Garden Overload

This morning I met my friend at a local florist/greenhouse to check out the tree selection.  The two of us, along with a few other friends, are going in together to buy two trees for a family that recently experienced a great loss. The trees will be a memorial to the lives that are no longer here.  We knew we wanted to get flowering trees, and here in Oklahoma they are about to burst into full bloom.

I love being in a nursery.  The colors, the textures, the smell of fresh growing things....it's almost too much.  I tend to go into garden overload.  I want to buy one of everything just to see what it looks like in my flowerbeds.  And then I get to the vegetable section and start planning out a huge garden.  I really feel like a kid in a candy store, but I have to restrain myself because I don't have the space, time or budget to do all I want to do.  Today as we looked for trees for our friends, I also considered it a scouting mission for my own yard.  I took notes and have some ideas of what I want to do this year.  The last hard freeze here is usually at the end of March, so April is the perfect month to start planting for the spring and summer months ahead.

As we strolled up and down the many rows of trees, we enlisted help from a knowledgeable store employee.  We asked him all kinds of questions about flowering trees that grow well in the hot summer months.  How long they bloom, do they need shade, what kind of colors are available, etc.  He answered all our questions and really helped us narrow down our selection.  Our first choice of tree was the pretty Dogwood with its soft pink blossoms.  However, we learned that those trees are heat sensitive, so we had to consider some other choices. We learned that fruit trees are the heartiest variety and can survive our brutally hot summers (last summer we broke a record with 63 days of 100+ temperatures).  Cherry trees, peach trees, Plum trees and Crabapples are all very pretty and thrive in the full sun.  And Redbuds are always a good choice.  They bloom for at least a month and are so delicate and beautiful.  In fact, they are our official state tree.

In the end, we left with a clear idea of the type of tree we wanted to plant for our friends.  And I left with a long list of gardening ideas.

What are your gardening plans this year?

A Job To Do

Today started off with a job to do.  I had put it off for too long and it just had to be done.  No if's, and's or but's about it.  I had to take care of the weed situation in our front flower bed.  With the scalding hot temperatures this summer, I (like a lot of people) just flat gave up on working outside.  I swallowed my gardening pride and became one of "those" people who just let nature take over their flower beds completely.  So today, I declared war on those pesky weeds.  I gathered my supplies, procured a "helper", filled up a water bottle, and headed outside. 

One sad section of my front flower bed.  It's really embarrassing.

My trusty assistant decided to play with his dump truck while I worked. 

In the middle of the project. 

Feeling hot and sweaty, but relieved to actually see dirt underneath the weedy overgrowth.

Cutest assistant ever.

One section finished.  By lunchtime we had the whole front bed cleared out. 

What a relief!  And the temperatures were only in the upper 90's, so it wasn't nearly as bad as I had thought.  That in itself is a sad statement.  I think we are so acclimated to the high temperatures that we are going to break out our sweaters when they drop into the 80's. 

After we were finished, Lucas and I ate lunch, then he took a whopping three hour nap.  I cleaned, baked some cookies, took a shower, read, and had a lovely afternoon indoors.  What did you do today?