One has to restart the blogging somewhere, and window box renewal is as good a place as any. For the past three months I've been sitting here with my feet on the desk ignoring the spring bulbs (the red tulips were gorgeous) and the flowering of the cherry (the annual show is increasingly spectacular) and suddenly the mock orange is about to bloom so...
I am feeling particularly self-congratulatory since I have spent a grand total of $25 (plus tax) to plant out the five boxes this year.
The hot pink geraniums wintered over in my solarium-winter garden - aviary (yes! new news!) along with purple and variegated wandering jew. Ivy fills the box corners year 'round and I left my little cheats -- the fauxberries and such which will cheer the boxes when I forget to water and/or something drops dead.
So my only purchase was five green potato vines to grow front and center in each box; vines that given some months and absolutely minimal care will swag the front of the house in a poison green ruffle of leaves.
While I rarely flack products I am called to do so because I recently received this item called a CobraHead Weeder (www.cobrahead.com) which is the niftiest tool in my gardening arsenal. I got it for free because a few months ago I became a member of the Garden Writers Association (an event that caused me to immediately stop writing about gardens). However, as this tool offset somewhat my dues, I was happy to receive it and use it and so now guilt-driven I am mentioning it.
But I would NOT mention it if it wasn't damn good. The pointy end of the thing, which I guess would be the cobra's snout, made amazingly quick work of turning the window box soil. It was so easy I had to remind myself that this is usually a sweaty chore, what with the tangle of old roots and rocks and oddities inserted to discourage pigeons and encourage moisture and whatnot -- all of it congealed into a rather unyielding mass after a winter of sitting there being largely fake and therefore unwatered.
If you go to their website there's a how to video showing the tool in action.
I would show you mine if I had had the foresight to make one.
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