Random 5 for April 19, 2026 – Plants, rain, beach, DIY, renewal

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Just starting to leaf out — Bloodgood Japanese Maple

Plant bargains – Several years ago, I was walking through the Home Depot nursery (strictly for therapy – cheaper than Xanax but only if you don’t buy anything!). It was late June. Home Depot plants are best if you buy them soon after they arrive. Their watering schedule doesn’t always match what the plants need and things get knocked around. There were two little (and I mean little) red Japanese maples on clearance sale. No warranty, take your chances! They were mostly sticks with some broken branches. The price was right (Japanese maples are $$$$ around here for anything taller than a foot!). Here is my clearance Japanese Bloodgood maple after four years of love. Pretty awesome. It’s over six feet. I also bought a few other plants for peanuts that have done well. It’s always worth a look.

I love a rainy day! –We are in a drought here. Today is rainy and it’s a slow rain. Hopefully we will get enough to make the plants happy. I watered some of my young trees yesterday to keep them growing. Rain was predicted but rain has been elusive. Sometimes it rains 10 miles away but not at my house. I was sure that it would rain if I watered. Isn’t that the way things go?

Speaking of things that are off schedule – My neighbor is going to the beach today for three days. Last week our temperature bumped around 90 degrees (32 C). Today will be maybe 50 degrees (10 C) with a possible freeze frost Monday night. Her timing was off by a week. “Our” beaches are about 3 hours drive from here and have more moderate temperatures so maybe she won’t need her snow suit! 😊Still, lucky! A bad day at the beach is not really a bad day.

A wonky DIY – I wanted to make window treatments for the cat room. I bought the fabric years ago when I saw something I liked. I bought enough for what I had in mind at the time. That has changed. I switched up plans and last week proceeded to cut the fabric for another concept. I ran short. Fabric is out of stock. I have some pieces left over so I’m going to try to “MacGyver” this by strategically sewing together scraps. Will it work? We’ll see. I hate when I do this, but a DIY is guaranteed to bring surprises.

A busy season – Spring is always busy here. Yard cleanup. Replacement of plants that died. Scrubbing down decks and flowerpots. Bring out summer items and put winter things away. The weather is warming up and this week I tried to take the time to philosophically “smell the roses” (which are not blooming here yet). Breathe in some fresh air and let go of old stuff. It’s a great time for renewal however that looks for you.

So how was your week?

 

 

14 thoughts on “Random 5 for April 19, 2026 – Plants, rain, beach, DIY, renewal”

  2. Yay, I’m glad you received some rain. A slow rain is the absolute best thing for a spring garden. Be prepared…you’ll like need to mow the grass by Wednesday. 😉 That maple tree is gorgeous. What a bargain that has totally paid off. Bravo, Kate! Happy Sunday.

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  4. Haha! I call it “priming” the rain. I don’t know if you are familiar with old hand pumps, but the leather in the plunger would dry out and you would have to dump in some water to soak it up before it would provide enough suction to bring the water up out of the well.

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  7. Good find on the Japanese Maple. Such pretty trees. And hooray for the rain. It isn’t a huge amount but I’ll take what we can get. Our neighborhood is doing a yard sale in a couple weeks, so we need to get busy here pulling together all the stuff we no longer need.

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