Plants

We had some friends in Madison that bought the small lot next to their house and created a series of perennial beds around their home.  I loved it and when I bought our house in Madison I had a plan to eliminate all the grass in the back yard and only keep enough in the front so as not to startle people walking down the street.  Unfortunately, it wasn’t long before the pain from Lyme’s got so bad I had to take a break every few minutes just to cut the grass in front.

Lately I’ve been feeling a lot better - not just less pain, but some more energy.  With spring in the air, I’ve found myself with more interest to do some gardening.  Since we rent I’m keeping things small.  I’ve started getting a few plants in containers and cleared some of the overgrown beds for a few simple plantings.

Since the porch is screened in, I picked up a couple shade tolerant plants.  The fern and goldfish plant were small ( = inexpensive ), but should fill in their space after a while.  I’m also trying to get a couple varieties of peppers going from seed.  I haven’t found any habaneras yet – I’d really like to try them because the growing season in Madison was so short  the peppers would just start to come in when the frost would kill the plant.

I’m also making a list of plants that I’d like to try either in containers or once we get a more permanent place.

To go along with the other herbs, I put a couple of varieties of lavender in this bed.  I’m hoping they’ll spread out next year.  In the meantime I also put a few zucchini seeds in.  Assuming they take off, they’ll keep the rest of the space from going back to weeds, and give us a few veggies for dinner.  I also stuck in a few sticks of a damaged geranium – and they seem like they’re still growing.  I’ll move them to the front yard if they stay alive.