Mountains of Things to Do.........

 

I am glad that I did have a few more blooms on this iris.  I had so many last year and the hail storm we had earlier left me these two surviving stalks. This is one of the oldest varieties of iris that was found at a lot of farm houses and cemeteries when I was young.  I noticed a couple of days ago a planting of it still survives across the street at another old house.  It has a lot of its original plantings along side of the house as they probably were planted 80 or more years ago. I have plans to move some of my iris to the south side of my house also to see if it will grow there.

  

 Here is another shot of the iris in a closer view. It seems to be very hardy to survive living at the old farmesteads and rolling hills of the cemeteries across Iowa.

While on the subject of cemetery iris, this is a small one that has bloomed for me this year for the first time.  It looks like the other larger ones that I have but it is a third smaller than the normal sized iris.

I will share another shot of this rose again today.  I wished the camera would pick up a truer color of it but the brighter the day the harder it is to get a good true shot.

One other shot of another of my cemetery iris.  It is a pale yellow with whitish falls.  I have shared it before but really like the colors of it. My white and dark blue cemetery iris is not going to bloom this year.  I will move some of it to see if I can get it revived. I have my eye on a planting at school of a pale blue with lavender falls that I don't have in my collection. 

The science teacher at school works as a landscaper assistant in the summer.  When the new building was built he gave of his time and flowers to landscape all around it.  The school pitched in to buy the mulch.  His cemetery iris has overtaken a large area on the back of the building.  I gave him some iris last year so I could get a sample of his.  I will wait until they are through blooming to get a clump.

 The redbud tree update is that is still has not leafed out.  The redbuds on the main street in town are full of leaves.  I still think mine has died.  What bothers me is that below it are two privet bushes  that are also dead.  I know winter was harsh but why would all three things not survive when my other privets are very much alive. It will remain a mystery and I will wait a few more weeks before I think about removing the tree.Who  knows what is underground down there on this old property.

Things to do today seem to be simple things.  I need to return to school one more time to pick up the senior pictures so we can start working on the group composite.  They are digitally transferred to me so the problem is just getting the teacher to get them onto a thumb drive for transfew.

I bought sunflowers that are called "mammoth sunflowers."  I bet they won't be puny decorator sunflowers like the ones I mistakenly bought before by mistake.

I borrowed an idea from a fellow blogger who planted morning glories in a planter and the set the planter at the base of her trellis.  She wanted to keep the bunnies from eating them.  I want to guarantee that they grow in the planters because my ground isn't it good shape under the planters.  I soaked the seeds in my hot tea  one day and planted them the next day.  Because the hard shell of the seed was softened, I had plants up in two days.  I will share a photo later on in the week.

I need to mow around my garden shed.  I seem to be able to push the mower around ok and I will just do the small patches that I had left behind from the other day.  My neighbor's son mowed my yard for me again this week with his rider mower.

I started pulling grass from my flower gardens and that grass will be used to mulch my tomatoes.  It is too wet this morning but when it gets a lot warmer out there I will transfer the pulled grass to the garden.  I am going to mulch my vegetable garden area with grass clippings also from the mower.

Oh yes, I have muskmelon seeds from a small melon that was given to us last summer.  We are not big melon eaters but I thought I would put out a hill of them with the saved seeds.  The are small and the two of us could get a meal out of just one of them.

I can see already that I have put too many things on the list. At least I am making a brain bank full of ideas to keep me busy.  I do have all week to do this in so I know that I will get there.  I think we are done with rain for awhile so that is open up things to get done outside.

It was a good weekend and I wish all of you a great week.  Thanks for checking out my spot today.