Does anyone else feel like they have had a long work-out after a day of gardening and yard work? I filled my planter boxes this weekend and yesterday hauled dirt from point A to B and my body is sore today..

What are you planting or preparing to plant? I transplanted some patio peach trees into containers and I am preparing a spot for sunflowers..

What are your favorite plants? I love my hosta. I put them in containers with other flowers and they live on my porches with little attention. I also love my shurb rose "knock out". Again little attention and it look great. I have a water garden with fish and the water look nasty at the moment but as long as the fish and water lilies are happy, I am happy. Hopefully have roses in a few weeks.

Kat

Some days I let gardening count as exercise, also. This week I have been pruning bushes and trees. Heavy duty pruning with a saw and loppers, not the little scissors. Also much weeding, and setting out gallon size plants. After 3-4 non-stop hours of this it had better be exercise

I like Hostas also. I bought a couple new ones this week. I also bought Astilbes (red, pink, purple and white), columbine, coral bells, and some others--can't think of the names right now. It is hard work sometimes, but satisfying. I am also the grass mower here.

Joan

Today DH and I burned off some brush from an old fence. We are expanding the back yard. It will look nice but increase my cutting time by 30 to 45 minutes.

I finished up my sunflower bed today and they are calling for frost tonight. All of my roses are about to open. I hope they live through it.

I only went to curves 1 time this week but I sure feel like I got my work out. We have a new weed eater and it kicks my butt..

Glad to have someone to talk to about the gardening stuff.

I am in Virginia. I bought 12 gallon sized perrenials yesterday afternoon. It rained hard, so it was too muddy to set them out today. It is calling for 38 degrees tonight, but it is now so windy, that it might happen to get down to freezing. I know perrenials won't be hurt by cold---but since they are in pots still, did not want to chance it, so I just put them on the enclosed back porch!

I love Sunflowers too. A Sunflower bed is in my future plans. I fell a few years ago and shattered my arm and severely sprained my ankle and broke my knee. I have neglected my gardening for a couple years due to this. It feels so good to be excited about my flower beds again, and to actually feel like doing the work again! Best therapy in the world, well--maybe besides the beach!

I go to a place similar to Curves--it has the Pace hydraulic circuit workout, but we can adjust our machines to suit us, I have heard you can't do that with the Curves machines, not sure. I like it. I only made it twice this week. I have to work everything around my husband's schedule right now and he works two jobs. The reason is my doggie had knee surgery, so unless I board him for the day, he has to be with me to make sure he does not jump on anything or climb anything---he has been leashed to me now for quite a while including the time after he hurt the leg before they finally decided on surgery. I use my gazelle or WATP tapes or lately, the gardening, when I can't get there though.

Talk to you more soon. Joan

I do most of the yardwork at my house as well since my DH has really bad allergies and just can't handle all the dust and stuff kicked up by raking, mowing, etc...
Last weekend I raked out all my garden beds, bagged up 6 yard waste bags full of leaves, put down fresh cedar mulch on my rose beds, finally got the Christmas lights out of the front bushes, turned under one of my vegetable beds and planted cabbage, some Pansies and a Peony. Talk about sore....and that's only about 1/3 of the work I need to get done before I can plant my vegetables!
I had planned to mow for the first time this weekend, but now it's snowing.

Joan and Lisa - Hello.
Well the weather here in TN has turned off cold and we had a freeze warning last night so we were running around with sheets covering stuff up. My daughters birthday party is in 2 weeks and I wanted everything to look nice.

We still have not turned the ground were are veggies are going. We wanted to do it yesterday so the frost would kill any thing that turned up but it just didn't happen.

I feel like we compete with our neighbors to keep a nice yard. Both neighbors have swimming pools and we don't. Although one neighbor will cut his grass every week but they NEVER weed eat. And the other has a professional crew come in everyweek and does everything... That would be nice.

They are both great neighbors.. Well gotta un-cover all my flowers and shrubs..

Kat

Well, we sure slowed down fast on this topic! I am sure it is because we have been busy in our gardens. I know I have. It has rained the last couple days. I wish it would quit, have lots of new plants to set out, and 5 scoops of good compost was delivered yesterday. (Covered by a couple tarps now) Hope you are all well, and that the gardening fairy has been good to you.
Joan

The weather just stinks here the past several days (week?) so I've not been able to do much in the garden. Did mow the grass last weekend, but that's about it. I use the push mower to do the trim work and around the fences while Hubby uses the rider so, yeah, I count that as exercise!

Yes I sure do feel like the best workout when outside gardening and etc...I have some beautiful Hosta's too Last year my dog tore one up and I was so mad I just planted the half he tore out, and this year I have 2 beautiful ones I love Canna's so easy to take care of and huge with those beautiful red flowers! I brought some bulbs from Mexico that my mother-in-law gave me and they are coming up! I'm excited to see what kind of Flower they are! I will have to dig them up in the fall ( I'm sure they couldn't handle these winters) but I don't care!

Well..the weather here is finally summer-like (high of 87 today!). Spent part of the day mowing and trimming hedges and this evening, planted some Geraniums to go in pots on my front steps, some Morning Glories to run along the fence next to my driveway and some sunflower seeds in a large pot right next to my front steps (I can support them with ties to the front port pillar if they get too large). I planted Morning Glories last year and they always made me smile when I left for work in the morning. I planted the flower boxes on my front porch with Petunias and Impatience a few weeks ago and those are starting to get going nicely.
The work never stops when you've got a garden, though. My Asparagus bed needs weeding badly and my cabbages and zucchini could stand some weeding as well. I may not be able to plant much of anything else since my other 2 beds were badly overgrown with ivy and it's been slow going getting that cleared out (any tips would be welcome!). I may have to settle for a fall salad garden in those beds.
I have a small herb garden right behind the house in a three tier cedarwood pyramid that my DH built for me several years ago (tried strawberries in there, but they never did well); I have Basil, Oregano, Rosemary, Sage and Lavender along with a few flowers; dianthus, peony (in the top pyramid) and midget mums. Thanks to my neighbor's maple tree, I'm having to weed that every few days right now as new maple saplings start growing.
I've also planted a few Dahlias and those are just starting to come up.
Phew! The central air sure feels good tonight!

I used to work in the plum orchards in Northern California.

Not exactly gardening, but I didn't gain weight until after that experience.

Gardening does burn calories, is relaxing, and does have a work/reward relationship.

I prefer vegetable gardening. And except for the corn for the kids, have a pretty good low-carb garden started (tomatoes, bush beans, cantelope, crook neck squash, butter nut squash). I am still thinking about adding some spaghetti squash and bell peppers.

Jon

Today is grass day, so I will be cutting grass for the next 4 hours or so. We weeded out garden yesterday. I also need to water our container plants..

We have corn, tomatoes, peppers, green beans and cucumbers. We mixed in sunflowers all over as well.

Happy gardening..

Kat

[B]I cut the grass last night in between mosquito bites! Just kidding, I sprayed myself, only got one bite. I am going to work on a new flower bed today, and the plants are all gallon size and I have to dig in hard red clay dirt. So, that will be a good workout. If I need a break to that, or if I get to it, I have some other stuff to re-pot and some stuff that just needs potting, and a stump that I need to start removing.....and......the list goes on. If I don't forget, I will list later what I plant today! Have a great gardening day! After much heat and humidity, we are finally having a couple cooler days, so I hope to get a lot done! Joan

This is what I planted yesterday:

White Coneflower

Pink Coneflower

Pink Cosmos (a perenniel with raspberry pink daisy like flowers, yellow centers)

Shasta Daisy

Veronica (this one has kind of a raspberry colored flower stalk too)

Sedum Matrona

Sedum Neon

Purple Rain Sage

Guara (Stalks of little helicopter flowers, white with some pink)

Cosmos Atrosanguineus (Dark velvety maroon flowers that have a slightly spiced chocolater aroma at dusk, commonly called "Chocolate Cosmos.")

Lantana Pink Caprice (This is the one that each flower is multi-colored--pinks and yellows of all shades)

Heuchera "Swirling Fantasy" Coral Bell ( I have two other different coral bells in another section)

Blue Loveliness Self-Heal

Trachelium (I think a type of Bellflower)

There is another one, will have to find the tag and tell you later