But, we got a lot done today. David dug the pepper annex at my request; I wanted to get a head start working th e soil for the tomatoes, so I showed him how you use a hoe to break apart the soil once you've turned it. While he was doing this I debated over the shaded barrels and window boxes on the porch by the front door. I'd bought some scarlet impatiens, schiz anthus (also called Angel Wings, Butterfly Flower and Poor Man's Orchid, which are all much nicer - and more descriptive! - names for such a pretty plant), and cinerara (star shaped flowers, wide round smooth leaves);the long haired hippie who worked at t he store told me these all would do well (though nothing's as good as impatiens for color) in shade. Of course, I first had to deal with Tracy's creation that she'd left from the winter. The west window box had (roughly in order) a cactus, silver thyme, a climbing vine (that winds nicely up the trellis on the window - it was there before), a poinsetta (still nice and brilliant), a spider plant and two crowded tulips. The east window box went: cactus, weeds, large climbing pink flower with big tuber roo ts, a more scragely poinsetta (salvagable), another batch of weeds (with really deep, long roots that only gave because the soil was so fine). First thing I did was yank the cactus plants, repotting them*. Then I dug out the poinsettas and repotted the m and set them out front. The garden book said they can get rather tall, and I just didn't think a window box was the right place for them. I plucked the silver thyme plant, and made a nice home for it in the perrenial herb garden, where it belongs.** I pulled up all the weeds, and planted some impatiens, a cinerara and a Butterfly Flower in the east box. I did the same on the west, but I left the tulips and spider plant, mainly because I'm not sure where to put them.
The barrels weren't so easy.
First of all, I had to weed out the dead Wandering Jew. Once I did that, however, I didn't have the heart to yank the rest of the plant. It's got deep purple leaves, and purple and red and orange is more or less my color theme.
**It turned out that this was Aron's plant, but he wasn't angry that I moved it (it wouldn't have gott en enough sun on the porch). David said, "Yes, see, she has it in it's proper place - in the Dewey system, it would be herbs, perrenial, 004 point 004 ..." or some such, then calling out, "whose mother is a librarian here, c'mon, raise your hand..." teas ing me about my sense of order about the garden. But, well, I did grow up around lots of gardens...my mom and her sisters still visit each other's flower and garden beds, admiring and exchanging information (and plants occasionally, too).