Weekly Garden Update

Weekly Garden Update 4/18/10 - Since my post 3 days ago for GBBD, the purple azaleas have started to appear. The white ones are not open yet, but I suspect by the end of the week they'll be in full bloom.

the purple azalea next to the pink one is also starting to bloom

The temperature this past week has been in the mid 60s/low 70s with evening temps below 55. For this reason we brought many of the seedlings inside rather than leave them outside with a cover. We put them in the office and created a bit of a greenhouse effect. We opened the shades so they could get plenty of sunshine and kept the soil moist, but we closed the door to trap the warmth and humidity inside the room. It really helped the seedlings grow. Check out the red sunflower seedlings! They're a rich reddish/purple wine color (the variety is called Chianti). I can't wait to see how the flowers look!

The oregano seedlings have sprouted.

We've got a strawberry! And there are a few more flowers so more strawberries should be coming soon.

In the backyard -- My hostas have exploded! I wish I had taken a picture last week for comparison when they looked like little green toothpicks poking out of the soil. I planted these last year, and they completely disappeared over the winter. They are perennials, so I was expecting them to come back this spring, but I didn't expect them to go from little sticks to full grown leaves within 5 days!

 variety: Halcyon

As for the garden animals--this is our little ant sculpture... :)

...and the fish are doing well. Sadly only 4 of the 5 survived the winter, but the rest look healthy. And the frog came back! We saw him a few days ago.