We’ve been busy working on the garden, when we can. Feels like we’ve sowed 20,000 seeds, moved 20 tons of soil in beary big buckets, and we were getting frustrated, feeling like this was a real job, until our Garden Gals showed us some spots that makes us feel useful.

One of the plans our Garden Gals have been working on since they took over Mommy’s garden was slowly introducing perennials. (They’re plants that keep growing year after year.)

Here are some succulents that we’ve had for a few years now. Succulents are plants with fat leaves or branches that fill with water, so they can live even without water in a drought. That’s our Prickly Pear Cactus in the back and our Hens and Chicks in the front.

Prickly Pear joined our garden a few years ago as a single cactus pad. He would have been much bigger, ‘cept Mommy took off little pads to give away to others. (We still have three left.) They’ll need a bigger home soon, s’pecially, since these are our only two succulents that can stay outside all year around! Yup! A cactus that grows out of the desert as easily as in the desert, and it’s native to North America – all over, ‘cept where it never stops snowing!

When we first got those Hens and Chicks for our honeys three Mother’s Days ago, we brought them home with one Hen (mama plant) and five little Chicks (smaller plants.) They came in a small cup about the size of an applesauce snack cup! They’re only a’pose to live for four years, but Hen is still alive, and now we can’t tell which is the original Hen, a’cuz all the Chicks grew up and became Hens of their own. They’re also bigger Hens, and the Chicks come in all sizes. By the end of the summer, the tiny Chicks will look like the smaller ones in the back, but, as you can tell, chicks start small and keep growing quickly.

Here’s a closer look. Doesn’t it seem like mama has her babies on little leashes?! We asked our kids, if we could put leashes on them, but they didn’t think it was funny. (They’re wrong! It IS funny! Kehehehehe)

There’s the rest of the Prickly Pear Cactus on the right. On the left is our Clematis blooming already. We’ve named him Clem.

Here’s our blue and gold Tradescantia. We’ll have to give it a better name, since the Peoples, who name plants, like to use long words that mean nothing to normal Stuffies. It’s our newest grass, although it is odd for grass, preferring shade to sun. Then again, we’ve never seen grass with such pretty flowers on it either. The flowers pop open in the morning, so you know what that means – Mommy doesn’t get to see them that often. Kehehehehehe

Here’s our beary first rose of the year! We’ve learned a lot about roses in the last six months.

1. They don’t have to be trimmed back before winter hits. (Mommy trimmed too much two autumns ago, and the poor thing lost half of its branches, because it couldn’t recover, so we thought we’d let it go, and trim in spring, if it needed it. It never even lost all its leaves during the winter, so it has been growing bigger then we ever thought it could!
2. That whole bit about garlic loving roses doesn’t really matter, if your roses (and garlic) are in high containers in a city backyard! Roses really don’t care about garlic one way or the other. Some gardeners can be helped by growing garlic near their roses if they have bunny rabbits, who like to eat rosebushes. Valentine, our Garden Gal bunny rabbit, doesn’t like eating rosebushes. She says the thorns hurt and it doesn’t taste good. Apparently, only dumb bunny rabbits like rosebushes, although, we still think rose petals in our fruit salad are yummy! (So does Valentine, proving she’s no dumb bunny!) Our garlic is still doing well though. Can you see the long leaves of the garlic intertwined in the right side of the rosebush? 

Here’s our rosebush today! See the garlic growing tall in the same container? Those garlic leaves can be used in dishes, all chopped up, the same way we use chives! We had some problems with Mommy a couple of autumns ago, when she thought the garlic wasn’t a’posed to grow its leaves so late in the growing season, so she kept cutting them off. No garlic the following spring, a’cuz they get nourishment from sun hitting their leaves, and there were no leaves to hit. The Garden Gals and a friend of hers s’plained how important keeping leaves on plants is, so looks like we’ll have homegrown garlic later this summer! (Being chefs, we need garlic in our fancy dishes.)

This is how we knew our Garden Gals love us!!! We have our beary own coffee cup in the garden, Can it get any better then this? The Gals have planted a variety of purple flowers in it, but we got to try it out! Here’s Valentine, chief Garden Gal, sitting with Teddy, her hubby, on the coffee cup! It’s hard to tell who is happier there!

Teddy: With a beautiful wife like her at my side and a coffee cup that’s finally the right sizes for us, we can now see how good the garden will be after all our hard work! We don’t feel like we are working too hard now. The garden is beginning to look wonderful already.