Everything has Popped

Everything has popped.  What a difference two weeks make.  Here it is the last days of May and this past week you would swear it was July or August.

 

I have Daylilies blooming.  Aztec Gold is early but not that early, it's not supposed to bloom till the end of June

 

The Hosta are up.

Almost fully out. 

Remember, I spaced them out last year?

 I think they will be good for a few

The bog garden is looking good, a bit on the dry side, not very boggy, but nothing is this spring.  I do think a few too many holes were punched in the plastic, but it is a bit moister than the rest of the garden.

In the lower part of the display gardens, I had lost just about all my Euphorbia (have no idea why), and the Saponaria (Bouncing Bet), which I love, were bouncing around a bit too much.  This year they were out.  Will have to find a new spot for them.  Anyway, I moved the Helenium (Helen's Flower, Sneezeweed, Swamp Sunflower) into the centre of this area around the second week in May.  Well since it hasn't rained here much the month of May, you can probably tell that they didn't like it.

 

But a nice coat of compost and a little rain this past day and they are smiling.

 

Now I have to get the Woolly Thyme path to smile.

 

Back at the Semps

So what do you do if you just can resist all those varieties of Semps out there, and you have amassed a collection.  Guilty.

You can make a wreath (may be I'll post a how to do some day), but to day we are going to do something different.

I am a 4-H leader for Gardening and Floraculture in our local club. The young lady I teach Floraculture to came to me with this idea she found on the Internet for making a picture out of Semps.  It didn't take us long to decide that this would be a good project. Even Lady thinks so.

My Father-in-Law throws nothing out.  He had this great frame that he basically made a shadow box for.  We used hardware cloth, 1/4" in size.

Marla's Dad made hers but they used 1" cloth (much better size), you learn as you go.  She filled her box from the back, adding soil first,

 Then adding a thin layer of sphagnum moss to hold the soil in.



Then screwing the 'frame' down to the shadow box.

Mine was made upside down, laying the moss down first on the hardware cloth.

Adding the potting soil, sliding the back on and screwing it down.

Now the fun part, we get to fill it with whatever we want.  Marla's frame is huge, she added semps, small sedums and some creeping thyme.

Surprisingly, you don't need a lot of material, you actually want the smaller pieces (chicks) and little sprigs of sedums and thyme.  Marla took hers home to her little greenhouse until she is ready to display it at our 4-H Achievement Day towards the end of July.  By then it should be looking quite good.

I had to cut out some of the hardware cloth so it gave me 1" squares for adding some of the semps.  I kept mine pure, semps only.  They will take a little while to root in, but I can't wait until it can be hung up (carefully of course).

Hmmm, I wonder if Papa has anymore frames lying around??