Making the most of an unexpected sunny day.

This morning while watching the early news I saw reports of snow in some areas south of us.  After seeing that I didn't have much hope for how our weather would be today.  The sun tried coming out between rain showers all morning then finally broke through and stayed out the rest of the day.  The Littlest Gardener and I headed out to plant 'Golden' beet seeds, two hours later we finally got them planted.  It was so pretty I wanted to take advantage of the sun and got some cleanup and weeding done and dug up a dead hydrangea and planted a new one in it's place.  The Hydrangea was 'Ayesha' which had bloomed sporadically over the 10 years I've had it and I guess finally decided it didn't want to be here anymore.  I had an 'Endless Summer' left from when I rearranged our front flower bed, so now it finally has a home.

It's hard to tell from the pictures because it was a bit cloudy but it felt warm (53 degrees is feeling warm lately) and the sun was out.

Solomon's Seal (Polygonatum) has gotten a little beat up, but it's starting to bloom.

Currant 'Wilder Red' has the cutest little flowers.  I'm not sure if all currants area bitter, but these ones are unless they are completely ripe.  The birds even leave them alone.

Frittilaria or Checkered Lily is blooming and has 4 or 5 more buds on this stem.  I didn't realize more than one flower came up from a bulb.

The garden fairies have been busy in the garden, they are waiting for the Bluebells to bloom.  I think they may use them for hats?

I moved Clematis 'Nelly Moser' to the arbor over the path two years ago.  Up until then I had gotten one bloom from her.  She's got quite a few buds already.

The apple tree is loaded with buds.  Last year after a very mild winter we had very few blooms and about two apples.  I think this will be a good year, if the worms don't get to them again.

While I was taking pictures of the apple tree there was a pair of Juncos annoyed that I was standing close to the birdbath they've been using lately.  It seemed to be looking up to the sun.

The Marsh Marigold is still blooming.

I'm not sure if anyone else around here is noticing that the birds don't seem sure about when to start nesting this spring.  They seem to be starting and stopping.  I've seen Chickadees going in and out of 3 different birdhouses (and I think they are 3 different pairs) as well as Towhees, Wrens and Crows with nest supplies in their beaks.  It's been going on for several weeks.  Usually it seems they pick their birdhouse or nest spot and they are pretty consistent about visiting it and bringing in their nest building supplies.  I wonder if the unusually cold weather has anything to do with it?

All words and photos in this post are property of A Gardener in Progress.

A fruitful Fertilizer Friday.

I thought for this Fertilizer Friday I'd show some of the blooms that are starting on some of our fruit trees and bushes. Every year at about this time I start checking to see if there are flower buds. Growing fruit in our garden is one of my favorite things to do. For some reason they always seem to be a little easier than vegetables for me. I don't really fertilize any of them other than fresh compost around them in the Spring.

We have a dwarf 5 way grafted apple tree, there are 5 varieties of apples grafted onto a dwarf rootstock. While it's fun to have so many types of apples on one tree, it does make for a strangely shaped tree. Almost every year we have problems with worms in the apples and since I don't want to spray with pesticides, this year I'm trying Coddling moth traps to see if it makes a difference. The moths are lured to the trap which contains Tanglefoot. Tanglefoot is very sticky and the moths then aren't able to leave to lay their eggs.

'Duke' our most productive Blueberry. 'Bluecrop' has been by far the least productive. This year it seems to be the only with no buds.

'Jersey' Blueberry is just now sending out the flower buds.
We grew 5, now 6 varieties. The newest variety are Pink Blueberries! Can you tell we love Blueberries? To me there is nothing better than blueberries picked fresh from the bush. I was a bit worried earlier that there were no flower buds. Normally the flowers come first with the leaves coming after. This year it seems to be in reverse order for some reason. I guess I'll blame it on the weather ☺

One of our dwarf Pear trees, 'Comice'. The other is an 'Orcas'. When we learned about pear trees we discovered that like many other fruits you need two varieties to cross pollinate. It's important that the the varieties bloom at about the same time. We also found varieties that are known to do well in this part of the Pacific Northwest. This is only their second full year in our garden so we're hoping that this year we might get a few pears. They look so pretty right now covered in white fluffy flowers.

Currant (Ribes rubrum) 'Wilder Red' is actually growing under a Cedar tree and does really well there. Each year it produces lots of red currants, they aren't one of my favorites but they sure are pretty when they are bright red and hanging in clusters.

We also grow a Fig 'Desert King' which has just barely begun to show leaf buds and strawberries which won't have flowers for another month or so. The Meyer Lemon tree which we brought indoors when the weather got cool still has a few lemons left trying to grow. One of them is about quarter sized, and I'm crossing my fingers it can hang on until I put it back outside in a couple of weeks.
Fertilizer Friday is hosted by Tootsie at Tootsie Time each Friday. Visit her to join in or to see who else is "flaunting their flowers."