Hello friends,,,,,,,,
Maddie here, just checking in while at the library. Today and tomorrow
is the celebration in Greeneville of their 14th annual Iris Festival.
I'm looking forward to checking out what all they do during the
weekend. Not much money to benefit from the crafts, but there will be
irises and story telling and the walk today was most uplifting to the
library, seeing the cordoned off old towne set up with neat things to
check out and do.

Spring is in full blown array here.......we've had cooler weather
which the older folk would insist on being "blackberry winter" as the
blackberry canes everywhere are blossoming right now. No freeze in
town, but I'm sure there has been frost up in the surrounding
mountains.

I'm seeing peonies, Dutch iris, some bearded iris, and now a lot of
roses blooming in yards. Heuchera is setting up spires of little tiny
lanterns on the clumps of plants I have seen where people plant them.
Down the street, on the corner, someone has a serious passion for the
old bearded irises, and the variety of colors and type are really neat
to see. I also spotted breadseed poppies in yards where I know there
resides an older gardener..........I miss my oriental poppies this
year. I dug them up successfully and they're 48 miles from me at the
moment.............

This weekend I will soak peat pots and plant beans and okra to tuck
into a strip along the west back fence. As the pots swell, I will
remove the strip of grass and chunk out the soil to plug the little
pots into once they germinate. It's still not the time as some older
gardeners would tell me to plant things like tomato's despite that
mine have been in the soil now for over four weeks.

I've spotted a source for a few snagged seed pods of blue columbine
along my walk, if I don't snip them, they will be chopped off and
discarded. And I intend on walking down to where those impressive
clumps of opium poppies are at and ask for seeds once the pods start
to mature and ripen. I've become less shy about asking people for
seeds lately. Life is too short to hang back and be tongue tied. I'm
still begging seeds, tubers, roots, rhizomes and divisions from anyone
feeing my angst at not being able to reach any of my remaining
perennials and bulbs from Vinca Ridge (formerly Faerie
Holler.....which by the way I will have another Faerie Holler which is
why I renamed the ridge that, as you should see all the vinca that
took over once I dug up all the perennials and bulbs!! LOL). I fear
once I get transportation capabilities, I will have lost quite a few
things to just dying without enough water. I am willing to face my
losses. I more want the survivors, the wonderful pots and containers,
and that black soil to add to the future beds around this house as
you've all read in the past writings.

I have started a few of Helen's seeds she sent me, and hopefully I
will have some flowers to tuck in here and there. I don't do well
with some seeds, but the ones that drop and grow are what do well with
me........Columbine, cleome, blackberry lily, 4 o'clocks, rudbeckia,
anything that reseeds with abandon and without
encouragments........not to mention rampant dividers and makers of
many children are welcome still by me. I didn't (DON'T FLAME ME
PLEASE) have the time to dig up my purple loosestrife, it behaved for
me very well and didn't reseed at all.........I had the two plants I
dug up in Michigan where it IS a thug, and didn't get Gooseneck
loosestrife either...........Lost my varigated Fallopia as well, which
I hate, but maybe I'll find a source later on. It didn't spread for
me either. I had great luck with the Hellebore eventually, and I'm
champing at the bits to get my potted daylilies back to plug them into
a temporary bed. Any bulbs of narcissus I'll plant now and leave them
when I move. But I'll be here for at least another year..........and
given our plans, maybe a bit more than that.

The trees have all leafed out here, and the thunderstorms and
lightening we had a few days ago fed the leaves some nourishing
nitrogen and the greens are darker. I have had a positive encounter
with a wren who spotted my discarded and emptied thistle seed socks in
the driveway..........apparently the starlings were imposing and too
threatening, and once the wren spotted the dumped seed, she started
coming regularly to her own private buffet! I have inclinations to
put one of the bird feeders on the eastern side near the bedroom
window like what I had on the ridge, despite being overrun by
robins..........and hope for the best. And one on the western side
near the unused driveway beside the herb garden and hope to draw
cardinals and other hidden birds. I still miss finches and hope
desperately that once my flowers bulk up and I plant more and more,
that the word will be spread to more varieties of them. Time will
tell and at least there's mockingbirds and cardinals and robins and
wrens! Mourning doves are alright but I'm not nuts about the
starlings. A few bluejays, but not as many as I would have thought.
I've heard a woodpecker, but not seen anything else due to being in
the older part of town. Gloria, however has a good assortment. I even
miss the titmouse!! oh well........

I will close for now and go wandering down the road and see if there's
neat things to see. I hope you all have a good weekend, and the
weather is kind to you. Gentle rains, and sunshine and just cool
enough weather to keep the petals on the flowers a bit longer.

All my love to my gardening friends, thanks for allowing me to
share........

maddie up in the green bowl, surrounded by the Cherokee National
Forest and the Appalachians and gardening in an historic part of town
in zone 6b -7a