On Sunday I ventured into my gardens and was disgusted with the lack of maintenance. I need to seriously devote some time to it before Winter sets in. I need to move some plants and remove tons of weeds! Yucky!

Now that I’m knitting I just can’t seem to fit this hobby in. The sad part of it all is that the weather has been gorgeous! So there’s no reason for me to be knitting inside. I need a chair to sit on my porch and then I can do both. Yup, must find one.

Knitting Front
I’m about half way done with my Mother’s bday scarf. I need another skein of Koigu to finish it. While I’m waiting to purchase that I started another project. I’m knitting another scarf for a relative in pinks and purples. Pic to come soon.

The Poncho is still on hold until I buy another yarn to strand along with the mohair. I think I’ve found one but just need to check for color. While at Springwater Fiber Workshop I found tons of Jaggerspun yarn on cones. Gorgeous stuff! I’m going there today to pick it up along with Koigu. Oh and I’m still waiting for an extra skein of Mountain Colors Weaver’s Wool in Garnet. I’ve emailed the shopowner for a status.

Let’s see…Klaralund. I’ve done a swatched and blocked it yesterday. I think I’ll need to go up to US9 needles because my preliminary measurements came up to 17 stitches & 23 rows for 4″. That was done on my Denise US 8 needles. I think I’ll use my Addis for the next swatch.

And last but not least in my list of projects: the basketweave pullover. I still haven’t received my Webs order for the Lana D’Oro yarn. They are sooo backed up. Dang it.

Yiiippeee! the hideous, spindly rose bushes have been removed from my west facing border. In their place, I’ll be planting peonies, verbascum ‘jackie’, salvia san carlos festival, veronicas, geraniums and other good stuff. Pic to follow soon.

On a somewhat different note, I finally got to visit Lazy S’s Farm Nursery this past Sunday on our way back from Charlottesville. While their entire stock wasn’t out yet you can still get a feel for how large of an operation they truly are. Best of all these guys truly have some great unique and less common perennials for very reasonable prices. My next shopping spree will be this Fall when I place my mail order with them.

Everything has begun poking their heads through the soil - at least that I can remember. Funny though, I have tons of plant labels from last year’s purchases and I have no idea where I planted them. Hopefully I’ll be to identify them later.

For now, I’m concentrating on the very front beds. I’ve removed the nasty Liriope and some Irises. I’m planning on planting some Astrantia, Hellebores, and other shade loving perennials. This weekend should be a big purchasing event! Yippeee!!!

I’ll take some pics soon and put up.

After a nearly a month of not weeding I found myself filling up a nice large bags of greens. I’ve been putting off working in the gardens but this weekend was soooo beautiful that I stepped out. I need to do a complete review of my gardens and see what needs to be cut back and so on. There’s lots of maintenance to be done.

This Spring I bought one Salvia ‘Blue Ensign’ from A World of Salvias. The owner of this mail order place knows a lot about Salvias and has quite a collection. I bought another salvia from him but it hasn’t bloomed yet.

Here’s the photo of my blooming Salvia (click image for larger photo):