This is the planning post for What’s Blooming. The ideas that we are mulling over — or that should be I am mulling over. I make all the garden decisions LOL. John helps construct stuff. He still has no interest in actual gardening, but at least I can get him to help dig stumps and make pathways.  I know he enjoys looking the gardens and appreciates the hard work that goes into them. These pictures coming up kind of show the scope of work that still needs to be done around here. 

Anyhoo, we got the bushes cut down in the front bed. Did I say it turns out there were only 2? They were so spread out. That’s good because there are only 2 stumps to dig up, but they are really big. We may have to dig down and cut them off below the soil level if they don’t come up.

The plan is to have the path come around the front of this bed like on the other side:

I just plopped rocks down to get an idea of the look. We  probably have enough slate to curve all the way around to the side, which we didn’t think was going to happen. The other option is to put in a little slate path to a sitting area for a bistro set:

That T-rex head thing is supposed to be the path and sitting area. I have Zero drawing skills. I bet if I tried to draw a T-rex, it wouldn’t look as good as that. 

I am still undecided about keeping the rhododendrens.

There were probably 4 or so here with a couple stumps and some very old growth. I whacked one way down and was hoping it would put on new growth last year, but it didn’t. So it’s unlikely rejuvenation pruning will work on these. The stems are so woody and thick that new  bud growth probably won’t happen. The flowers are so pretty and the bees love it, so I might wait until after they flower to take them out, or I might try moving them to the back and see if I can’t resurrect them.  They just don’t look very good.

My tulips are popping up everywhere now:

I haven’t cleaned up much of the old growth from last year yet since we are supposed to get more cold weather. I left the straw on my roses and the tender aliums to give them a little more protected time. I’ll pull that off in a couple weeks.

The water feature we are looking at will go in the back of the house off the patio. This bed is a wreck, even after I got the majority of plants out of it and broken glass  – and those pieces of wood buried in there. I tell you, the state of this house when we bought it makes me so angry sometimes.

We are going to use that slope to create a tiered pondless waterfall and then have plants around it We thought about having a pond, but I don’t want pond maintenance  and also for safety in case anybody’s kid or pet wandered back there.  With the pondless, the water is in a resevoir that is covered up, but the water can drain through the surface back to the reservoir. It disappears like magic!

Here are my rock piles to choose from to build it:

That would have cost a lot of money to buy all that rock – and there is more along the fence I could dig up if I wanted.   Notice that I have a pallet for a planter project, too. Too many projects!

Debby posted about her beautiful garden today and we have a similar idea. I also have plans for a fairy garden right at the edge of the patio. Can’t you picture a little door on this tree with some tiny things around it?

The patio starts right below this picture, so it’s perfect for viewing.

Here’s is something else we tried that actually worked! I have a squirrel buster feeder, which is great, but I can’t put large seeds in it. We decided to try a squirrel baffle on a pole with another feeder:

It works! I wasn’t sure it would, but they cannot seem to get on the baffle. It tips them off no matter how hard they try – and kind of funny to watch. You just need it far enough away from things so they can’t leap onto it. The other point is that the pole needs to be just a pole without a foot at the bottom or you can’t slide the baffle on it (if that makes sense). I need to get more of these. There was a cardinal pair feeding at the feeders today. I’m sure it’s the same pair from last year since they over winter. They had babies last year and brought the little ones into our yard, which was fun to watch – although they would not shut up. 

Anyway, as you can see – there is a ton of work to be done here at Radiance Manor. I am a little embarrassed showing all these photos that look like a trash house, but there you go.

On a plant note, I see that at least a few of my lupines survived the winter!

I really hope these bloom. So much is still dormant in the gardens. At least I know something made it 😀