Thursday, January 21, 2010

Digging in

I surprised Dogger this morning. Instead of a quick trot outside to go pee, we went on a walk! I opened the door to get the paper and it wasn't cold, I decided that it was now or never and Dogger needs the rehab now. Its going to rain the next few days and I thought I should get my trot on while I could. Dogger and I haven't gone on a morning walk since November! It's been in turns very cold or very wet and I can't say I have missed these morning jaunts. I've even experimented with setting my alarm later and later in the morning. I liked this.

It was a short walk, our maiden voyage, but it was nice. I shocked her even more later on by walking her a record third time after dinner! We were both floored. Again, these are short little walks but I think every step she is forced to take is a step in the right direction. I would like to see her use her back leg more but I think the more we walk the more she'll use it. I like to pretend that when I tell her "foot down" every two minutes that she actually thinks to herself "Oops! I have the foot  pulled up, I need to walk on all four of my feet". I also spend a lot of time bending down and physically putting her foot on the ground so she can feel her foot bearing weight. I wish she could tolerate longer walks, but any walking at all is good. Right now she's sound asleep. All this therapeutic walking makes her dog tired. Har, har.

I did a bad thing when I was garden shopping. I bought seeds and one one hand I don't have the patience to do all the work that seems to follow growing from seeds, I do not want to deal with tiny green houses and planting and re-planting and keeping track of when the last frost will be. I'm not good at all that, its too detailed and I am not a details person. But on the other hand, last year I planted seeds right from the baggy into the ground and I didn't have any problems with them. My morning glories and Spanish flag seeds came right up, my green beans sprouted and they weren't any extra work at all. I planted them and they grew. No problems no tiny green houses or planting and replanting issues. Very few details.

But this year, I have straight flower seeds - I also have some very nice green beans which I can't wait to plant far, far away from my wretched powdery mildew tree. Bastard tree. I haven't exactly nailed down where the beans are going to end up but this year I want to have more plants, last year I had only five and that wasn't enough. I should have planted more but I didn't know how big the plants would ultimately get - I'm sure this bit of information was somewhere on the package but I didn't read the package. I saw seeds, I planted seeds.I got beans, this year I want a harvest .

My flower seeds should grow very nice flowers, actually several different kinds, one something termed "Mixed flowers" which include "15% each Cynoglossum, Calendula, Iberis, Coreopsis, Centaurea and Linum and then 10% of Gypsophila" . The picxture shows a lovely collection of pretty things. My other flowers are 100% Venus poppies! Very pretty flowers, lovely, fluffy, frilly, baby pink blooms. They look like a shag rug - only glorious.

My question about the flowers would be, does each seed grow "a" flower or do these seeds make plants that will produce multiple flowers? The directions for both varieties just say to scatter the seeds and cover lightly with soil and then to thin the herd when they begin to sprout. Its a big $2.49 investment so if it doesn't work out I'll toddle back to Wally World and get more of the pansy's I had such good luck with last year.

But everybody planted those last year! I want different! Do they make seeds for ground cover plants?

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