I know its just Feb 20th but I'm so ready for Spring. Some of my flowers that like the cooler weather are already blooming. I have decided to use the brown paper bags that have been accumulating from grocery shopping as a mulch. I'm going to cut them in strips and wet them and put them around the flowers where I don't want weeds to grow. Will let post results of how that turns out.

This has really not been a very good gardening year. Perhaps it is because there wasn't really much planted this year. I did divide out some of my perennials. The cool Spring made for a very nice Spring blooms but the heat didn't give us much blooms during the summer. I had way too many irons in the fire this summer and dealing with some of our health issues just didn't allow for gardening time. The Ficus tree has done wonderfully this year.

May 12, 2009--My cactus blooms opened

Spring is almost here. I'm soooo ready for it. There are some of my perennial flowers blooming in my front flowerbed. The herb garden looks kinda brown and bear but that will change as it warms. The birds have been out in full force also. Raked the leaves out of the flowerbeds. The leaves insulate the plants over the winter months. Hopefully removing them didn't jinx things and cause more cold weather.

My Garlic is coming up in my herb garden. I'd actually forgotten that I'd planted it and then while I was pulling a few weeds from around the herbs I noticed that it was poking its head up.

He have started a cactus garden in the section of the flowerbed which is by the PTAC unit. I couldn't get anything to grow there because of the hot exhaust so I thought why not put plants that love that type of environment. So far we have about 5 different kinds. I'll try to get pics up ASAP.

The temps have been almost unbearable and with heat index of 110 not alot of gardening going on other than trying to make sure that my plants don't cook. The sunflowers did well. I worked in the front flowerbed trying to make it look less cluttered. I hope that is what I achieved. It does look better. The Fennel that I planted around the other plants is really doing well. Also the cuttings of varigated vine seem to have "taken".