May « 2016 « sorta like suburbia

As it is with most things here, the gardener is not exactly on schedule with his gardening. He’s not exactly on schedule with many things, but the late freeze and the discouraging damage it did to so many spring greens has left him slightly unmotivated. Then the relentless rain and cold damp brought on rot, and now dry weather is bringing spider mites to the phlox. So the gardener will restart his spring in mid May and deal with the mites. He’ll also accept that many projects will again not happen, and will just clear his conscience and move on. Iris are beginning to bloom after all, and once the iris start to fill the flowerbeds with color and perfume it’s hard to hold onto a black mood.

One of my last daffodils to open, narcissus ‘Keats’ was voted ‘ugliest thing to bloom’ by a more serious daffodil friend. I’m always one to love the underdog.

One minor project (which seems to be the only project type I’m capable of tackling this spring) which was finally taken care of was the long suffering heuchera plantings. A few summers ago I dipped my toes into the hybrid heuchera world and since then they’ve been suffering along in my garden. My planting beds get too dry, my shade isn’t as high and dappled as they’d like, and my soil is too heavy for their roots but I try nonetheless. They still have plenty of filling in to do but if you saw the before picture I’m sure you’d agree this is an improvement. Unfortunately the tan lawn clipping mulch doesn’t do much to set the foliage off, but it’s better than weeds I suppose.

The woody stems of the heuchera clumps were dug up, ripped apart and carelessly stuffed back in to the re-dug bed and the plants actually look much happier after their tough love treatment.

As summer heat settles down on the garden this holiday weekend, I just wanted to celebrate the meadow and a few of the newer plantings which did well this spring. Number one on the list were the tulip clusiana bulbs which planted into the turf. They looked perfect out there and I hope they return just as nicely next spring.

Tulip clusiana (I think they were a named variety but I’ll need to dig out the tag) were scattered around in the meadow garden. I will be extremely happy if they settle in here!

A few Anemone blanda look nice in the shadier parts of the lawn. I tried throwing them around in several of the outer edges of the garden and then promptly forgot until little sparkles of blue started showing up here and there. My goal for this one is to recreate the neglected show which used to pop up each spring around my first apartment in upstate NY. If this plant can naturalize around a ramshackle college boarding house I think it stands half a chance here.

Blue Anemone blanda in the “lawn”.

Muscari is practically a weed everywhere so I added a few of those as well. The flowers on these grape hyacinths were nice enough but now I keep looking at the seed heads with their kind-of aqua tint. I wonder if it was the cooler temperatures or if they’ll always have this attractive look…. or is it just me that thinks they look cool?

Seed heads on the grape hyacinths (Muscari). In other parts of the garden I clip them off to limit their seeding around, but here I’ll risk it 🙂

Most of the bulbs were brought in as bulbs, but if you know me you know there are a few seeds coming along as well. My little gravel covered pots are bursting with new plants this spring and even though the last freeze did a few things in the majority seemed to enjoy our mild winter. I’m always a bit surprised anything will grow up through gravel, but in some pots even the tiniest of seedlings make a crowded moss of new green sprouts…. which will soon desperately need thinning!

Hundreds of Hypericum ‘Albury Purple’ seedlings sprouting in the center pot. Realistically I need about two.

With new seedlings coming along each spring there are always new surprises as youngsters open their first blooms. A couple years ago I thought I’d dabble in a few species anemones and see how they do in the meadow, and although I’m not sure they’re all correctly labeled, for now I’m just enjoying them for whatever they are.

Not Anemone caroliniana? Pretty regardless, and it looks like it might be able to hold its own if I move it out into the thinner areas of grass.

One seedling which has a positive ID is this cool little Japanese Jack-in-the-pulpit or snow rice-cake plant (Arisaema sikokianum). I was surprised to see any of these three year old seedlings flower, and although the actual flower is definitely on the small side for this species they say size doesn’t matter in these things and I’ll just keep admiring the fancy little bloom.

Arisaema sikokianum. Although my picture doesn’t do it justice, I hope you can appreciate the mottled foliage and bright contrasts of this flower.

So that’s the basic update. I promise this will be the last time I moan about freezes and such, but I can’t promise some other weather event won’t come along shortly to take its place. Whatever happens it’s a great iris weekend and I’m sure I’ll be going on about that next 🙂

Some complaints will never get you any sympathy, and to complain that tulips are coming up and blooming in all sorts of odd places probably ranks right up there. Truth be told it’s not a problem, but when every batch of compost seems to hold a new crop of bulbs, the spring planting in the parterre becomes a little more complicated.

Once again the vegetable garden is a complicated mess of far too many flowers and far too few edibles.

For all my failures in the garden, tulips seem to be one plant which enjoys the poorly draining, heavy soil of the flower beds. It’s a surprise to see this considering many references suggest a loamy, free draining soil for your best chances at success, and even then it’s a safer bet to treat tulips as one or two year treat. Fortunately no one has whispered this little secret into the ears of my bulbs and they keep coming back and multiplying.

Having a few tulips in the way is just the excuse I need to skip digging too deeply when it comes to planting the spring vegetables.

I think I do know the secret though. The soil may be heavy but it’s also thin and dries out relatively quickly once the heat of summer settles in, and if I do manage to drag my lazy self away from the pool to water it’s never a solid deep watering, it’s always a guilty stand around with a hose until things look less dead kind of triage. I can’t imagine much of the water ever penetrates deeper than two or three inches and for this the heavy soil works to an advantage. My tulips like a hot, dry summer similar to their ancestral haunts of Eastern Europe and Central Asia and most years (unfortunately) this is what my garden resembles.

Tulips in the onions, tulips in the lettuce. I try to replant stray bulbs closer to the edges, but there are always more little bulblets in the compost or stray bulbs dug around in the soil.

When I was more ambitious I used to fill several of the beds each fall and then dig them again in June after the foliage died down. It was a glorious spring explosion but one bad experience soured me to the whole deal and I ended up tossing hundreds of fat promising bulbs. They really do need a good drying out over the summer and when mine all molded up and rotted one damp August I put a stop to the project. But…. I can’t promise it won’t happen again some day 🙂

If all goes well this batch of tulip leaves should put out two or three blooms next year. Not bad for a weed, and if you notice there are more weeds in the lawn, in this case lettuce seedlings from last years neglected plantings.

So to sum it up my tulips don’t mind a nice heavy fertile soil while they’re growing, the just need to follow it up with a warm dry summer rest. Planting them in a spot which dries out and doesn’t get summertime irrigation is one option, actually digging them up and storing them in a hot, dry, ventilated area until fall planting is another. Just be prepared to have more tulips than you know what to do with since most tulips will at least double in number every growing season.

Leftover Easter flowers from two or three years ago. Let them bloom and grow as long as possible in their pot and then stick them into some out of the way spot, preferably one where they will not be overrun with bearded iris 🙂

Although most people recommend species tulips and Darwin types for the best chance at perennializing, I don’t notice that much of a difference between the types. Give them all a try is my advice, but for best results regardless of type you will have to dig and divide the bulbs every three or four years when they begin to get crowded.

A few stray tulips snuck in with the compost for this new snowdrop bed. With snowdrop season long gone I’m quite happy to see the tulips flowering in a carpet of my favorite annual weed, purple dead nettle (Lamium purpureum).

Alas, even plants relatively happy with their homes do not always lead perfect lives. The tulip season may be a little sparse next year for two reasons, both of which revolve around the weather. The first is our harsh April freeze which damaged many of the buds and much of the blooms for this year’s show. That in itself could be tolerable, but in the weeks since the weather has remained damp and cool, and many of the damaged plants are now falling victim to gray mold (Botrytis). Botrytis is bad news and seems to stick around for a few years even after better weather returns. I’m wondering how many of the affected plants will be going on to tulip heaven…

Not to go on and on about this late freeze, but here’s yet another example of damaged foliage and stunted blooms. To top it off I also suspect virus in the streaked blossoms of what should really be a solid colored flower.

All is not lost though. I still love tulips and would grow a few even if they only made it a year or so before falling victim to whatever tragedies visit my garden next.

Tulip ‘Marit’ is a favorite this year. I don’t remember such round flowers last year but the shape and color this year really won me over.

In the meantime I will keep my fingers crossed. I far prefer being spoiled for choice as far as tulips go, and if it means working around a few bulbs here and there that’s fine with me.

Tulip ‘pink impression’ in the front border. They’re huge and pink and although battered by the weather they’re still the crowning glory of the border.

Have a great Sunday and happy mother’s day to the moms!

sorta like suburbia

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Monthly Archives: May 2016

Spring keeps rolling along

Too much money