nice about walking slowly with us. It wasn't great exercise for everyone else, but it was a whole lot for Thirteen. She's sacked out now.

Not quite Gardening Madness around here, but Georg and I have gotten a little done since we got back from Charlotte. Yesterday we pulled up a bunch of vines that were encroaching into the vegetable garden. I think that I'm going to lay down black plastic along the side of the vegetable garden and just leave it there all summer. There isn't even any grass there, just weeds and vines.

I also tried to mow the lawn. Actually mow the weeds is more like it. Unfortunately the charger had fallen out of the mower over the winter, and the charge had mostly run down. Still I was able to get about half the lawn mowed. I just moved very slowly through the thick weeds.

I had a nice chat with my neighbor on the other side. He's a good old boy, always cheerful. He asked me to call the cable company and have a low wire raised up, because he needs to bring some yard equipment through to take a tree out. He said something nice about how he's just trying to keep up with us and our nice yard. That was really generous of him, considering what crap our yard was for so long.

That neighbor only has one habit that annoys me: he mows his yard every week and his mower blows the grass clippings all over our driveway. I wish he would go the other way once in a while, and get the grass clippings on his own lawn instead, but I'm not going to get worked up about it. After all if that's the worst thing he ever does then he's a pretty darn good neighbor.

This morning I had a meeting with a prospective client for a big job. Which went great! The site looks like it's going to be about double the size of my preliminary estimate. And they gave me a deposit check on the spot, without even waiting for a formal proposal. Yay!

In the afternoon I took advantage of the lack of rain to finish mowing the lawn. I even weed-wacked around the fence. In the department of "duh," I have to report that weed wacking is hard work. My arms are a little sore! It still wasn't raining, so I planted a few seeds. More beets, and some swiss chard. Everything else needs to wait until it warms up a bit. I put straw over the seeds so the rain doesn't wash them away. Did you know that straw has seeds of its own in it? Everywhere I've put straw down, I now have a bumper crop of wheat. Which kinds of defeats the purpose of mulch. At least it pulls up easy.

In bad news Thirteen has been acting a little kooky since I got her back from the kennel. Really pacey last night. Also she got into the hydrangea bed. Argh! I want my money back on the "guaranteed to keep out decrepit dogs" flimsy fence. She tore up one hydrangea, but I think (hope) it will survive. At least she's sleeping now. Guess she wore herself out last night. The vet thinks it's agitation that's making Thirteen pace, not pain. We started this insanely expensive "brain diet" food, and the vet also recommended dog acupuncture. I haven't called the acupuncturist yet but another night like last night and I will. I did get Thirteen a nice new bed. It's made of that memory foam stuff, and you fill it with water. It's supposed to keep the dog cool in hot weather, but I put a fleece blanket over it at night. Of course, right now she's sleeping on the bare floor instead. Here's hoping she gets more into the new bed when it gets hot.

Had meetings most of the day, but this afternoon I got several good hours in the garden. First I drove over to David's house to get some plants he had set aside for me. I took Thirteen with me, with mixed success. She seemed to enjoy being in a new place, but did not enjoy David's dog Kate barking at her non-stop. Finally David put Kate in the house, where she barked at Thirteen through the window.

But aside from the barking it was a successful plant-gathering trip. David gave me purple phlox, obedience plant, echinacea, black-eyed susans and lots of little irises. He also offered me some periwinkle, but since he was complaining about it taking over his garden I passed.

When we got home I had to check email and catch up on some work stuff, then finally I got out into the garden. I did some weeding around the oak tree in front of the house and pulled up a bunch of vines. Then planted some pretty daffodils from my mom, because I already have the daffodils from Whole Foods there. The plan is to make a raised bed around that tree, so I didn't need dig the daffodils that deep. Because there will be several inches of dirt added over them.

Then I planted the little irises from David. In the iris bed down by the road, where else? I think later this year I'm going to start moving the irises around, instead of planting all of them in the same place. Because that area is going to look spectacular for a week or two, and then really bland the rest of the year. I think the irises will look better mixed in with other flowers around the yard. But for now I'll keep putting them in the same place so I don't have to worry about it.

While I was down there I saw that the Home Depot daffodils are in bloom! I had given up on them, didn't think they were going to sprout at all. But they were just late. I hope people aren't getting sick of the "I planted these" photos. It's just such a thrill to see beautiful flowers springing up, and know that they're there because of me!

Next I planted a couple of verbascum that we got at the farmer's market last weekend. I was a little uncomfortable about buying something that had been forced into bloom so early, that doesn't seem good for the plant. But I've been looking for this plant, and it's supposed to do well in this area, so I figured it would be worth a try. We did pass over dahlias that are supposed to bloom in late summer but were in full bloom now! I wonder what those plants are going to look like in September when all the other dahlias are blooming.

I planted them on the sunny side of the house, which we're planning to make into a cutting garden. Also Georg helped me measure that area so we can plan the bed. We need to put in a path so that the crawl space and gas and power meters are accessible. The newspaper and mulch have kept things under control since last fall, but as I recall there are a lot of stumps from volunteer shrubs under there. And the soil is awful hard clay. We're going to approach it just like we did the bank along the driveway: start at one end and work our way to the other, slow but sure. That bed is so big that if we tried to do the whole thing in one weekend, we'd only discourage ourselves. Working a couple of hours at a time it will take weeks, but it will get done eventually.

So I think that was a good day of planting! Especially since almost all the plants were free. Now I'm tired. Thirteen and I are both sacked out from our exertions. Georg made a wonderful dinner and now we're watching Iron Chef. Allez cuisine!