Spring and Midwest Gardening 2024 : Mid-March Miscellaneous

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Happy Spring somewhere in the USA, dear Readers. Here in Chicagoland it is a bit IFFY, day to day.

This is the extent of my Spring decorating. We have so many projects and messes going on right now, decorating is last on the list. I have removed 90% of the red in our home, but we are stuck with the red chairs in the living room. 

Here in the kitchen, it is all about blue and white pottery-much with a Dutch theme, and a few tulips and daffodils. 

I found the adorable peasant applique towel to cover the TV...in an antique store, it's too sweet, a little red is fun!

The top shelf has Daffodils, Dutch shoes and a very old German paste bunny. The Tulip plates are almost 20 years old, I don't remember where they came from, Crate and Barrel maybe?

My Spring linens are AWOL somewhere in the 50 tubs out on the summer porch. That's on the TO DO List. 

I pulled out a linen towel desperately in need of ironing

 (I don't iron anymore, do you?) But Christmas Pig is messy when eating. The marbles are a jar full of fun for Spring! The Tulip card was for my Birthday in February while the French coffeepot is full of faux pansies, but waiting for fresh Daffodils, soon!

The Green is the main decor elsewhere in the kitchen, the seedlings are doing well, and grow by leaps and bounds each day.

An Oxalis plant with a bit of purple...I'm looking forward to growing outside in a pot and maybe wintering back in the house. My porcelain Teapot was a vintage purchase off Etsy.

My IXIA bulbs are all sprouting as well as the peppers, tomatoes and the Ranunculus and Dahlias are unfurling as I type this.

It's raining today with a promise of colder temps again.

Tuesday it was warm in the high 60's and I dragged a big bin around and collected all the big branches and twigs that had fallen in the last storm. It wasn't too bad, but I definitely packed the biggest garbage bin full with branches and my sedum branches, just from the front yard. 

Only things blooming were these crocus that I planted last year.

Our messy beds will stay messy until we have no more frosts---this protects the BEES and other bugs that are nesting in the waste. They dig down and hide under anything that can insulate them to 'sleep' in the winter. It's their winter hidey-holes, so PLEASE leave all your messy waste in the garden, the birds also eat the seeds.

Please SAVE THE BEES!

Apparently we still have critters (bunnies-woodchucks?-deer), chomping down on all our plants. Hubby swears he hasn't seen any tracks? But, then we have no bare ground in our front yard. I will look tomorrow after our heavy rains today.

This Zebra grass is chewed right down to the ground. Tomorrow I will apply coyote urine all around my tulips and grasses, a great natural harmless deterrant.

Those are some pretty big chomps...making me think a deer might be involved.

Grass has begun to green up. The platform was the project hubby started in Fall of 2022, and never got to finish last year with all the basement reconstruction and fruit-basket upset we had to do on our property.

I'm going to have to quit calling this the mound, it flattens each year. This is where we piled all the excavation dirt from building the garage in 2000ish. Can't even remember when for sure. Periwinkle is blooming, but Iris and bulbs are barely coming up here. Daffy's are just spikes as this is exposed and not sheltered at all here.

The crispy roundish leaves are Vinca which were green most of the winter, the last snow definitely burned them though. It's very hardy and I don't think you could get rid of all of it if you wanted to. Great ground cover that kills weeds.

Tuesday, my only Daffy trying to bud. The rain today should make them explode starting tomorrow.

Three years ago we planted 4 new bushes out here...this one is on the SW corner of the lot---shaded and very exposed to drying winds. Despite heavy watering on this corner this poor bush...well, it does have some green sprouting on the lower branches, so we will see. The others are thriving, so 75% is pretty good considering our very hot dry summers these last three years.

Hubby has been working in the greenhouse. The 2" pink foam insulation is being covered with plastic shower wall sheeting which is glued on the surface. He is finishing it off with treated boards. 

This will make it all water resistant and hopefully mouse proof. We had 180 patio blocks delivered this morning at 6:40 am...and it was still dark, LOL. 

We added a few bags of gravely stuff to even out the floor, and tomorrow we will start laying the blocks as tight as possible, and then the shelves can be put back in.

Hubby cut off the lower supports of these shelves and then hung the rest from the ceiling beams? Will this work with dirt filled pots on the shelves, we will see. He can always add supports underneath again after the floor is in place. 

We have had some very vicious storms in the last few years and the greenhouse has held up well, so it's worth the investment to finish this off.

 I can't wait to get everything moved back in and the plants growing in the greenhouse without the company of critters. The new stones on the floor will soak up solar heat/ which will cut the amount of electricity we use in the future. We are looking into a few solar panels down the line to make it off the grid to run the fan and maybe a heater in the cooler months. 

I'll show the floor in the next post, before we fill it up again...LOL. 

HOW'S YOUR SPRING GOING?

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