Demise of the Mushroom Cloud

So, this beast of a bush to the right of the window is what I dubbed "The Mushroom Cloud". I tried to trim it up the first summer we lived here...but it still looked hideous. This past summer ('08) I finally got my husband to whip out the reciprocating saw and buzz it to pieces. The root systems wasn't that deep, so it wound up being pretty easy to pull out.

I planted a beautiful red toned hydrangea in it's place (not pictured yet) to balance out all the green limelight hydrangeas I planted in front of the window. The hydrangea is complimented by asters, mums, pansies and zinnia's in front. So much more color than what used to be there (all evergreens).

I'm looking forward to seeing all of the new bushes come into bloom this spring. We completely redid the entire perimeter of the back yard with new bushes and perennials. I should have taken an hour in the fall to sit down and actually plot out on paper what exactly I planted and where. I guess it will just add to the excitement of seeing green poking through the soil in a few months.

I was outside today tidying up a little - cutting down the ornamental grasses in the front yard, trimming up the thyme and oregano plants, cleaning up debris and loosening any annuals that would budge out of the still semi-frozen ground. Counting down the days until the estimated last frost for Zone 5 (April 15)...only about 5 1/2 weeks away!

It's a little too soon to start planting any seeds up - don't want them to get leggy under the lights in the basement.....but I did plant up some Genovese basil inside a large apothecary jar by the windowsill. A few more days and we'll be getting some sprouts coming up. I couldn't resist planting "something" up just for the fun of watching it grow (while there's still snow in forecast).

Here are a few shots of my favorite plants from the 2008 garden:

This ornamental cabbage just kept growing, and growing and growing until it flowered with dozens of yellow flowers. I let it stay up until after the first snow...but then it started going stinky (the scent of fermenting cabbage on the way to the front door was not how I wanted guests to be greeted) so I chopped it down and threw it on the compost heap.

I also loved the chocolaty colored plant behind the cabbage - Thai basil. So potent! Just one leaf in a recipe contributes such flavor and scent. I had a lot of it left over in the fall so I just cut the entire plant down and dried the leaves in the oven, crushed them and bottled it. Even dried, it has retained it's smell and flavor wonderfully! I'll be sure to plant this up again in '09.

Not a good picture - this is the oceana blue salvia that I managed to grow from seeds I collected from my 2007 plants. Only a few seeds actually germinated and the plant is pretty much green all summer until about August when it finally blooms the most beautiful true blue color. It's a very airy plant and looks best when grouped together and provided with some support since it grows about 3 feet tall. I'm hoping to have a lot more seeds germinate in 2009 since I collected a lot more in '08 than I did in '07.