Sunday, May 1, 2011

Blog block Buster~ The first day of May...

May 1.... Margarita Day... my friend Lynn used to say! She use to have a Margarita party each year on May 1, and she said some years they sat on the deck of their house in sun hats and sandals. Other years they sat with Margaritas on the deck in mittens and mukluks! I always think of her on May 1, and this year I think its a mitten/mukluk year. Geesh. When I look back on other May blogs and we have had quite a variety.... 2008 was a bad flood in Fredericton, 2001 a snow storm (imagine daffodils growing in my garden, surrounded by 3 inches of snow!), 2006 was sunny, warm and my garden was all planted. 2009... St. FX graduation with sun and brisk cold winds...

My gardens call me, whether its rain or sun, cold or warmth... and today I really needed to spend some time getting rid of pesky little plants that shoot off of their mothers and plant themselves where ever they want. I untangled a large clump of purple bearded iris from my front garden (last weekend)
I started off just thinning it out, and the next think I knew, I had unburied all of it, and was
unbraiding the roots and throwing all the plants into a large white pail of warm water...
(last years picture of what they bloom like) This is what I replanted in the same spot. 4 nice clumps of iris...
lots of the babies got distributed as best I could and the rest sat in the pail for the week (minus the water)

So, today, I opened and washed 16 milk cartons, dug up some old plastic pots and headed out to my planting table outside. I potted up some of the iris, and then wandered around the yard pulling up little babies of all kinds of fun plants and re-potting them too... I ran out of pots so I only spent an hour and made hardly a difference in the iris bucket! Tomorrow, I will raid the cafeteria and get more milk containers and then I will finish the bucket of babies!

4 comments:

GailM. said...

It's nice to get outside, isn't it. I can't wait to get at the gardens at the cottage...

ancient one said...

My uncle, who has given me untold number of irises, told me last year that all of my iris beds needed to be dug up and thinned out. When we put up the new fence there were lots of irises growing along it. I kept a few and called a neighbor who will take all he can get. My uncle put buckets full of them out by the road and put up a sign saying "FREE". He got no takers. My large bed is blooming now. I will have to redo that bed soon. The best bed of iris I ever had, was one year I just tossed lots of irises over in the woods and thought good riddance. The next year we had amazing blooms in the woods. LOL

tdp said...

I've missed your blogs!
Love that you're sharing your weekends with us again :D

cpm said...

THE BLOG DROUGHT IS OVER!!! yay!
You did a LOT of work in your gardens! Whoa!
Where are you planting all those little babies? You can come find spots in my yard in you need space! :-)