Today was a sunny and warm day. Weeded and mulched Harlow Carr, mulched sweet peas, culinary garden and shade garden. Also watered primroses, pansies and Johnny-Jump-Ups put in yesterday. Bagged lilies that were pulled out weeks ago.

Today I worked on the shade garden against the north side of the house. It was much easier to use the fork to lift the top layer of soil and to unsettle the weeds than it was to pull the "weedlings" out by hand. Although I had mapped out where everything was supposed to go, I only loosely followed the plan and altered it when I thought it would look better. Some of the seedlings that went out are

Arctic Primroses
Drumstick Primrose
Johnny Jump Ups
Pansy Plentifall

I forgot to add sweet woodruff. Hopefully I will remember to add them tomorrow. I also added some of these to the culinary shade garden that I worked on yesterday.

To my surprise, I found that the bed had already been edged with large red bricks now covered over with grass. The bricks appear to be heavy and well worn, so maybe it was installed a while ago. I had brought some edging material, but the bricks would look so much better. After all the work with tilling the soil, working in a bag of compost and planting, I was too tired to clean up the edges. Maybe tomorrow I will have a bit more time.

I also have to look into getting larger plants to help landscape the bed. I hope to include some ferns, hostas, astilbes and azaleas. Bowman Hill Flower Preserve is holding their annual plant sale through this weekend. I think I would like to go and pick out a few plants: some ferns, baptisa, bleeding heart, Jacob's ladder.

I haven't added the mulch yet, so maybe I will do it this weekend.

Today was an overcast day (about 55F) with a forecast of rain. Seemed like a good day to get some plants into the ground since the rain will help to water them in for free.

Set out some strawberries (Alpine and Fresca), sweet woodruff (Blue Surprise), nasturtiums, parsley, cilantro and dill into the culinary part shade garden today. Amended with half a bag of compost. Fertilized with hydrolyzed fish and seaweed fertilizer.

Also set out sweet peas at the front of the house near the metal fence. They are too small to secure to the fence at the moment, but hopefully they will grow quickly. Fertilized with hydrolyzed fish and seaweed fertilizer. Did not add compost since I may later plant lavender there (lavender likes lean soil)

Gave Harlow Carr 2 gallons of water mixed with Miracle-Gro Rose fertilizer. There are some dark spots on the leaves, but not all are round. Pulled affected leaves off and discarded.

Set out Bleeding Heart and Lily-of-the-Valley pips in the shade garden on the north side of the house. I brought them from Home Depot a while back, so I'm not sure how they will do since they looked rather dry when I took them out of the bag. I watered them in but did not fertilize these since I'm not sure if they will even grow. Soil was amended with some compost.

Getting ready to harden off some of the seedlings. The weather is till cool, so I'll put out the cool weather plants first.

Bleeding Heart
Chives
Cilantro
Dill
Forget-Me-Not
Larkspur
Linaria/Toadflax
Lupine
Nasturtium
Pansy
Peas
Petunias
Primroses
Snapdragons
Sweet Peas
Viola
Violet

Checked on the pink and purple zinnias and the sweet peas outside. The zinnias are not doing very well and are severely wilted, probably because of the high temperatures we have been having. I have set them in a tub of warm water and hope that they will survive. It seems that keeping the seedlings outdoors mean that they require more water. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that they are in peat containers too.

It's a bit cool out now that the mini heatwave has subsided. I think that I will start to harden off the cool weather seedlings now and maybe bring in the warmer temperature seedlings back inside.

Just for my own future reference, here are the cool season annual which I am currently growing:

Larkspur
Nasturtium
Petunias
Sweet Peas
Snapdragons
Viola/Pansies

Soaked David Austin's Harlow Carr in a small basin since a larger and deeper bucket was not available. The roots were in water, but the bulb-ish part of the plant was not. Hopefully it will not be a problem. Planted it today according to directions, sans rose food, since I didn't have any available. Dug an approximately 18" square hole, 18" deep as the directions stated. Back filled with original soil and some compost and used Start to get the roots off to a healthy start. Top dressed the soil with compost and watered with 2 gallons of water. I planted it at about 5 or 6 pm after the hot noon sun was beginning to temper off. Hopefully there will be rain for the next two days so that the plant is not too stressed. It was difficult work and there was a lot of large stones in the soil, some of which I removed.

Also purchased three heathers (Erica darleyensis) as well as some Miracle-Gro rose food, a set of 10 Lily-of-the-Valley and a set of 3 pink bleeding hearts.

Weather has been really warm lately. Right now it is about 80 degrees F. Tomorrow will bring temperatures in the 90s. From weather reports, it seems uncharacteristically warm for this month.

Been watering plants with hydrolized fish and seaweed fertilizer each time. I wonder if I should only do it every other time.

Hardening Off
Linarias are looking a bit frail.
Lupines are drooping a bit despite watering. 2-3 of them died. Was it the cool temperatures from before?
Sweet Woodruff are looking a bit ruffled too. Will probably move them to the back since they are shade lovers anyway.
Sweet Peas are doing okay.
Thyme seems a bit wilty when given too much water.
Alpine and Fresca strawberries seem to be doing okay, but will water anyway.

Received Harlow Carr today (or did it come yesterday and I just didn't notice it?). Will soak it in water tonight and plant outside tomorrow. Need to buy some rose food for it too. It should rain on Thursday and Friday, so hopefully the rose will get off to a good stressless start. Also brought some Start to encourage root development.

Last week on Friday, I pulled out all of the orange "ditch" lilies from the raised stone and mortar bed outside the back door and will probably plant herbs and a small vegetable garden in its place. Gave a clump to Aunt J since she seemed to like them. Will also later dig out the yellow daylily from the bed along the road to give to her as I'm not a bit fan of lilies. At least not yet... ;)

Aunt J and Uncle L gave us a brilliant pink azalea plant. I am wondering where would be the best place for it. Would like to plant it near the backdoor, but I think that the north side of the house could use a bit of brightening up which this plant would certainly do.