2016 Garden Update #4

It's time for a garden update.....hmmmm where to begin.....it was a rainy morning.  Finally it cleared up and became sunny.  YAY

Let's start with my front flower bed.  We have several male and female holly bushes. Every Spring they pollinate like crazy and just about every bee, wasp, hornet, bumblebee, yellow jacket and dragon fly go super crazy.  We sometimes have to run in the house because there's so many of them working so hard to get that pollen.

When I took these pictures the rain had just cleared and it was too chilly for the pollinators.

See all the pollen covering the mulch?  The smell is so strong.  It makes me sneeze just thinking about it.  haha  I don't want to spray these bushes because I don't want to kill the bees.  

(SAVE THE BEES)

Here's a picture of my magnolia tree.  My mother-in-law planted it back in 2009.  It's so huge now.  This picture doesn't show it justice.  I will have to take a picture of another angle so you can get a better idea.

This morning this tulip was ready to pop.

By the afternoon it did.  :)

Alright, let's go to the greenhouse....Here's my succulent that survived over the winter.  This little guy is very happy in it's new pot.  :)

I decided to do a little experiment with avocado pits.  I've had these pits sitting on a window sill since December.  haha  I peeled off the dried up outer shell.

This pit, I cut open and planted into the soil.

One pit I planted without cutting open.  (right)

Here's two pits that I planted together.  We will see if any trees grow from these pits.  I know that they will never fruit but the trees are adorable.  They might make cute little gifts to someone who likes plants.

My first red potato sprout of the season keeps growing.

Here's two more red potato sprouts.  So green!!!

I have new sunflower sprouts from the seeds I planted last weekend.  Both sprouts have the outer seed shell/casing attached to the leaves still.

Here's some sunflower sprouts, and greenbeans.  I plan to dig in the pots to check the other seedlings.  I'm thinking some of them might be duds.

I have marigold sprouts!!  :)  I'm thinking of planting some of these in ground.  I bought a few packets at the dollar tree this morning.  I also picked up a dust pan at the dollar tree because I needed one to clean up some dirt on floor of greenhouse.

Here's my pansies.  :)  They are loving the green house.

So, outside of the greenhouse I planted a bunch of sunflowers in the ground.  And I'm happy to say if you look really close there are tiny little sprouts.

Do you see one?

I had a bright idea earlier.....my dad gave me a huge bag of mulch that he doesn't want.  I was thinking of making a mulch path to my greenhouse.  I will pull the weeds out, then put down a weed cloth and neatly pour the mulch and rake it evenly to make a path.  

I googled 'mulch paths' and came across this image.

The mulch path took me to this blog.  I think it will look nice.  Thoughts?

Moving on.....

I went to Lowes this morning.  I got this little guy for $1.00 on clearance.  It's a mini pine tree succulent.  I haven't repotted it yet.  I did give it a good drink of water though.

Also in my backyard is my gnome garden.  I need to freshen up the paint on some of them.  I might do that this week.  Do you see anything new?

I picked up this adorable little thing at the dollar tree this morning.  I didn't get a picture but there was an end cap at my store near the garden stuff that was for a fairy garden.  It was so cute.  I couldn't leave this guy there.  I thought he would be perfect for my gnome garden.

So, I mentioned I went to Lowes.  How cute are these wooden boxes?

So cool.  I think they are for display only.  They were holding onion bunches.

Cute sunflower seedlings. 

I checked the reduced rack.  Didn't see anything that I needed on these racks.

I went and found this treasure.  A big orchid for $5!!  :)

Here's what I got.  (The hot pink basket is from dollar tree...more on that in next post) 

How cute are these ladybug clips?  You can never have too many plant clips and these were just too cute to not get.  haha

Here's my orchids.  They are doing very good.  Look how much the orchid on top left is growing.

A bloom fell off.  Once it dries up, I have the perfect place for it.

Yeah, I have a problem.  I like keeping seed shells/casings, and dried up flowers.

I went to target and of course checked out the dollar spot and they had some gardening things.

This pot is sooooo cute.  I wished it wasn't $5.  It would be perfect to add some garden pebbles in the bottom, dirt and then some succulents in it.  I kinda want it.

There's some cute wooden garden signs.

Cute garden markers.

Oh and fake succulents.  Adorbs!

In the garden/patio section I found this bee pillow.  I thought about getting it but it was $20.  It is on cartwheel so you can get some savings on it.  I was buying enough stuff so I didn't need to pay $20 for a small pillow.  haha

Well that's my garden update this week.  Hopefully, next week I will have many more sprouts to talk about.