If you’re interested in following along with how our garden and landscaping efforts are coming along, you can read about my April Garden Notes HERE.  Over the past couple of years, I shared more frequent gardening updates here on the blog throughout the spring and summer, but this year has been more about maintenance so far.  I would like to plant some perennials to fill in some of the beds, but we’ve mostly focused our attention on the details of making a yard look nice – fertilizing, weeding, and trimming.

I keep meaning to get out to prune the espalier apple trees, but I wanted to show how bushy and happy they are looking in their third spring here in my yard.  While I know pruning is good for plants, I always feel hesitant and drag my feet on cutting off new growth.  It seems like a sign of health, vitality, so I sort of hate to lop it off.  It is ultimately the best thing, though, so I need to go out with my pruning shears and cut off the branches that are growing in the wrong direction.

Even though I’ve kept pretty good garden notes of what I planted where, I somehow missed specifying the specific type of lavender I planted by our cellar doors.  I think it might be SuperBlue.  Whatever variety it is, it’s the happiest, healthiest lavender out of all the varieties I’ve tried.  Just in the last couple of weeks, it started sending up shoots with buds at the end.  I’m excited to have baskets of fresh lavender again, like I was able to harvest from our yard in PA.

The Annabelle hydrangeas in the front have started budding, which always makes me happy.  I am keeping a close eye on them, though.  The past couple of years, they have started strong and then looked terrible once we get further into the summer months.  I fertilize them with Holly Tone and stay on the watering, but they end up with yellow leaves and look sickly.  My Annabelle hydrangeas in Minnesota always had dark green leaves and thrived with very little care.  There is also an Annabelle hedge in a neighbor’s yard that looks much healthier than my bushes.  I’m thinking it’s a deficiency in the soil, so I think I might try spreading some compost around the base to give them some richer soil.

Are there any other tips I should try?

I was pleasantly surprised that some annual saliva plants came back this year!  I have planted some white perennial ones that have been doing well, and I think I will add some more purple perennial saliva plants in the front since the lavender doesn’t do as well there.

The Henryi Clematis on the obelisk in the front garden bed has bloomed and looks quite pleased with itself.

The Angel of Purity Dianthus is doing well back by the pool wall, so I’m hoping to get one or two more to tuck in this area.

My mom gave me a beautiful hydrangea bush for my birthday, but I put it in the guest room so the cats wouldn’t mess with it, and forgot about it!  I opened the door one day to get the vacuum out of the closet and spotted the parched plant.  Well, I put it outside, watered it, and it was bouncing back, but it was damaged by a frost.  I had thoroughly mucked up this gift, but I wasn’t going to give up.  I cut off all of the damage from the lack of water and frost, potted it in fresh soil, and it’s coming back beautifully.

I’ve also enjoyed watching the euonymous hedge along the back of the pool come back since we brutally trimmed it back.  It’s a fast-growing bush that was making it almost impossible to walk on the patio around the pool, so it had to be dramatically cut back.   It was carnage, but it had to be done.

Little buds started appearing last week, and now new leaves are unfolding.

I’m guessing it will be filled in and looking lovely by the end of June.

Now, I must give you the most important update of all – the Bishop’s Weed.  (You can read all about my battle HERE.)  I am happy to report that my battle against this aggressive weed is paying off.  In fact, I find so many other noxious weeds more troublesome than this one.  I really keep after it, though.  Any time I’m walking around the yard to water, weed, or just do small chores, I look for little sprigs of Bishop’s Weed.  They mostly pop up around the base of bushes or along the house.  I just pluck off the little sprigs before they have a chance to grow.  Each year, I find fewer sprigs, and depriving the roots of light and nutrients seems to be leading to a slow death.

There are still some trouble areas, like around the fence, under the arborvitae hedges, and along the neighbor’s property lines, but I am staying on those with the same approach.

This month, I’d like to do some mulching and planting in the garden beds and patio pots.