Life is a garden...even in January

Today has been a great day so far.  I just got done working in the garden for the first time this year  (and its not even February yet).  I bought some cold hardy plants from the garden store this weekend and planted them in my planters today.  It was chilly outside but this dry weather we've been having gave me the itch to get outside and play in the dirt.

 This is the first batch of plants I bought.  I had intended on putting them all in the same container but my eyes were bigger than my memory and they didn't all fit.  Which was fine with me, that just means I could buy more plants to fill another pot :)  I bought two double flowering helleborus, three cyclemen and three english daisies. 

 Here is my planter after I planted them.  It turned out pretty nice I think.

 It was nice enough that even the bunnies came outside for awhile and played in the dirt.  Last year we constructed a bunny pen in the shaded corner of our yard with chicken wire.  We had to make it high enough so Cocoa couldn't jump over it.  I tried using a nicer looking rabbit fencing that had larger holes, but Cocoa can jump right through it. 

Oreo behind a tree

 After I finished my first planter I headed back to the garden center to get more flowers and a shepard's hook for my large green pot.  My plan this summer is to grow flowers to attract birds and bees to the yard.  So with my giant green pot I put a shepard's hook and hung a hummingbird feeder on one side and on the other I will put a hanging basket with flowers hummingbirds like to visit.  For spring, I am going to plant flowers and vines that will attract the hummingbirds inside the pot and make a hummingbird "station".  Plants like trailing nasturtium, cape fushia, foxglove, and trumpet honeysuckle.  The honeysuckle is a vine and I want it to grow up the shepard's hook and fill in the space between the pot and hanging feeder/basket.  Right now I just have some pretty daffodils, cyclamen, pansies, left over english daisies and oxalis.  I also put another bird bath on the porch hoping to get some birds up close.

 Peeking from behind the log

 I used last year's dirt that I had used in a potato pot.  I switched out the dirt so I can use fresh soil for potatoes this year.  While I was digging out the other pot I found three large acorn nuts that the squirrels had hidden inside.

Pretty Spring flowers