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Sunday, May 03, 2009

Mission Accomplished

Ever since I moved into my house three years ago, I've wanted to plant peonies in my yard.  I love the flower and they grow well in Minnesota.  The problem has always been that by the time I thought about getting some it was too late.  Last year we even planned to divide some of my mom's beautiful peonies, but my dad and I dug around one, saw the size of it, and were totally intimidated.  We covered her right back up again.

This year, though, I was determined to get my peonies and I happened to be on time!  Hurrah!  Yesterday, with my dad in tow, I hit the nursery.  They had a bunch of different varieties and I bought five different ones.  I have two very different red ones, a coral, a pink, and a white.

The cool thing is that they're actually plants and not little root pieces.  I won't have flowers from them this year, but I could see maybe next year.  At least I sure hope so.  I planned to take pictures, but then I thought no one but me cares to see pictures of all my new peony plants.  :-)  What can I say? I'm geeky about my garden.

My other purchase at the nursery was to monarda plants to replace the ones that I planted last year that didn't come back.  Or so I thought.  When my dad and I went to replace them, I discovered there were little monarda leafs coming up all around the mulch that had surrounded the original bushes.  I didn't realize they sprawled out like that.  I planted the new monarda among the old ones and my dad only ripped out one of the root sections, so hopefully this will be good.

There was one more project we accomplished yesterday.  (The list was much longer than this.)  My dad and I (mostly my dad) planted my asparagus.  This is my first attempt at vegetables, and though my parents had a really big vegetable garden when I was growing up, we never had asparagus.  I'm hoping this turns out well, although the instructions were bizarre on how to plant them.

Things still on the yard to do list:  Clean up the gardens and get the debris out of them, plant the flower boxes for my deck and porch (I'm going to try seeds this year instead of plants), and plant my beans, carrots, and spinach.  I'm also doing red peppers which I totally love.  Like I said, we'll see how it goes on the vegetables. I might be pushing my luck.