I am put-off by threads that number into the thousands, but do like to hear what my fellow area gardeners are doing. So, thought I'd try a seasonal thread to just randomly post pics, chores completed, or just to chat.

I absolutely love the lush green of spring in the PNW. We are trying to keep on top of lawn mowing but I swear we could mow every 3-4 days and still have it look overgrown. I don't mind. Most of my Japanese maples have all leafed out (I acquired more this year). I think my favorite for early color is Acer palmatum 'Shindeshojo' - very vibrant orange:



I'm diligently working on spring clean-up, leaving my leaf mulch to continue its work blocking weeds and adding to the soil. Each year I think I'll hire out the initial edging and weeding to a chore-boy (or girl) but then I start tackling it one bed at a time and it doesn't seem quite so overwhelming. Maybe next year...

Julia, I planted your daylilies along my perimeter board fences, which I think will segue nicely with the overgrown field grass on the other side of the fences. The fences are not keeping any animals in or out, they just delineate the cultivated yard from the fields. And even that line is getting blurry, as I let some of my more robust plants drift into the fields (Joe Pye for example).

My lilacs are almost ready to open, another favorite both for the fragrance and nostalgia (I got all my lilacs from my mom, who likely got them from grandma), plain jane white, lavendar, and a deeper lavendar Mom always referred to as the French lilac.



What's going in your gardens?

How did everyone survive the storm? We found a major leak in a brand new skylight which the roofers have promised to address today... Otherwise, just enjoyed the show on the front covered porch. Lots of cool lightening, driving rain, and winds. Pretty spectacular.

Hi I'm new but I thought I'd chime in!

I've been enjoying this spring as well, lots of storms though. That last one felt like a monsoon! It was pouring rain and about 60 degrees well into the night, we all had a nice sleep with the windows open.

Unfortunately our peach tree lost 98% of its leaves and blossoms. We planted it last Autumn with a few apples, a pear and a plum. It's a shame because it was off to a better start than all of them, does anyone know if they recover from that much foliage loss this early in the season? I'm not sure what to do about it.

On the bright side our cherry bush is now three years in the ground and might actually give us some cherries. Fingers crossed! AND I've got three lilac suckers potted (2 white and 1 purple) but I've no idea where to plant them.
Your blooms look gorgeous, I'm dreaming of the day mine are big enough to flower!

Warm welcome, Miss Maven! Hope to see you around and about this site.

Re your peach tree - I'd just keep it well watered (not usually a problem in the PNW) and see how it does. I've had fruit trees get almost denuded of foliage from tent caterpillars and they have survived, so just cross your fingers and hope! What type of peach is it? I had a Frost peach that did OK, but seemed prone to leaf curl and eventually died on me. I also found the fruit sometimes would be really full of earwigs (not every one but once they had an entrance hole, watch out), so my advice is to cut them in half before consuming.

Thank you! I'm fairly new to gardening (this will be my third summer in the vegetable garden) and I joined this site to keep track of all my seeds! I tend to get carried away and buy the same seeds more than once because I forget I have them. I guess now I have no excuse. Oh well.
Funny we've a family friend a couple streets over who just cut down their frost peach because it was "too much trouble" so I didn't go for the frost myself. We ended up getting a red haven, it's mentioned in a PNW orchard book I have as a good choice but we'll see! I guess I'll just have to keep it well watered this summer and hope she makes it through.

That storm was great! We were flying kites until it really started to come down...heh heh. We just couldn't make ourselves come in.

Miss Maven, welcome! What neck of the woods are you in? We are on Camano Island.

I put Julia's daylilies and irises (those were yours, right, Julia?) in various places. Also I gave a couple away to a neighbor who was super excited when she saw them!! I figured that I made her day, plus now our yards will be coordinated.

Well dang it, I think our peach tree bit the dust this winter. We were gone, but there was apparently an awful lot of snow and ice, and it looks like the trunk split. I guess I should just be grateful for the several years of yummy peaches we got from it since it was started from a pit thrown into the old chicken yard from the compost pail! I'll have to see if anyone is selling trees at the Farmer's Market on Saturday.

Deb ~ I just now found this thread! I am not a very savvy computerist Your photos are BEAUTIFUL
I LOVE LOVE LOVE to see what's going on in neighboring gardens. We have been so busy getting a raised bed built so I can grow some food with out the gophers eating ALL of it
I've still got my original garden area that I have been harvesting asparagus out of. Apparently the gophers haven't stooped to eating that yet. And in that garden there is rhubarb doing very well, and the comfrey (several clumps) is about 8 ft tall and loaded with honeybees, hummingbirds, bumbles, and various other pollinators I don't know name of.
My fruit trees are trying to put on fruit ~ seem to have loads of Asian pears , a few Hollywood plums, some pluots, Stella cherry may do pretty good this year if I can keep the birds out
I have two Honeyberry bushes doing well with loads of berries.
I lost 2 blueberry bushes this past winter
My 2 varieties of table grapes have the cutest grapes forming which thrills me cuz I cut them back severely and thought I wouldn't get any this year. Whew!
My hardy Kiwi is getting ready to blossom. I love those blossoms. Again, I really didn't think it would do much because I really cut it back to the main trunk. I think it liked that
I outsmarted the deer this year and covered my strawberry bed BEFORE they came in and ate ALL the leaves like they did last year. It is loaded with berries

Hubby displaying his handy work



The garlic, onions, and strawberries a few weeks ago

Funny you should ask. I bought four large clay pots from a neighbor and have filled them with new and some transplanted plants.
I'm nursing back to health what I think is a New Zealand Flax in one of the large pots. I moved the Daylily to the second large pot, moved a Blue-Purple Sage to the third one, and planted an Old-Fashioned Bleeding Heart that my wife got in the fourth pot.



The aquilegias are still doing good. I just read that these plants have a life span of three years, but I've had these longer than that. They struggled and didn't do well the first year or two when I first plunked them in regular ground, vole kept chewing on them. When I moved them to a planter, they just loved it and have been doing great.



The wine barrel planter got another Bleeding Heart my wife got and some transplanted Dusty Millers and Creeping Jenny.



The Ornamental Onion I got as a companion plant for the Climbing Rose has now divided into over 12, so I moved some into a different cedar planter that had more room. It started as one plant that I split and put on either side of the rose. I may move the rest (8) also, maybe even give them away since these things multiply so well.



See also this post: https://garden.org/thread/view...

Nice pics, Briny. I have only mixed luck with columbines. I absolutely love the long spurred ones and buy some every year. Sometimes I will get a second season from them, but most often what happens is I get a bunch of seedlings that all end up being plain-jane lavender 'granny bonnets.' So, I just look at them as expensive annuals.

@Lauribob - even the Rainy Pass columbines you gave me didn't come back. I guess I just don't have the right conditions for these guys...

Well, the lilacs are about done, they do have a short bloom time but so lovely! All the perennial beds are filling out nicely and it's about time to sit back and enjoy the flower season. Keep the bird feeders stocked and a cold drink at hand.

It is so interesting to me how my viburnum has totally different flowers


I saw this on my morning walk and it just struck me as beautiful.




One of my friends roses but I forgot the name

I am still struggling to get ahead of my herb garden - it really got away from me with our spring sun-rain-sun-rain pattern. Not so bad when I just knuckle down and do a bed, but when I first walk into it, I am just overwhelmed! The field grass is taller than the established plants with dandelion puffballs everywhere.

On the bright side, I have cleaned out several iris clumps which are all budded out and ready to bloom. Julia & Greg, ones I got from you guys are ready to open, can't wait! Greg, this will be the first year for an actual bloom from Seattle Sunset, not sure why, but I do look forward to seeing it. It's always been a healthy plant but has never deigned to bloom for me - perhaps I had to first prove my worthiness...(!)

Looks like the sun may hang around for awhile. I think I'm good on my watering systems (combination of sprinklers on timers, and those wrinkled hoses for the deck plants), seems I have to replace something every year - either one of the connectors, or a whole new hose. I like to NOT have any leaks, at least at the beginning of the season.

I spent time on getting our rock fountain up and running. It's a real PITA, but it's worth it. My wife added the final touches of small potted plants. She has a knack for concealing the pots with rocks.

I also moved some ferns I "plunked" a couple of years ago when I first started gardening. They struggled mightily and never really fared well. There were originally 4 of them, a Japanese Painted Fern, Tongue Fern, Autumn Fern, and Soft Shield Fern. The JPF didn't last long, the other three hung on, but I could see they were slowly succumbing, although the Tongue Fern did better. I moved them into pots to nurse them back to health. I put the Tongue Fern in a large pot behind the fountain. The other two are in pots by the Dogwood tree.

Our Scarlet Runner Beans are sprouting! This is a first for me, starting with seed!

I had to rake up all the mulch I put around our Dogwood tree due to a nasty vole that's been reeking havoc all around our place. Apparently voles like mulch, and I read that to prevent them from tunneling around trees to keep mulch 3 ft away from the tree. When I raked it up, sure enough, I found his entrance hole and some tunnels. You can barely see the hole halfway between the tree trunk and the brown pot. Also discovered something sprouting, it's halfway between the tree and the gray pot to the left. Probably a left over narcissus.

The vole also tunneled extensively in the front, including around the fountain I just got running, which REALLY PO'D ME! The base of the fountain just sits on top of the ground, so if it tunnels too much under it, it will start listing and I will have to dismantle it and move it again, NOT a fun job! So I googled "hot to kill voles" and found this website http://www.howtogetridofvoles.... which is very user friendly and full of information. The only thing they suggest that I question is the flooding method and the sound gadgets. I went to the "cheap" category and chose the garlic method. After I tilled in some soil amendment, I planted 56 cloves of garlic in a perimeter in the front garden and near the fountain and marked them with plastic forks and spoons. I ran out of plastic cutlery and used some zip ties for the few remaining. (My wife teased me saying she can't wait for the green zip ties to bloom!)

Other work I need to do to combat the vole is keep the lawn mowed and rake up the pine needles and debris on the side with the tree line (voles like tree lines, pine needles, and tall grass.) That'll keep me busy (and tired) for the next couple of weekends.

On the funner side, I planted the rest of the Scarlet Runner Beans. I put some in an empty space in the cedar container next to the shed and used a fan trellis I had on hand for them to climb on. The remaining beans I planted in a smaller cedar planter and placed it next to the front porch where they can climb on the rails. The SRB that have already sprouted are doing just fine so far.

These came up in a completely neglected part of the property



I love strawberry season. I picked a bowl of raspberries too but didn't get a pic



This beauty went flying in front of me

I saw a swan come in for a landing once, and thought: "Lovely! Like the Concorde!"

The ferns I dug up and put in pots are liking it. Here's a side-by-side comparison two weeks apart. I didn't get a pic of the Tongue Fern because I went inside for lunch then took a nap and forgot about it.

Autumn Fern


Soft Shield Fern