My Patio Garden – Spring 2015

I confess after I packed away the decorations and stuff that I had on my patio I just let it do as it pleased for the whole of the winter and a good proportion of the spring too. Eventually, the trees growing on my patio that the management company cut down, started to grow back. They grew so tall they not only fell over, they took over. As did the rose bush.

The weather in Northern California has been very warm this spring and not spring-like at all, with very little rain. Though we did get the odd cold (cold being relative) patch here and there. Most of the plants seemed to bloom too early and stores started to sell gardening supplies and young plants far too early in the season. I waited until I was sure that the last “cold patch” was done with before I spent the day pruning, cleaning, potting, and decorating my patio garden.

Most of the decorations and stuff from last year survived storage without any problems, but our bird feeder molded so I had to throw it out, but I found this cute little swinging guy and the birds seem to like him. We also got a funny little frog in epic pants… if you’re a game nerd you’ll understand!

I didn’t go quite as nuts with the plants this year due to the overly mild winter letting several of the seasonal plants survive. Among them a cherry tomato plant and an Anaheim pepper plant. I did have to replace most of my herb plants though, the snails feasted on them after the rain washed away the repellent pellets. The little bastards! I gave the chives a good soaking and they came right back. I also planted a few sunflowers and peppered the ground with slug & snail repellent… last year the little bastards ate my sunflowers too!

I got a few herb plants I’ve never had before. Stevia, Thai basil, and Greek oregano. I hope they do well and I get to use them in some recipes.

I’m going make a few decorations and I’m finishing up painting another bird feeder, plus we can’t seem to find any hummingbird food for our hummingbird feeder so it’s not up yet.

So I guess I still have a little work to do, but all in all, I’m happy with the way its turned out so far.