Mona’s Garden

It’s late and I’m tired. Today was mothers day. I just tried to get some of the house clean and do some laundry. Finally got to go see my Mom this evening for a little while. Didn’t have a present for her but I don’t think she cares one way or another. Tried to call my sister and talk to her a few minutes but that didn’t pan out, though I did get to talk to my niece and that was nice. Watched Survivor finale this evening and wound up doing my dishes from dinner at midnight but oh well.
Didn’t do anything in the garden today. Well I didn’t. Yesterday we mulched all around the shrubs and climbing roses running along the back fence. My husband put down weed block and then put edging all along the way and we laid on the mulch. We had some bags already and wound up going to Lowes and buying a total of 24 more bags. Two trips but we did it. We need a truck. One of these days maybe. It looks pretty good out there now. I alwo mulched around my bedding plants and the three roses at the end of our deck. One day i will get around to uploading and posting pictures of all of this hard work. Still need to straighten up the edges on the front flower bed and maybe putting back up the fencing around it and maybe putting a small fence around the three roses.
Can’t really think all that well right now.

Even though tomorrow is Mother’s Day, I’d like to take this entry to wish everyone a Happy Mother’s Day. My husband bought me some curtains for our bedroom and also a quilt that I mentioned I liked. I was quite surprised to be quite honest. I bought my mom some daisy’s a week or so ago and took them to her and put them in pots and I suppose that is my present to her. I’d like to cook dinner for her and my dad but I’m not the best cook in the world and I’d rather make it a cook out but then that would require my dad to do the cooking of the meat since he has the grill. I may still do it though. I could do the rest of the stuff to go with it and take it up there.
It’s kind of gloomy outside today but I’m hoping we get a good hard rain for a bit and then the sun comes out. We haven’t done anything in the garden for the past couple of days except just water and check on the plants. I’m having a dilemma with my yellow rose. It’s droopy and I don’t know why. We water it and take care of it. Brad said it may just need time to adjust. I hope so. That one is the most expensive one we have and it looks the worse. The 6.97 rose is growing wonderfully. Doesn’t bloom a lot but it’s getting buds on it as I speak. I don’t know if we’ll be working out there today or not.
I need to get up to my parents house and help my mom go through some of my Granny’s stuff. She is giving it to the salvation army. I will try on some of the tops and see if I can wear them but it’s highly doubtful. I did try on a coat the other day and it was very snug and tight across the shoulders so I feel the tops may be the same. I did bring home a doll and an old old handbag. Don’t really know who it belonged to but I’m thinking it was Geneva’s as it was in the foot locker and that contained a lot of her stuff. I will take care of it no matter who it belonged to though.

Well we got the yellow and red roses planted today. And when I say we, I really mean my husband. He is the one that gets out there and digs the holes and plants the roses and shrubs for us. I help as much as possible and the 2 and a half year old wants to help as well so it can be an adventure. Our back fence is a row of trees shrubs and roses. It looks pretty good back there. I will love it even more when there are many blooms on the roses and the trees and shrubs have grown up some. Patience is not something that I deal with well so it’s going to be a struggle for me waiting. I did manage to get all my annuals put in one bed today. They were on each side of our front deck but each side looked so sparse so I decided to put them all together and have an array of flowers on one side. Also put the hibiscus up there with them. I’m going to mulch it, straighten up the sides of the bed and call it done. Now for the other side. What to do with it? I was thinking grass seed, but my husband says then it won’t be balanced. To me it wasn’t really balanced anyways. And that’s not of a great deal of importance to me. He is a perfectionist though. I’ve also thought maybe some ground cover perennials BUT that can run into more money. With the grass seed, buy a bag, throw it down, let it grow and then mow. I was also thinking a park bench that we could put out there and never be able to use as we have a very busy road in front of our house and no privacy fencing anywhere. I have it pictured in my mind the way I want it to be but I also have to keep in mind the amount of money (credit cards) we have spent so far on the landscaping this year and really don’t want to dig us a deeper hole. (no pun intended) If I were working outside of the home, and I put it that way because I do work at home, then I wouldn’t be so pulled back on my ideas. I feel like all the roses he got for me are wonderful yet so expensive. I really hope that everything lives and thrives out there. I guess it’s just a wait and see type of deal.

This is my first post in my new blog. Well my only blog. I am mostly missing House for this but this is quiet time right now so I thought I’d take advantage of it. House is a pretty good show. My son tried to get me to watch it for the past couple of years but there was always something else on that we were watching. Though I feel that they have to dig pretty deep in a medical book to come up with some of the things that they do and then in the end it turns out to be the most simplest of things. But I digress.
I suppose this will be a journal of some sort for me really. If it’s read by anyone else, so be it.
I named the blog Mona’s Garden because that’s what we are into at the moment. Gardening. It all started last summer when we built the decks on our house. We tore down one that ran all the way across the front of the house and replaced it with a smaller one and wound up having all this empty space on each side of the new deck. So…. flower gardens. Started out with bedding plants and wound up planting bulbs for the spring. Tulips, daffodils and crocuses. Bad thing though. We have clay dirt. Wasn’t really sure anything would come up. But it did. Not as well as I wanted to though. So I was a bit disappointed but still went on and have added more bedding plants and even put a miniature rose out there. They have been growing well enough but the rose doesn’t seem to be thriving. So today I moved it. But we also added compost to the clay today and I replanted the plants and hopefully they will do better. We did one side today and will tackle the other side tomorrow.
I will admit I am a big fan of roses. Roses of all kinds. Have a rose tattoed on my back. My husband got me the miniature rose. Well he buys all the plants and flowers as I stay at home and take care of the 2 and half year old. So anyway, I love roses. Went to Home Depot with the 23 year old one day and found a beautiful peace rose. Gorgeous. Only $6.97. Had to have it. So I got it. Brought it home and babied it through a cold front/freeze that crept up on us. Finally got it planted and it’s doing well. Our back yard was barren except for an icky looking tree that my husband has hated from the day we moved in. We managed to get it cut down this year and have been planting shrubs and trees all along our fence line. Get a bit of privacy eventually and much needed shade. We have three forsythias, 2 burning bushes and a climbing rose and a hibiscus so far. The hibiscus is going to be moved and replaced with another climbing rose as we purchased two more today. The one in place already is multicoloured with reds, oranges and yellows in the blooms. Today we got a red one and a yellow one. We’ve added a butterfly bush for the baby and for mamma, a purple rose to the landscape as well. Purple just happens to be my favourite colour and well, we’ve gone over my love for roses.
This post is just an introduction to the “garden”. I’m sure this will be more for my benefit that anything else. We are very amateur gardeners. I haven’t even talked about the vegetable garden we started yet but will save that for another day.