The Root of the Problem

I found it buried under five inches of wood chips and packed dirt. We've had a week of really nice weather; the birds are chirping, the squirrels are romping, and the dandelions are in full force. I thought I had done a fairly good job of digging them up last fall, but I realized this year that I had been breaking the roots and leaving large chunks of them in the soil, just sitting there waiting for the first chance to pop up and drive me crazy.

I spent all afternoon digging more dandelions. I have a feeling it will be an on-going project this summer--I'm still leaving chunks of root, and I don't want to dig too much because I don't know what kind of bulbs might be down there, along with the weeds. I discovered some daffodils and some tulips this year, that I didn't know were there. Two years ago, I discovered an Amaryllis Belladonna, which I thought was very strange, because it had a tall stalk with no leaves and only one flower on it. I almost dug it up, but am now glad I didn't because it came up with four or five blooms last year, and looked quite pretty, although a little lonely. And last summer some snapdragons popped up, and thrived all the way til fall. My little "garden" is just full of surprises.

Last fall, I planted Crocuses, Lily of the Valley, Freesia, Russian Sage, Creeping Myrtle, and Lenten Rose. So far I've seen my crocuses and maybe a lily (I'm really not sure what it is), but I'm worried that I may have waited too long to plant the others, and they might be dead. But it might also just take a year or two for them to become established. And then again, we've only had one week of nice weather; enough for tulips, daffodils and weeds, but perhaps not for freesia or sage...

Here are some pictures of my "Naked Lady" (the common name for Amaryllis Belladonna. I quickly learned the scientific name because I didn't like saying, "I found a Naked Lady in my yard." It was tricky to find, because you can't just go to Google and type in naked lady and expect to get pictures of flowers...And also, I guess the flowers aren't incredibly common.):