Choice Morsels

  I joined a local ladies book club I saw mentioned in Next Door because it was an opportunity to hang out and have lunch with ladies in my age range. We meet on the 2nd Wednesday every month and today was my 3rd meeting. We together choose a new read and the goal is actually to find reasonably clean books to read. It's something fun to look forward to and the restaurant we meet at is a local place that let's us in at 10 am, then we order lunch. Today's Garden Pic is my Clematis. Blooms are just now popping open. Clematis are climbers, so it has an metal trellis. This particular one is on the bluer side and has a shorter growth habit; something I chose deliberately.  When you buy plants & shrubs you want to pay attention to their height and width dimensions! Clematis Has New Growth! I planted it and it put up 2 vines and for the past 3 years, it's been blooming just off those. This Clematis blooms off the "old wood" meaning, new greenery sprouts off the or...

Here's a little bright spot for the day: My first blooms of Clematis! I've never grown Clematis before. I just planted this one last spring and it bloomed, then during winter it was just brown stems on the trellis. I wasn't even certain it was still alive. I read it blooms on "old wood," meaning last years growth, so I didn't touch it. I decided to wait and see and, indeed, it did break out in fresh growth and blooms along last years stem at every joint. Plus a new vine has sprout from the roots. This particular Clematis is a compact breed that stays less then 5 feet, which is why I chose it. It naturally climbs. The blooms are lovely and I look forward to it filling the trellis eventually. Other Garden Tasks: Monday Hubby and I worked together to clean up the south side beds that are on either side of the front door. Mostly blowing out winter leaves, then raking out excess pine straw, mowing it, then I put those mowings back down where it was...