A Kansas Prairie Garden: April 2011

The view from our kitchen window

There's a new pond in the meadow across the street, which makes for a lovely view––at least until the grasses grow taller.

Good Friday

Celebrating Good Friday (and Earth Day) by planting our flower pots (and wearing this T-shirt).

What's blooming April 20. . .

We came home from almost a week in California to find the garden exploding. Can't wait to start filling flower pots!

April 11 and columbine is blooming

I love the way columbine fills in while everything else is just starting to grow.

We have a tendency to name our garden plots and flower beds. It just makes it easier to discuss the garden. Well, Lightpole Garden caused a LOT of discussion from the beginning. Ken wanted to put a small flower bed around the street light pole at the edge of our yard so he could mow a nice curve and not have to weed-eat around the pole. I thought that would only draw attention to a pole we'd rather wasn't in our yard. But THE gardener usually wins these kind of discussions (because he's usually right.)

We killed (we hope!) the evil, stinky, invasive plant we had in the Lightpole Garden the last couple years. (I don't remember its name or I'd warn you about it!) This year we chose an annual (unless we have a warm winter?) Dianthus to replace it. The tag says it will bloom spring to fall and needs just the amount of sun that spot gets––and we could fill the bed for $9.47. I'll post "after" photos later this summer. Those beautiul rocks came from Ken's 101-year-old grandpa's pastures in the Smoky Hills of Ellsworth County.

April 7 and our first flowers of the year are in! Yay!

Blooms!

April 5, and we have green, green grass, and almost overnight, the pear trees across the street are in full, beautiful bloom. We've been cutting back a few grasses each evening and are getting close to finished. Tomorrow night's project will be the rock wall. You can see on the right where we left off with tonight's cutting.

Our Korean Sun ornamental pear is blooming, but sadly half the tree appears to be dead. We have not had very good luck with our trees, and will be sad if we lose this one, too. For now we pruned some of the for-sure dead branches and are taking a wait-and-see approach.