Best and Worst of My Garden--April 2012

white and purple azaleas, originally uploaded by Bumble Lush.

Where has April gone? I cannot believe 4 months of 2012 have come and gone already. I feel like I haven't accomplished much in my garden this month.

My first and only "Worst" this month is time. We were gone for 3 weekends this month, and work has been so insanely busy that I feel like a robot when I come home. No energy or desire to work the garden much. I have 3 more weeks on a project at work, and then things should calm down a little.

On to the best...


We're growing potatoes! They look good and are growing well.


Container spinach--it doesn't look like much, but it's enough for two people to have a nice steamed/sauteed side dish every few days.


The spring onions seem to be doing well also. It smells so good when I move the stems around.


Look at my hosta plant on the right--It's making a comeback. Looks a little rough, but it's there.

We also got some much-needed rain over the last week. It washed the pollen away, but made it a little difficult to work outside too. I'm not complaining about that, though.

Feel free to link up below and share any of the Best/Worst in your garden too.

Working for the Weekend

hostas 4-14-12, originally uploaded by Bumble Lush.

I'm sooooo glad it's the weekend. Work has been busy and frustrating lately, and I can't wait for this project to be finished (4 more weeks!)

These are a few odds and ends around my garden.

First, my second hosta is making a comeback. You can sort of see the shoots on the right of the photo above. I'm not sure why one sprouted so much faster than the other. That's never happened before. I was worried that the one on the right wasn't going to come back, but I'm glad it did. Although they're somewhat plain, I do love these plants.



I have a volunteer parsley plant! It looks great too. It appeared in our small yard patch where we're growing onions. Something bad happened to my container parsley, so I'm happy to see some in the garden.




Remember the saga with the pepper plants I tried to over winter? Only two survived--a jalapeno plant and a golden bell pepper plant.




The jalapeno plant already has a fruit. I'm sad we lost so many pepper plants to aphids, but we have a lot of pepper seedlings going so I'm hoping to replenish our pepper crops this summer.

I'm off to Baltimore this weekend to hang out with a couple of college girlfriends. Have a great weekend!

Spring Blooms

Spring has finally begun to show itself around here. We went out of town for a few days around Easter, and when we came back, everything was coated with a fine yellow dust. Tree pollen is everywhere, and I spent all of last week pumping myself full of medication so I could breathe. Ah. spring!

By Saturday morning I had pickled my insides with enough allergy meds that I was able to do some yard work and enjoy being outside in the beautiful sunny weather we had here in the DC area.  I had one empty pot in my front yard which I filled with these yellow and red/white petunias. Right now there's a lot of pink in my garden, so I was drawn to these lighter colors. 

My big chore was tidying up the backyard. Here are some Before and After shots of the ivy all over my goldfish pond. It had gotten out of control and I spent time Saturday clearing this up.  Some of the ivy roots had begun to take hold inside the pond, which is not a good thing. It looks great all cleaned up now! The water seems to flow much better too. Frogs are a sign of a healthy pond, so I was excited to see the frog this morning. Hope he's here to stay.

Back to blooms--The pink azalea bushes have really taken off. The purple, white, and red azaleas haven't emerged yet, but I see buds and am sure I'll have more color in the garden soon. I'm not sure why the pink looks so electric in these photos. It's a little more subdued in person.

The snapdragons I planted last year have made a comeback. When we left town before Easter there were a few buds on the plants, and I was so happy to see all this color when I got back. Again, they're a very electric pink, mixed with some red and a little yellow. 

Here's the last pink bloom in my garden--on my strawberry plant. I am looking forward to some home grown strawberries this year, if this net can keep the birds and squirrels off. And that's about it for the flowery things in my garden. I'll post an update on some of my veggies soon.

I'm linking up with Carol of May Dreams Garden's Garden Blogger Bloom Day. Head over to her site to see what's blooming in others' gardens. Maybe they'll have colors other than pink. :)

Easter Break

The new blueberry bush looks good.  From this picture, it seems scraggly, but it has blooms and the branches look sturdy. The leaves of the new bush are a pinkish-red, which provides some nice color in the garden.

A few other things going on in the garden right now:
- Two of my azalea bushes are blooming--a red and pink one.  the pink one was first to bloom last year, so it's right on schedule.
- The snapdragons are budding! I didn't think they'd come back this year, but I'm pleased to see them.
- Aside from a few tomato seedlings, no other tomato or pepper seeds have germinated yet. :(
- It looks like only one of my hostas is coming back. I don't understand what happened, why the other one hasn't emerged yet. Is it dead? Why?? Very sad about this.

- My husband said he saw a frog in our fish pond. This is really exciting. (Another post about my fish pond here, if you'd like to see).

Bumble Lush is on spring break and will be back after Easter. Enjoy the rest of the week and the Easter holidays!