My Own Little Greenhouse

So I got some money for my birthday from various generous parents and in-laws, and I decided I wanted to buy some flowers for my backyard garden.

BIG mistake.

Flowers + April weather = much death and destruction. I have now made the following mental note in my head - "Do NOT, under any circumstances, no matter how excited you are that spring is coming, buy or plant any flowers until mid- to late-May. You live in Idaho, dumb fart. Don't even go there."

So I bought some bleeding hearts (these always remind me of you, Camel. I love your mom's bleeding heart bushes. FYI, bleeding hearts are Sadie's favorite flower) and some fizzy lemonberry pansies. Could the name of a flower be any cooler than that? If I was to change my name to something cool, I would change it to Fizzy Lemonberry. Maybe that would be my rock star name.

Right about the time I came home with said plants was when I realized that this was going to be a big pain in the butt. It was still freezing at night, which is fine for the fizzy lemonberries (I'm going to see how many times in this post I can say that name - 3rd), but NOT for the bleeding hearts. Pansies are good until about 18 degrees - nice and hearty. Bleeding hearts do like shade, but they aren't fans of freezing, as I found out.

So I had to bring the plants out in the sun during the day and put them in the garage at night. Over and over again, night after night. And some days, I couldn't bring them out at all, because we had 30-mph winds. It was just a huge pain in the butt.

I put them out one day, and I forgot to put them in that night, and oh boy, did I pay for that. It froze. When I went out the next morning to assess the damage, the plants were all frozen solid.

The fizzy lemonberries (4) recovered pretty well:

Aren't they GORGEOUS? So showy.

Whenever I think of pansies, I think of the pansies in Alice and Wonderland:

Those pansies in Alice in Wonderland kind of freak me out, actually.

So the fizzy lemonberries (5) made it. The bleeding hearts, however, were pissed:

The heart-shaped blooms withered, as did all of the stalks. I finally had to succumb and give all of them a haircut:

And then I had to really baby them for a couple of weeks. I kept them inside, watered, and in the sun:

They were totally in the way. The kids kept tripping and falling on them. But I think falling kids weren't as bad as that wind that was out there for a couple of weeks.

All of my babying paid off:

Finally, two weeks ago or so, I felt safe enough to put the dang things in the ground:

I'm pleased to say that they are quite happy back there. Those fizzy lemonberries (6) are funny - when they're thirsty, they don't droop, as other plants do. They lie flat down. They look like someone came and sat on each one of them. I discovered this one day - I saw them lying down, all smooshed, and I thought, "Oh my gosh, those dang kids stepped on all of my fizzy lemonberries (7)!!!" But as soon as I watered them, they perked right back upright. Weird.

Yes, those back flowerbeds are sparse. I've historically kind of put all of my effort and money into my flower beds in the front, but I'm excited to do more work in the back, now that the front is pretty full.

Well, I should amend that statement. I'm excited to do more work in the back next year, when we're back from China. My original plans for this year were to plant some hostas, snapdragons, and impatiens in those beds to accompany the fizzy lemonberries (8) and bleeding hearts. Obviously, I won't be spending money on something that no one will enjoy, so those plans will have to wait for next year.

As for this summer, only the squirrels and birds will enjoy the flowers in my backyard. :)