We are in full swing over at Chez Shells gardens, Mr. Ink got numerous trees and plants in the mail yesterday. I can’t tell you what each of them are as I am not entirely sure. He said something about a weeping redbud, that was the surprise tree. And another he said something about a dwarf of a dwarf japanese maple maybe? But it’s leaves were lime green. And then he got his almost holy grail. Again, not entirely sure what it is but I think it’s some kind of juniper. His holy grail of trees cannot be planted in zone 5. But, he says he’s still got that tree in his sights since he feels that global warming is so fast, we’ll be in zone 6 soon enough.

A Mr. Ink who is planting trees is an exceedingly happy Mr. Ink. And isn’t that a fantastic tree? Let’s take a closer look.

Here she is, in the ground. I offered to hold her skirt while he filled in the hole with dirt, as her long skirt kept ending up under ground. She’s really quite weird and fascinating, and we really love her!  No sense posting the other trees, they just look like sticks in the ground right now without their leaves. Hopefully we’ll get to see them looking a bit more pretty soon.

I’ve got hyacinths almost blooming!

I think I’ve realized why these two are so far ahead of the rest. They are right in front of the dryer vent! So, each weekend all winter long they were getting a number of hours of steady blast hot air. Seems to have made a difference. This section of garden is scheduled to get its edging makeover this spring, to match the rest of the gardens. Mr. Ink has removed the sod from the far end, and it should be edged in as soon as we are done with the burning bush stump and root system removal in April. As an update on that project, we’ve dug down deep enough to realize that the problem with the leaning retaining wall is entirely the burning bush root system pushing on that wall. Which would indicate to me it was very important for us to remove that bush. If it can do that to a retaining wall, what’s it doing to my foundation?!

Anyhow, that’s a wrap up of our evening. It was a pretty nice night. I’ve been feeling slightly under the weather, can’t be sure if it’s allergies or a cold coming on, so I went to bed nice and early and slept SO WELL. That’s just an all around nice set up for the weekend!