Pollen is in the air... and my nose.

It's Spring!  Well not officially, Spring starts March 20th, but plants started blooming and birds are making nests.  Our bluebirds are back checking out where I moved their house.

My Eastern Redbud tree is starting to show life again and my maple tree looks very cool with all the red seeds hanging.  Does anyone know if maple tree leaves make good mulch for around the base of trees?  I usually just use pine needles.

 

I added some amaryllis and spiderworts (I think) to my flower garden.  I still need to mulch around them to keep the weeds from growing.  I've decided that this area is where I'll plant things that people give me.  There is an odd collection already in the garden including aloe, milkweed, ivy, Ox Eye Sunflower, and more that I haven't identified yet.  

This was a spur of the moment project.  I was working in the yard and got an alert on my phone that someone was giving away railroad ties.  I heard about how people make gardens out of them so I thought I'd give it a try.  These are pretty old railroad ties that have rotted some, but the garden frame ended up looking good.

Now I need to find around 20 cubic feet of garden soil to fill my new railroad tie garden.  So far I have a quote of $35 dollars for 1 cubic yard (27 cubic feet) but the soil is in Wakulla.  Does anyone know of a place in or around Tallahassee that has good quality garden soil at a decent price?

This is an area of my yard that I'm trying to plant all natives.  So far under the pine trees I've planted 3 Arrow-wood, 1 Spicebush, and 1 Crabapple that were purchased as bareroot trees at Native Nurseries.  Do you say "bareroot", bare-root", or "bare root"???  I also planted 3 'Little Gem' Southern Magnolia toward the back of my property line.

Here is a closeup of the Crabapple. None of these trees are very big but my goal is for them to fill out the area covered in pine needles and give birds, insects, and wildlife food and shelter.

Sun setting over my future native filled landscape...

The time springs forward this weekend so that means more time in the yard!!!  (if my wife lets me...)

Free Plants Are Always Great!

It's starting to feel like spring but I keep hearing that later in the week we will have another burst of cold down into the 30's.  I'm ready to leave all my sensitive plants out for good!

I got to work today and a co-worker gave me 3 'Little Gem' Southern Magnolia (Magnolia grandiflora).  I gave her 3 tomatoes yesterday so I think I made out better in the trade.

A free lawn mower ends up being $100 and a free dianthus plant???

Here's the story, right before I moved across town, my neighbor put his broken Troy-Bilt self-propelled push mower out by the street with a sign that said "Free". I rolled the mower over to my house and tried cranking it with no luck. After a couple weeks went by, I met a retired veteran on craigslist that fixes mowers and he had it running in no time! I used that mower for the last few months but stopped using it after getting my grandmother's 1960's International Cub Cadet riding mower. Anyways, I put the push mower on craiglist, met a buyer at Walmart, and he offered me below what I wanted; so he went inside to get cashback and brought back a 45 cent dianthus plant and the $100! I'll take any plant as a gift! When I was teaching, my favorite gift from a student was a Norfolk Pine!

Not the best picture but does anyone know what kind of weed this is?  I have them all over my yard and think they are nice looking.  

Other projects from around the yard:

Growing hydrangeas in soda and peanut bottle greenhouses.  The softwood cuttings are sprouting leaves but no roots yet.

Organic Gala Apple seeds we planted about a week ago.  Four of the five seeds sprouted!

Florida avocado, Hass avocado, and pineapple

Compost area of my yard.  I expanding away from the black bins and using pallets.

Planted a bunch of seeds for our garden.  Squash, zucchini, bush beans, green peppers.  We will see what grows.

My helpers!