Rain and Wind.......

The rain and wind is a love/hate relationship to our world.  I like that we have rain and I don't like drought.  I don't like so much rain that it wrecks the spring flowers.  But the wind has been menacing.  Most of my larger blooming irs are laying on the ground from too much water and high wind breaking them down.

The cemetery iris above is going to have a few more blooms so I should get a better photo.  They whole lot of the iris look like they have been through hurricane Lawrence.

The fernleaf peonies are all done but one branch must have slept in or something.  The last two small buds came out on Saturday.

These buds have opened and the were on the ground yesterday from the wind.  I will show you tomorrow what the color is of this iris.  Think red everybody, or maybe red-brown.

I do not know the name of this rose. The plant has many blooms on them and the actual flower is half the size of a normal rose.  I like the rose as I trim off the spent roses and it sets up new buds immediately.

Saturday proved to be an interesting day in Woodward, Iowa.  They put in a new track around the football field and it had been put to good use.  They had a Junior High State Track Meet at the new track.  It was said that over 100 different schools were sending students to the meet.  We live four blocks from the area and we had cars lined up and down our street.  The town was doubled in size just for one day.

I am an art teacher in the morning and a special education teacher in the afternoon. We are running out of Mondays before school will be out.  It has seemed like a short school, but not as short as my last weekend.

Hey, we watched the new PBS version of Sherlock Holmes done in our present time period.  It is done well.  We watched three episodes in a row and became a lot loony.  What I found interesting was the fact that Dr. Watson, wrote about all that they did on his BLOG.  So the whole world was keeping track of them in the modern world as they were solving cases.  Once in a while in the dialog Holmes would ask another person how he knew his information and the person would reply, "I read it on the blog."

Thanks for stopping by today.

Thursday's Things

Yellow sulfur butterfly that is busy feeding on the allium.

A beautiful rose is hidden inside this bud.  The rose is doing so well this year that there are five large buds on the bush.  It is a special rose from my parents home and it really is going to do well up here in our part of the state.

The fernleaf peony is suffering under our 89 F. degree heat today.  They are going to be gone soon.

The bridal wreath spirea is really filling out into full bloom today.  Our warm weather really turned it into a show specimen plant.  These plants are ones that I  transplanted from and older shrub that was on the property 36 years ago.

I have this short dutch iris that has one bloom.  It really has not done well as this is the first time I have seen in bloom in a number of years.  It likes to bloom early and we normally have snow or too cold of temperatures.

I will finish off the blog with a trio of tulips.  They are at their last days now and this photo was taken a week ago.

Special Education duty today, taking notes in various classes for the students. I may get moved to a regular classroom in the afternoon when the golf coach leaves for a tournament.

Thanks for stopping by my post today.

Wednesday's Wandering........

The columbine took a hit early on with the freeze but it didn't take out the buds, just those flowers that were in bloom.  So I am getting a good show from my two plants.

We were very warm yesterday and these peonies actually opened up so you could see their centers. My earliest plant like this is now spent as the warm weather made the petals wilt and shrink.

Red is hard for the digital camera to translate but this is close to the actual color.  They are going to be gone soon with the warmer weather.

My neighbor guy who is not a gardener keeps telling me I need to prune back my spirea.  He doesn't like the look of my ancient shrubs.  I do see he trimmed his three off to a foot high and you can imagine what they look like this spring.  I can thin them out if they were full of dead wood but they are not, he just doesn't like the branches dangling down when not in bloom. I finally told him that they are on my property and that I will nurture them the way I think best.

I have a larger set of spirea along the alley and they are doing great just like the ones on the property line.  As you can see I have very nice looking shrubs.

One last photo just for show.  The iris actually are not leaning, the old man shooting the shot seemed to be leaning with the camera for some reason.

I am a tech guy today and it seems to be a busy morning.  I am working with ipads again today, download applications onto them for the staff to take to a workshop.  I don't like the keyboard of an ipad and I really don't think I will ever purchase one.  I type quickly and the ipad requires one to type with two fingers switching from an alphabet screen to a numbers screen back and forth while typing.

Thanks for stopping by my post today.  

Another Cold Day..........

The cold is taking it's toll on the last of the tulips.  It was just too chilly for me to finish mowing the orchard.  I thought wearing a winter coat and stocking cap was pushing it for the season.  I don't think grass grows much in cold weather.

During this cool off the fernleaf peonies are blooming.  It would be nice if they were in the warmth but maybe they will last longer.  I have four of them in bloom and one that is a new start with out a bud on it.

Thanks for stopping by my post.

Indoor Plant Report....

This was a gift to me by my wife's cousin a few months back.  She brought her sweet dog over for a visit so we could meet her and she gave me this violet.  I have taken leaves from it to  make new starts.

A couple of years ago I started some new plants from leaves and about two months ago I started another batch.  I am using regular potting soil in a plastic storage container.  I place a large clear plastic bag over it to keep the moisture in it with the end of the bag left loosely open.

I would watch my mom doing this as a kid and it seems to be a successful way to start new violet plants.  No matter what the medium is that you are starting them in, you must keep the leaf as vertical as possible standing so it won't rot the leaves.

I haven't pulled any up to see how the roots are doing as I don't want to disturb the success that they seem to be having in growing.  The leaves are healthy looking and I know that soon I should see some sprouts at the base of the stem. Earlier I did loose a couple of the leaves and I don't know why but I just replaced them with more leaves.

I have so many old fashion traditional violet plants that I didn't try to root any of them.  I am really organized this time with my starts with actual labeling on the outside of the container so I can see what I have before they start to bloom.  I have never kept track of the timing before but now I should be able to check my first blog date and see how long it takes them to bloom.

One outside bud that I am keeping track of is the fernleaf peony.  I had rapidly planted this one off in a strange location next to the vegetable garden and two years later is has grown into a big plant.

Part of the day I will be a librarian and the morning will be spent maintaining computer labs and other tech stuff.  Thanks for stopping by today.............oh yes,  we are siting on the county border that is being predicted to have frost or a freeze tonight.  In town we tend to keep a little warmer so maybe there will be frost on the car.  The line is clearly positioned just above us by three miles.

Again, thanks for your visit.

A Showing of Progress..........

Our temperatures have dropped back to our normal range but we still are way ahead of our season by a few weeks.  The forsythia will be gone soon but the red bud is starting to open to take it's place.  The sedum looks like small cabbages when they first come up and they stay green for a large part of the fall season.

I am giving tests in the Spanish room this morning.  It is day two back to school and I think I can get back into the groove of this job.  Yesterday I was the shop teacher.

Thanks for stopping by my blog.