Category Archives: General Gardening

March 16, 2014 · 9:31 PM

St Patrick’s Day Parade

I intended to prepare the vegetable garden for the cool season vegetables of Spring this weekend. I was sidetracked.

A college friend, who lives In the Los Angeles area, was in North Carolina to visit his family in Fayetteville for the week. We all decided to go to the Raleigh St Patrick’s Day parade on Saturday.

Early Saturday, I intended to turn the vegetable garden beds over and add compost, it didn’t happen. It was too chilly so I made a coconut buttermilk pound cake for everyone to have as a snack during the parade.

I cut the loaves to individual serving size and wrapped them in aluminum foil for easy transport.

It was yummy!

After the parade, Fayetteville Street was lined with food and trinket venders.

They were artist here and there such as these girls performing Irish dancing.

Cute dogs dressed up in their Irish gear.

Of course, every Irish pub had green beer!

Not that I was disavowing my Irish roots from the coast of North Carolina but I chose a margarita from El Rodeo in City Market as my drink of the day!

We had intended to walk over to The North Carolina Museum of Natural History’s Reptile and Amphibian day but never made it to the North side of downtown.

After walking the afternoon away downtown we settled at The Borough Restaurant where I enjoyed The Which Came First? Salad. Grilled marinated chicken and boiled egg on a bed of greens with a red wine vinaigrette dressing.

The weather was perfect: sunny with temps in the upper 60s!

Perfect !

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March 13, 2014 · 12:30 PM

Spring fever!

Spring is definitely in the air! Our last hard frost is usually the second week of March with the possibility of light frost until mid-April. As plants have begun to grow the damage from the attic blast we received a month ago is become apparent.

The Asian magnolias buds are opening and the ends of the petals are frost-burnt.

The forsythia seemed to have no damage. Although, I seem to not be able to focus! 🙂

A hellebore I purchased a few years ago blooms with a wonderful dark flower. I guess this is why it is named Dark Lady?

Even the Japanese Pachysandra has blooms!

There are a few of my oldest plants which are in need of a good trim! This Japanese Holly Fern is about 8 years old and the Arctic blast has damaged a few fronds but there are also many old and dead fronds around the base. I think I will remove them all to allow the new fiddler heads room and refresh the clump which is about four feet wide now.

The German Iris are unharmed and growing rapidly. When I purchased the house there was two large pines right next to the house here. They were removed and the roots were ground and mixed in the soil. The irises grew rapidly and were beautiful – until an attack of iris borers a few seasons ago! They are slowly recovering. Yes, I know. The rain barrels are not the most beautiful thing to have next to the front porch but they are a life saver during the Summer.

This weekend should very warm and sunny so after we attended the Raleigh’s Saint Patrick Day’s Parade (http://raleighstpats.org/) and events, which include sampling every food truck there, I plant to spend the entire weekend in the garden!

XXX