Garden find

Today I was very excited to find a bunch of ranunculus (ranunculuses? ranunculi?) when shopping for some flowers to plant. The photo is just to give you an idea what they look like...I got yellow, bright orange and a corally red color - just lovely! I'm probably planting a little too early, but I just couldn't help myself. Cross your fingers for me that we're done with frost and torrential spring rains so mine will look as fabulous as those in the picture :)

Larson helped me in the garden today and he had a blast. I've now come to terms with the fact that my child has reached the age where he needs a separate wardrobe of clothing that can basically be destroyed and stained with all mode of outdoor boy adventures. Having done so, I can also relax and enjoy such activities without a thought about where all the dirt is actually ending up. Ah.

So my mom (aka my landscape gardening consultant, as mentioned previously) gave me her recipe for making a potting soil mix out of topsoil and manure and I'm trying it for the first time this year. Larson was just SOOOO tickled that we were "playing with cow poop" today. So easy to please, that guy! Poor Cora was relegated to the pack&play and not exactly thrilled about it, so we only got a partial planting completed.

Other items on my gardening agenda for the spring: window boxes for our upstairs balcony, locate and plant a peony bush (today was "too early" I was told), re-do the flower bed in the main part of our garden, find a cool tree/shrub to put in the two big planters on our upstairs balcony (ideas anyone???), and spruce up the flowers under our cherry trees by the street (I think I need some kind of stones to outline the planting area to prevent the grass from creeping back in...). Can't wait!

PS Here are some preview pictures from our trip to Memphis a couple of weeks ago. More to come later!