Frustrating Friday

At the beginning of this week, I had big plans about all that I would accomplish in the garden in the next seven days. Well, the sixth day is history and most of my big plans are unfulfilled. What with one thing and another, events and the weather intervened to screw things up for me. Sometimes it seems that that is the story of my life. Frustration, thou art the gardener's middle name.

Most of what I had hoped to accomplish involved putting in some new beds on the south side of the house and working on getting stones laid in the sitting area under my red oak tree. It wasn't a total washout because I did get the turf removed from the area where I'm installing the new bed along the side of the house, and DH (Dauntless Hubby) did spend one day working on the sitting area, removing some roots that were in the way, but the rest will just have to wait for us. The weather is looking a bit more promising for tomorrow, so maybe I can recoup part of my plans then.

Meantime, the weather is what woke me Friday morning at 4:00. A loud clap of thunder that sounded like it exploded right outside my window was followed by rain pounding the roof. I listened for quite some time before I managed to drift off to dreamland again. When I got up later and checked my rain gauge, I found that we had gotten two-and-a-half inches of rain during the night. Even though the rain let up after daybreak, it was too wet and muddy to do much work outside. A bit chilly, too.

Fortunately, the weather forecast for this weekend seems to have ameliorated a bit. That big freeze that was being forecast early in the week has gone away. The predictors now say it should get down to 32 here tonight, which means that it will probably be a bit colder than that in my backyard. Still, that's much better than the 20s that were predicted earlier.

In the time that I did get to spend in the garden this week, I was dismayed to see that more damage from the January freeze continues to rear its ugly head. Some oleanders that I thought would be okay now look like burnt toast, although they may still come back from the roots. My bougainvilleas and split-leaf philodrendons sustained more damage than I had thought, although they, too, may still come back given time. On the other hand, while examining the bed where my agapanthus lives, I was heartened to see the green tips of new growth pushing up through the mushy damaged leaves.

In other chores around the garden this week, I did manage to get some mulching of beds completed, a little more pruning of woody shrubs, and a bit more clean-up here and there, but, all in all, I have to admit I'm feeling a bit frustrated and cranky about my week so far. All I can say is, that sun better come out tomorrow!