More Container Plantings and a Surprise Gift

It was a beautiful sunny day here in Metuchen, New Jersey, so I decided to plant my herb barrel.  I picked up the barrel a few days ago and have been very eager to get some herbs into it.  I had originally purchased one from Amazon but it was badly packed, so it arrived broken.  I returned it but did not want to wait for a replacement to be delivered, so just bought a new one at the local Home Depot.  I usually have great experiences with Amazon and have never had to return anything, so I was extremely impressed with how easy the return process was.  I just printed out the label, repacked the barrel, slapped the label on and my mail carrier picked it up.  A couple of days later, I had my refund.  I didn't even have to talk to anyone to complain or ask for a refund.  Amazon is pretty awesome, I have to say.

Anyway, some of the herbs came from the Rutger's University garden day (which we attended last weekend), but I grew some of them myself from seed.  I started by putting some plastic bottles in the bottom of the barrel and filled it with potting mix, peat moss and some dry fertilizer.  Supposedly the plastic bottles make the pot lighter because you use less potting mix and improve drainage.  Also, it's great for us because the MOTH drinks tons of bottled water (which I hardly ever drink) and I always feel so guilty about throwing those little bottles into the recycling bins.  Who knows if they don't just end up in some landfill somewhere anyway?  So, now I can actually use them for something productive and positive.  Then I transplanted herbs, watered them and added a layer of mulch.  And Voila!

Clockwise from the top, we have:  tarragon, flat parsley, oregano, curly parsley, sweet basil, thyme, sage and (in the center) lemon verbena.

I also planted a container of succulents.  Again, most of these are from Rutgers, but I picked up a couple more from Home Depot to fill out the pot.  I planted these in regular potting mix but I added some extra perlite to make it lighter and improve drainage.  Here is the finished product:

Finally, I got a nice surprise gift from one of the landscapers who is bidding for the job on my property.  He initially came by on Thursday (he's the one who noticed the bird's nest).  Then, he came by again today to take photos of the property, and gave me a Lily that he said was left over from another landscaping job.  It was a bit sad looking and dry with a bunch of yellow fronds, so I cut off the dead fronds and gave her some water.  Now I just have to figure out where to put her:

According to her tag, she is a Black Eyed Stella Daylily who should be planted in sun to partial sun.

We Have a Nest

Over the past week, we've been meeting with various landscapers and tree people to try to come up with a plan for our backyard.  We have a number of large trees that hang over the yard (and in some cases quite close to the house).  So, in almost every case, the landscapers and tree people have advised us to cut back various tree limbs both to open up the canopy and to protect against limbs hitting the house during storms, etc.  Interestingly, the last landscaper who met with us today was the only one who noticed this:

Excuse the poor quality - I don't have a telephoto lens

We have a little bird's nest (with a little mommy bird in it) in one of the tree limbs that everyone has been telling us to cut down.  Obviously, that tree limb ain't going nowhere until mama bird finishes her business.  I'm not saying the other guys wouldn't have noticed it at some point before it was too late - I'm sure they would have.  But it was interesting that only one person was observant enough to catch it right then during the initial consult.