more gardening

Yesterday, I finally got most of the flowers planted into pots.  Some of the plants should go into the ground, but that bed in the backyard isn't ready yet.  It needs more topsoil and I'm not quite ready to test my back on lifting heavy bags of dirt.  So those plants went into pots and will wait a while to be transferred into the ground.  Actually, they will be fine in pots all summer, but need to be in the ground before winter.  Anyway, my deck looks much better, with only a few items to dispose of or clean up.  I took some photos of the new plants and will post them in this blog.  Of course, these pots will look better when the plants are larger and the flowers in full bloom.

I've been entertained lately with the antics of young squirrels on my bird feeder.  The feeder has a tray that is made so that anything heavier than a cardinal perching on it will close the feeder.  The bluejays have figured out a way around this.  They manage to hover in place, with a mad flapping of wings, just long enough to grab a seed and then fly away.  There are at least two that can do this trick.  The squirrels, however, cannot figure out how to get those seeds.  They gingerly crawl out on the pole that holds the feeder, then they climb on the roof of the feeder and try to reach the seeds without sliding off.  No luck!  Most of them manage to leap back onto the deck railing, rather than falling all the way to the ground, although, some of them have fallen to land unhurt.  It's only the squirrels born each spring that even bother with this feeder.  Their elders have learned that it's impossible, but the young'uns have to try.  I can't get decent photos of them, because if I get close to the window, they leap off.  And the flash reflects on the window.  You'll just have to imagine very frustrated and indignant squirrels, doing acrobatics on the feeder.

Today, we are off to another nursery.  They said they have pink dogwoods.  We'll see.