Garden and baby rambling

[sexy_romulan]

Planted my most recent purchases this evening. OOOOoooooooh I really want to get going on that hardscaping so I can dig out and define a bed or two! The amount of space that would net me pretty much blows my mind, considering how many plants I've already crammed into the front garden and the east backyard bed. I suppose I should really take a couple weeks and let everything grow in, but the brain fizz I get from buying and planting new plants is mad addictive. I've offered to help my mom dig stuff up in her garden in exchange for patio-building help in mine, though. She may even have a sneaky flagstone connection for me.

Well, it's not like I have nothing to do out there in the meantime. I still need to:

* chop down the remaining hydrangeas - my neighbour's example confirms that they do in fact get pruned right down in the spring
* pry up the stupid paving stones in the back corner and the west bed (might pick up a pry bar for the purpose, actually)...a clematis would go nicely up the fence there (plus other semi-shade plants TBD)
* dig up the west bed in general - I will keep some of the geraniums to see how they turn out, but the orange daylilies can definitely go
* set up some sort of trellis structures to camouflage the compost bins - nice and sunny in that spot, so scarlet runner beans would probably like it there - and the a/c unit
* chop down the forest of suckers around the lilac
* clean up the through-space between carport and shed, which is littered with plant containers, leaves, and yard waste from the fall
* set up birdbath and buy a bird feeder
* get honeysuckle trained onto trellis thingy

At Loblaws today I was delighted to spy two gorgeous types of tree for $60 a pop, which seems pretty reasonable, really:

Flowering Almond


Purpleleaf Sandcherry


These both max out at about 10', a nice manageable size. I have, at the moment, nowhere prepared to put them, but god knows I've got expanses of sunny lawn I'm planning to get rid of. Or could I plant such things next to the west fence, since they're already tall enough that the canopy would probably be in the sun anyway? I hesitate, though, because these both seem to have a reputation for being fragile with regard to pests and diseases. I don't want to spend $60 on a plant that's going to die on me. They also had the extraordinarily funky-looking corkscrew hazel available for $40 or $50.

* * *

Rose, meanwhile, has lately morphed into the Amazing Non-Napping Zoodle What Does Not Nap In The Daytime. She falls asleep at the boob as before, and will snooze peacefully on me as before...until I try to put her down, at which point: SPROING, awake! If I need to nap or have a book to read, I just hang onto her and we both sock out on the couch for a couple hours. The sling or stroller have been known to achieve snoozing, too, when the weather's nice. Still, I am going to experiment over the next few days to see if I can find some new Jedi Mind Trick to achieve a regular nap that occurs somewhere other than on me. It's trickier to get stuff done otherwise, and more importantly the absence of a regular nap makes for a very grumpy baby as the day winds down.

A soother may or may not help with this - she rarely falls asleep except while nursing, so something to suck on could conceivably help her stay asleep. She's so unfussy that we haven't really needed one, though, so she's not used to having one; she'll suck on the soother but really prefers her fingers. Which, fine, except she can't quite get her fingers to stay where she wants them yet, so they're no help in Project Nap. I will also try putting her in the crib to nap; that didn't work before (result: SPROING!) so I've been putting her down for naps in her little saucer-chair, but maybe that preference has mysteriously reversed itself, who knows.

Still no problems getting her to bed at night, at least - thank god and knock on wood.

Comments

[missquirt.livejournal.com]

I don't know if this helps at all, but my parents have had a flowering almond like that one in Kanata for as long as I can remember. They have a history of losing plants/trees/the lawn to various pests and diseases, but that little tree is still going strong! The flower are so beautiful, too!