I planted some stuff

perennials from the swap, mostly. In various edges of the yard, the yarrow, artemesia, spiderwort, strawberry begonia, blanket flower (with red/orange coleus moved next to it), ostrich ferns, and creeping jenny- divided into bits to make a little row of it. Some were looking very sad and I don't know if they'll make it- it rains tonight so I hope that helps. I was in too much of a hurry to take pictures, before a thunderstorm passed over. I did take clippings of the creeping jenny and put in a jar of tank water, see if they convert and root can plant some in the aquariums.

Also momentarily brought my fig trees in the house to repot- slightly larger- they barely gained an inch or two all round. These are the largest pots I have. Might be time to buy some nice very large planters for them.

spring garden

The season is moving too quickly on me. Already some of the lettuces are starting to turn bitter- when I cut these crisp mint and bibb leaves, I saw the white sap in the stems

though the simpson elite, slo-bolt and little ceasar are still good to eat.

Tatsoi stems are lengthening so I might get one or two more cuts of that- I've only used it a few times, really- in scrambled eggs, or in a dish as if spinach. This year's tokyo bekana is looking grand and I cut a pile of it last night for dinner- and my husband even asked for seconds "of the chinese cabbage". Meanwhile in the next bed over, last year's is making lots of seed pods- just in time. In two weeks when I set out the tomatoes, I think these will be ready enough to harvest, freeing up the space.

Turnips are filling their end of the roots bed with greenery

Snap peas are climbing! Their bed is messy because I haven't cleaned up fallen maple seed or laid down grass clippings mulch yet.

and on the deck

Lowest temp was just above 60° last night, so my tomatoes spent their first overnight in the coldframe.

Some of them are starting to look better- and even flower already

My older set of marigolds are flowering 

and one nasturtium, although its leaves are small and few

I cut down the tops of citrus geranium, and replanted in its same pot

Have decided that, even though I like folding paper pots for seedlings (mainly because it's two forms of recycling- reusing brown paper packing and brown paper bags as pots, then tearing them up to compost in the bin after the plants are grown out), I am going to ease up on that and hoard more small nursery pots (or even buy a ton of them) instead. Because the plants just do better in more spacious, plastic pots. The smaller herbs seem to do okay in folded paper pots- but I'm guessing because they dry out quicker and crowd the roots more, a lot of my plants don't. Like the tithonias. In nursery pots:

In paper pots- sad:

angel treatment

For the past few weeks I have been treating my angelfish for suspected external parasites.

She gets unsettled when the water is so low-

I've noticed for a while that she will get twitchy, or jerk and dart across the tank. Then this behavior- she'd hold herself still in the middle of the water column, head pointed up, and a guppy would pick at her sides, until she jerked and swam off. I saw this with my paradise fish before when it was unwell- I thought the guppy was picking at fungus on its side but now I think it was cleaning off parasites. I was still unsure though but then three weeks ago Miss Beautiful started to go off her food. Would take bites and spit them out, or not show any interest at all. 

First round I did a normal water change (being rather short on time that day) and dosed with Prazipro. Angelfish quit being as twitchy and started eating again in the middle of that week. Five days later I did a large water change and dosed again. Seven days after that saw her acting twitchy again so repeated the large water change and Prazipro. By large I mean changing out almost thirty gallons instead of the usual thirteen or fourteen. I brought my two and three-gallon watering cans into the room and filled them straight from the tank as part of that:

I used my acrylic tube like a long straw, with finger on one end, to spot-clean in crevices and under/behind the hornwort stems, where it's difficult to get with the regular siphon. And did extra rinse of the filter sponges. Plus I've been feeding the fishes garlic-soaked micro pellets once or twice a week- but Miss Beautiful doesn't like and spits them out. The guppies and kuhli loaches eat 'em up, however (and they've shown no signs of illness). 

Would really like to get rid of this issue, hasn't my angelfish been through enough. I'd also really like to get a new paradise fish or betta, but all the small items I'd use for a quarantine tank are in the back of this tank, so pulling that while it's infected with parasites not a good idea.

the shrimp bowl

It's been kinda boring. Nothing tall but that one piece of mermaid weed.

I moved two of the amano shrimps in here a while ago. They seem to do fine so far without an airline. 

Anubias is doing great-

has a new leaf shoot

Small crypts I planted in here are doing well, too

What's not is the bolbitis fern (against my expectations). And I'd rather have more tall, ferny stuff like the mermaid weed. So I pulled out a piece of the bolbitis on wood, and planted in here a few stems of the scraggly parrot's feather, taken out of the 33L. This pic before that- a bit of duckweed stuck in the mermaid weed. Thinking of composting all the greater duckweed and trying frogbit as floaters, instead.

Due a bit of a rescape, maybe- which would just be shifting the rock that has buce on it, to clear out the cave space for the shrimps, and pulling more bolbitis to make room in the center for more parrot's feather or mermaid weed stems. As those aren't doing great in the 33L anyway, and removing them from there will make room for the temple compacta, which is nicely coloring up now, I've been trimming/replanting its tops...

some planted out

The alyssum- so small, but smell so sweet. I kept the white one for the garden- and one of each purple and pink as reserve against any freak cold spell. Planted the rest across the front flower bed. So small hardly can see them yet.

Also kept as reserve a few coleus cuttings 

and these in pots 

the rest went into the front bed- 'gay delight' behind the sedums and heartleaf brunnera

'main street rodeo drive' in front of columbines

A few others went into pots

Separated out the little stonecrop and planted across one edge of the bed- also doesn't look like much yet

plants moved up

I put my new 'Arp' rosemary in a large ceramic pot-

Moved to larger pots some of the peppers, from seedling cells I bought them in. The smaller two are serrano peppers, and the four larger ones are a sweet bell called 'yolo wonder'. They're way bigger than the few I grew myself.

Pricked out ten amaranth 'calaloo' seedlings into individual pots 

done moving plants

from around the silver maples on the shady sideyard. First I dug and shifted a lot of yellow salvia- some went under the holly shrub

others finished a semicircle around the euonymus on the corner of the front flower bed. That shrub was seriously pruned by the deer this winter- they ate all the lower leaves, half the bush was denuded. I scattered bits of irish spring soap again, and started putting discards from my hairbrush in the bare stems. One or the other has kept the deer away (or they just have more to eat in the patch of woods now it's spring) leaves are growing back on the lower stems visible here.

Most of the salvias went in a curve around the back of another tree in the rear of the yard, where I'd rather have shade plants than struggling grass and moss.

This morning I checked on them after a night of rain. Some are perked up, others not yet.

Then I dug and moved some of the stinkin' hellebore seedlings. Into a little patch behind the two mature ones, in soil turned over and mixed with compost. 

There's about twenty-five of them (and I left a lot behind!)

One of the older stinkin' hellebores has a new flush of leaves

Then I dug and moved the rest of the pink turtleheads- these are in a new spot with fresh wood chip mulch

These are some I moved earlier 

into the same area around tree stump

It is well surrounded now-

Last of all I dug and moved the burgundy-colored heucherellas (I don't know their name)- in a front row under the holly- 

they blend in so with the leaves, hard to see

Hostas- one here on the left- haven't done so well in this spot, maybe heucherella will do better. And I still think that bit of dark strappy leaves is mondo grass- it might look nice spaced in with these dark heucherellas.