Recent discoveries, notes, observations:
* The things I thought were geraniums, with the bright orange blood? They're not geraniums. I have no idea wtf they are; 99% sure they're a weed, though. Celandine, maybe? Anyway, they are EVERYWHERE, but not for long.
* Mowing the front lawn this morning, I found patches of what I think are daisies and yarrow growing in the middle of it. I am going to mow around them and see what they turn into.
* As sad and scraggly as said lawn is, it does look better for having been mowed. The backyard lawn, meanwhile, is so weed-ridden and generally lame that I can't find the motivation to bother.
* I posted before about the lovely purpleleaf sandcherry, which we wants, precioussss. As it turns out, it looks like we already have one in front of the front steps. Awesome! Pictures to come when it blooms.
* The front yard in general is actually looking not-half-bad at the moment. The hanging baskets full of mini-petunias I hung by the door certainly don't hurt, either.
* The probably-a-spirea looks a hundred times better with the dead wood mostly chopped out. As a bonus, this freed up a nice chunk of sunny dirt to weed and plant stuff in. After the thing blooms I will take out the remaining low-hanging branches, thus freeing up more dirt, and call it pruned for this year. Also, I ♥ my new bigass Lee Valley ratcheting pruners.
* Blaze climbing rose is already twice the height it was when I planted it. Eeeeexcellent.
* Something is eating the flower buds off my rhododendron...close inspection suggests insects. Grrrrrr. Dammit, City of Ottawa, I want my rotenone powder back! Well, at least the leaf spikes seem to be undamaged.

Patio Progress:
So the UsedOttawa vendor with the rocks is a private individual with, well, a lot of rocks on their land. I am going to go visit them on Tuesday, hopefully, to check that said rocks will be barefoot-friendly enough to use for my purposes. If they are, this will be an unbelievably kickass bargain, to the tune of saving me $2.50 per square foot, aka about $1000 when taxes and pickup vs. delivery are figured in. So needless to say I really hope this works out. The stones will not be as schmancy as the $3/sqft limestone variety, but I'm going for a rustic look anyway, so whatevah.

Brought my seedlings home from mom's place. Mixed results - no pinks, marigolds, jacob's ladder or astilbe. One single solitary delphinium. And one of the cats has just chowed down on the pampas grass, and then to add insult to injury, threw it up all over the floor. Siiiigh. Well, we'll see if they recover, it's not as if the stuff was likely to bloom the first year anyway.

The annual seedlings are doing well, though. Cosmos, asters, bachelor's buttons, and zinnias are all looking good. Need to assess what annuals to buy...after tomorrow's plant sale, I guess, so I know what space I have. Lots of begonias and double impatiens to fill the shady west bed, anyway. I would really like to track down some cleome, too, but have never yet seen it for sale. In any case, the prospect of being able to mess around with all the sunny annuals has me drooling. Although it would be very easy to spend a lot of money this way, so I will endeavour to use annuals only as punctuation and container plants.

Anyway, need to make dumplings, so my garden fantasies will have to wait. Till TOMORROW. Ahahahahahahaa!