After a week of planting and fertilizing, my homegrown annuals are now safely tucked into all of my flowerbeds (or containers). Usually I start planting around May 21st, but this year the weather cooperated and I was able to start a week earlier.
My friend Willis “supervised” the operation:
This is always the most stressful time of the gardening season for me because the plants are still tiny and vulnerable, and and there are a lot of chipmunks and squirrels in the neighborhood that like to dig them up when I’m not looking. And then there are the insects. Overnight a plant can suffer a lot of munching damage from earwigs, slugs and other tiny marauders.
Normally I wake up at 6:30 each morning—usually without an alarm clock, but for about two weeks after my plants are in the ground, my eyes pop open at 5 or 5:30 and I can’t get back to sleep (just ask my poor husband). I throw on some clothes and stumble outside to do a “perimeter check” to see what damage or destruction may have occurred overnight.
It’s been several days now since I finished planting, and I haven’t lost a single seedling. That’s never happened before. I should be thankful and enjoy the miracle, but I must admit it has made me even more skittish than usual. Are the beasts planning something sinister?
As my plants get bigger my paranoia will subside, but for now I’m sleeping with one eye open.
2 comments
Interested in knowing what you have planted in the bed shown. James
It’s all annuals—some Park’s Picks zinnias, some salvias (‘Evolution’ ‘Forest Fire’ ‘Summer Jewel Pink’ ‘Saga’), some ageratums (‘Blue Diamond’ ‘Blue Planet’), some calendulas (‘Flashback Mix’ ‘Touch of Red’) plus ‘Flashing Light’ Gomphrenas, ‘Figaro’ Dahlias and some Zahara zinnias.
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