Saturday, May 18, 2013

Spring surprises

I bought, and my house mate and I, moved into a house on the east side of Des Moines that had sat empty for two or three years. Since it was late fall (Halloween day) when we moved in, everything in the yard was brown and/or dead. We had no idea what the yard would look like in the spring. Two things I wanted to plant was asparagus and rhubarb. I was outside this past Monday hanging up my laundry (I have a clothes line! yay) when I looked in the corner of the backyard and saw some plants that looked suspiciously like rhubarb. When I went over to look at them I found that they were indeed rhubarb! There are six plants. Two are bigger than the rest. I think they are all in need of some fertilizer and some tender loving care. I was looking at the plants yesterday to see if they were big enough to harvest some for a pie when I noticed that some of the leaves were yellow. I did some research on rhubarb but could not find that particular problem mentioned. I'm hoping just a good feeding and some extra water will help. The Old Farmer's Almanac has a lot of good information on rhubarb and other things but they didn't have any information on yellow leaves on rhubarb. I left a comment on the site. I'll have to wait and see if it gets an answer.
I am still waiting on the asparagus. It takes so long (three years!) to get it established that HM doesn't want to bother. I am of the opinion that it will be worth the wait. We'll have to see how that one turns out.
When I bought the house I knew there was a lilac bush on the side/rear corner of the house. The only question was what color was it? My parents had three different colors of lilacs at their house. A light purple with a single bloom, a light purple with a double bloom, and my favorite, a dark purple double bloom. My mom called that an "old fashioned" lilac.
Lilac bush against house Close up of lilac.
As you can see from the pictures, my lilac is a light purple double bloom. It smelled wonderful when it started blooming but now it has faded.
I also have several irises growing and putting out blooms. This iris has a beautiful fragrance. There should be at least two more that bloom. I hope they are not all the same color. If they are, I will have to plant some different colors this fall.

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