It's Not You, It's Me...

This is so hard to say. We've been together for such a long time now, which makes it even harder...I'm breaking up with you, Michaels.

We had some good times. When I got those weekly 40% Off the Price of Any Item Coupons (excluding sale items, magazines, books, Martha Stewart items, Cricut items, clearance items, or anything else you want), I couldn't wait to hook up with you. It was intoxicating. I remember the first time I introduced you to the Little Nugget. She gasped "Oh Mommy, look at all the colors!!!" I knew just how she felt. We both thought you were "the one".

But something happened. I don't know. Maybe you started phoning it in. Maybe I just raised my standards. But all I know is I need a store that can give me what I need.

I've started seeing another store. It's a locally owned store. There, I've said it. Their beads are all drilled on center. And the holes are straight.

But we can still be friends, right? I'm sure I'll need some craft paints or a new sketch book from time to time. And hey, you're the only place I can get butter rum Life Savers, so we've still got that!

Take care of yourself, Michaels. It was good knowing you.

Nugget

The Early Bird Gets the Worm, But Might Get Killed in a Late Season Frost...

The planting catalogues are here! Yea!!! Time to think about gardening again!!! I say that as another blizzard approaches...


I never thought I would be one of those people who 1) looks forward with great anticipation to the upcoming spring plantings in October; and 2) peruses seed and bulb catalogues with deep and meaningful purpose. Oh yeah, and I want a goat. Nobody saw that one coming.

Honestly, who could resist that cute face? I will have my pygmy goat one day, oh yes I will. But for now, I have The Bug.

So yes, I am very excited about Spring and have been thinking about upcoming projects. First off, the rock wall garden is complete. The only thing left to do is let it do it's thing. Oh sure, I am going to take the iris, ornamental grass* and some of the sedum out**, maybe move some stuff and add some goodies in the corner near the tree, but other than that (!), really all that needs to be done is to let the ground cover by the road cover the ground.

*OK, so here's the story with that. The iris was planted willy-nilly at the end of '08 because I received it as a late season gift and needed to get it in the ground. Now I have a better place for it, so it gets moved this year. And the ornamental grass, well I put it in the place it now resides simply to prevent erosion. Now that the ground cover has kicked in, the grass can move elsewhere as it looks a bit out of place.

**And the sedum. Sigh. My poor sedum. Oh it's OK, but it really could use some more sun. Some are doing well, like the angelique and blue spruce. But the others, the stonecrops, are just too leggy for my liking. Even though I love sedum, leggy sedum is just plain ugly. So leggy sedum in the front yard are heading to the back where they can bask in the sunlight, at least somewhere in the NE corner.

That leaves a little patch of ground by the front door in need of tendin' to! Wahoo! Another garden spot! Not sure what yet, probably has to be something that doesn't need much light. Maybe rocks. And another tiny tiny gnome.

In the backyard (yes I know we agreed that's Hubby Nugget's domain, but I ran out of places to plant, and I wore him down), I will continue the plantings around the Juniper, another azalea bush to be sure. And vinca. It seemed pretty happy there last year. Of course the beloved Garden of Sedummy Goodness. This will include rocks, and definitely lavender (mmmm). Oh yes, I'm excited. Again, not sure where it's going to go, but I need to be able to see it from inside the house.

On the west side, I'm going to plant the orphan Norton grape from the vineyard. This is mostly so I can practice pruning it. Probably would be a good idea to learn how to prune if one is going to be a grower of grapes and maker of fine wines.

And finally, as if there aren't enough projects already, I will embellish the newly finished rock wall that surrounds the fire pit/patio area with plants from Larry's House of Cheap Sedum (a local nursery that I was told about and am salivating at the thought of visiting this spring...big surprise there).

Come on spring!

All for now,

Nugget

New Post...

Oh I know you want one. But guess what? This is all you get for now!!! Ha!

November is National Blog Posting Month (NaBloPoMo).

You shall be rewarded for your patience with an entire month of daily posts about excruciatingly mundane things.

You have been warned!

Nugget

A River Runs Through It

I guess you could say that I'm not the most patient person. I'm becoming more painfully aware of that now that the Little Nugget squawks at me when I don't fetch her milk in a timely fashion more to her liking.

So maybe gardening isn't the best hobby for me. True confessions of an impatient, short-attention-spanned gardener!!!

Here's how I roll. Spring comes and I get an irresistible urge to buy plants. Lots of them. I plant them. And they just sit there. And sit there. Now I know that plants have their own growth patterns, likes and dislikes (picky bastards), but why is it that if you have a bare patch of dirt, uninvited guests such as wild violets can set up shop in less than 5 minutes and my god-forsaken creepy thyme just sits there on its lazy ass doing nothing for months?!!! You're groundcover--cover something for the love of God!!!! The weeds are covering the dirt, why can't you???

So here's what I want the garden to look like: (oh yeah, I also built that rock wall this spring--that ROCKS! he-he!)

Aaand, here's what it looks like now:

I had to let the weeds take over to keep the remaining soil in place (yes, I HAD to! Saves time on weeding too--oh I HAVE to leave that weed there!). So here was the plan, the dream, the vision: eliminate a large chunk of yard (thereby reducing our mowing duties) by creating a large rock wall with groundcover/lawn replacement. I wanted Irish moss originally, but jeez that's expensive, so we went with creeping/creepy thyme seeds. NOTHING!!! I think I've gotten maybe 5 plants from that batch, and they are about 1inch long now--woo-hoo! So much for ground cover. In a desperate attempt to prevent further soil erosion, I broke down and bought the plants. They are happy, but SLOW. Team Nugget Gardening Tip # 562: never trust the internet for plant research. EVERYTHING I thought was sacred and true about the info I found on my plants has been WRONG!!! I digress. The rose moss is doing well, I'm happy with that, though some flowers would be nice so we can ensure we have pretty flowers next year and I don't have to repeat this mess.

The tree proved to be a bit of a problem during rain storms, which we have been getting our fair share of the drenching rain, so I slowed the water rushing down the trunk with some mulch, rocks, sedum, scottish moss and the occasional well-placed weed. It's better, but still eroding the precious soil that I painstakingly dug up and hauled into that spot--with the silly assumption that it would stay there.

To quote the wise words of the Bug, "Grrrr."

I wanted to give the groundcover a chance to cover, but I may just have to mulch. Fiddly-foo.

All for now,

Nugget