Just another day at the salt mines

May14

I can sorta relate to the people looking for low maintenance plants and landscaping. I for one love being outside, watching things grow, tending plants, dividing, staking, deadheading…. even weeding. About the only thing I really don’t care for is watering, so when it’s spring and I have a list of projects to work on and halfway through start to think it’s more trouble than it’s worth….. well it might be time to hit the lawnchair with a drink. In a sick way I sometimes look around at my fellow suburbanites and think their yards look just as good as mine, but then I remember it’s unlikely they have a couple dozen different iris coming along into bloom, and they probably don’t even have any more than one or two snowdrops. That helps my mood and I go through and finish the day with a smug grin, quite pleased with myself all over again.

The late tulips are still holding out, these (probably “Dordogne”) mixed in with all the others keep the patch colorful even after the rest are over. Unless Sunday’s high winds beat them silly, they should last another week.

I think what beats me down is the lawn maintenance. If you want to talk high maintenance a lawn is right there on top. Part of that is my fault, I’m stubborn and insist on using a corded electric mower instead of something bigger, stronger, and faster. It’s not the most manly mower, but from someone who’s always wandering the yard looking at his flowers….. well, the mower doesn’t help.

Something that’s mostly no-maintenance is fothergilla. It doesn’t need pruning, blooms with these nice white bottlebrush flowers, is presentable all summer, and come fall puts on a nice show of glowing reds, yellows and oranges. The blooms don’t last long for me, somewhere around two weeks, but that’s plenty. You miss it when it’s gone, which in my opinion is better than a plant that wears out its welcome.

Round around July the lawn starts wearing out its welcome. Mowing in the heat stinks and I look forward to the summer sun and drought sucking the green out of its blades. As long as I mow on the long side it just goes dormant, and the summer vacation from mowing is much welcomed, since mowing clearly cuts into pool time. But right now I need the flush of green clippings since they’re my number one mulch for the vegetable garden. I use them and some leftover chopped maple leaves to smother the grass and weeds that are buried in this new bed.Most of the weeds and grass will die, and hopefully by the time tomato planting weather rolls around (2 more weeks?) I can carefully dig down to soil level, plant the seedlings, top the bed with new clippings, and admire my avoidance of actually digging up this patch of hardpacked gravely “soil”.

Since I don’t have enough better things to do I actually transplanted some of the grass from the new bed into the former bed-turned-new-pathway (lower right of the picture). I’m a big sod mover. I hate waiting for grass seed to sprout. People will disagree, but I like grass paths through the garden. If you noticed, mine are edged with fancy pink marble sections. Some people have compared the look to “deep south cemetery”, but it’s the best use I could think of for the stone we pulled off the house front. Maybe it’s the second best…. we also have a pink marble compost bin.

In the orchard our new “Freedom” apple has even put out a few blossom clusters. I should of course nip them off so the tree has more energy to establish, but I don’t care. For all I know the tree could die tomorrow, so I’ll enjoy the blooms today.

Speaking of dying tomorrow, we have a frost predicted for tonight. I brought in a few succulents and four or five early summer plant purchases. The rest of the stuff is on its own. Planning for low maintenance gardening means not sweating the small stuff like late frosts. The cold weather veggie seedlings will tough it out (strong sun would damage them more than cool weather).

So we will see where the weather takes us. I figure if the tulips and iris don’t mind this afternoon’s snow, they shouldn’t mind a slight frost.

Snowdrops in the green

May11

Most bulbs are best moved around and transplanted after they’ve yellowed and died back. The bulbs are dug, dried and stored for a couple of weeks and then replanted again when the proper planting time rolls around. It’s a convenient way to handle them and most bulbous plants are designed to handle months of dry, hot, dormancy. Snowdrops are not. Most snowdrops don’t appreciate drying out, and to get around this quirk the practice of sending snowdrops “in the green” started. It’s a genteel way of saying you dug them up while growing and transplanted them that way.

My “in the green” snowdrops from The Temple Nursery arrived about a week and a half ago.

Snowdrops in the green are dug and sent shortly after bloom or even while still blooming. I planted them (almost) as soon as I got them and I can’t wait to see them grow and thrive in my garden. The bulbs look great and are carefully packed in damp sphagnum moss, wrapped in paper towels, hand labeled, bagged in plastic, and shipped priority mail. Everything about my order said that care was taken and attention was paid to all the details. Mr Hitch Lyman is the proprietor of The Temple Nursery and is well known for this old-school attention to details. The catalog is a carefully prepared list out of his own garden, and the list changes from year to year depending on what’s ready for dividing. There’s no internet presence, and correspondence is hand written. Based on how fresh my bulbs were I feel his “dug to order” description was entirely accurate.

I didn’t mean for this post to be a gushing waterfall of praise, but I guess I’m excited about my plants. There are a couple other sources for snowdrops, Brent and Becky sells them dry and is a good source, the three other “in the green” sources I’ve heard about are: Carolyn’s Shade Garden, Linden Hill Nursery, and Black Hog Farms (couldn’t find a web link… they might only do garden shows etc.). I also got a batch of dry bulbs from Van Engelen, and they were excellent.

If you want to give the Temple Nursery a try, send a catalog request to: The Temple Nursery, (Mr. Hitch Lyman), Box 591, Trumansburg, NY 14886. I’ve never heard anything official on this but I sent $4 with the request. Send it early. Not only do the snowdrops sell out fast but the catalogs are also limited, so send it out soon!

Tulip Time!

May9

There must be some Dutch in me because I’m a little wacky about tulips. Not real bad, I don’t collect every kind and have them all over the place (my criteria for plant wackiness), but I’m always adding a few new ones…. and then I feel some kind of urge to tend them and multiply them and replant them. It should end once this relatively new garden starts to fill up, but for now I can indulge that inner Dutch.

The rain and cold kept them shut for a while, but even then they looked nice (these are pictures from early last week). Four years ago I bought this blend on clearance as a generic “darwin mix”… it was nearly all orange, so I threw in a couple pinks just beacause I had them.

The “sweatheart” tulips were new this year, don’t know why I bought a lemon meringue colored tulip when I have so many daffodils in similar colors…..

Also new was the “Princely mix” from Van Engelen. Not sure what’s in it, but again…. on clearance… can’t beat this color for around$15. Plus I spread the other half of the box around the rest of the beds :)The random white peeling post is our attractive front light. The less you see of that the better.

“Pink Impression” (also new) is always a winner. I’ve bought it before but have gotten other, similar tulips instead. This looks to be the real thing and the flowers are huge!

Tulips will last much longer in cool weather, but when a warm sunny day finally hits (like we had last week) the flowers open wide and you know it’s finally full, head-on spring.

I just go around on days like this and get nothing done. It’s too tempting to just sit around, enjoy the sun and admire the season. Since the vegetable garden is the easiest place to plant out your excess tulips, that’s where most end up. I’ll regret this in a couple of weeks as I’m scratching my head looking for a spot to stick a tomato.

I don’t really cut too many for the house, most of the picking is done by the kids. A couple end up at grandma’s, some get planted in the mulch, many get pulled apart and thrown, and random neighbors often get deliveries in exchange for an ice pop or cookie.

Daddy sometimes gets a flower, but much of his time is spent protecting the double tulips, since they seem to be particularly attractive to flower collectors. The doubles have started to grow on me though. Ever since I bought this mix of early doubles called “magic carpet”, I’m finding an excuse to keep them around (even though the singles are still so much more graceful). To me the doubles look like huge fluffy wads of tissue paper…. but wow! that’s some fluff!

My favorites might be the ones just coming into bloom now. The late tulips seem to have the most subtle blends and nicest forms. If you ignore the color clashes in this planting and just look at the color and almost lily shape of these fruity colored “Temple of Beauty” tulips, I think you might like them a little too, even with the crappy camera focus.

Tulip season is a little past peak now with the earliest ones already going by. The pickers are still keeping busy and I’ll be busy too when I need to dig them all up out of the veggie garden. That’s a job for June though, May is for enjoying flowers.

Finally…. mulch is down

May7

It might take normal people a weekend to get their mulch spread, but I went for the one week plan. The biggest time drain was sprinkling the mulch down in between emerging clumps and working the wheel barrow back into a bed that was filled with soft sprouts. On top of that I was trying to stretch every mulch dollar by walking the fine line between too thin and too thick and trying to figure out just where exactly my limited mulch supply would go. Oh, and did I mention the allergies and sinus infection?

The newly renovated front bed got a nice top coat, showing off the mix of tulips I put in last fall. This is what a weak moment during Van Egelen’s fall clearance sale will get you. It’s the Scheeper’s mix, made up of all Scheeper hybrids. Not sure if the color is a good choice for in front of the orange brick….. but oh well, colors don’t clash in May 🙂

The mulch looks so neat and tidy, and it does look better than before when dirt was splashing everywhere and weeds were popping up by the thousands. Look how it sets off this “Isla Gold” Tansy.

The tansy is one of my favorites right now. I’ll be the first to admit I’m going through an I-need-everything-with yellow-foliage phase, but the lacy foliage, the fresh color, and the fact it keeps this color all season are just a couple reasons for my smitten-ness. Did I mention it even has little buttons of yellow blooms in late summer? I bet it would look great then with a blue salvia.

Right now I could pair it with polemonium reptans which is in bloom.

The polemonium comes from my parent’s house. The original planting was there when they first purchased the house over 40 years ago and has been going strong ever since, without dividing or anything. You could trim it back after blooming if you want but I never get around to it.

Probably about half the beds are now covered, but in order to complete the job I’m guessing it will take another load. Together the two loads will run about $660. That really kills my garden budget for the year, but mulch costs are easy to pass by the boss. I sometimes think that if our yard was just mulch beds, lawn expanses and a few rounded yews she’d be happy.

It’s May and tulips and daffodils are blooming all over the place. There’s more to do than time to do it but I need to post a few tulip pictures. They really rule the yard right now, and here’s a well mulched batch of “apricot impression” and some mixed lily flowered tulips. After the tulips fade this bed will hit a lull for a couple weeks, and I’m working on that, but usually hostas take over and a couple coleus find their way in. So it all works out well enough.

There are more tulip pictures. A lot more. I’ll be catching up on those next.

Surprise Hellebore

May2

I planted out a bunch of neglected hellebore seedlings early last fall and hoped they would have time to root in before winter really set in. Apparently they did. This double red seedling from Elizabethtown seed really took off and even put out a bloom.

The rest of the seedlings are much smaller and may consider a flower by next year, this one really surprised me. Needless to say I’m pleased as punch since this one is my first seed grown double…. so far….

My biggest issue with late plantings such as these is frost heave, when freezing and thawing pushes the plants up out of the soil and kills them through exposure, but that’s usually the only problem for these tough growers. I’ve found a nice mulch of chopped leaves gives them enough insulation to protect them throughout the winter, even in this exposed spot. Then the mulch just stays there as they start to grow. Good drainage in the raised beds is also a plus.

They’re in the middle of the vegetable garden, which might be the next problem. It’s full, baking sun which they seem to like unless they dry out too often too severely. Hopefully when I pass by each day I’ll be smart enough to keep an eye on watering needs.

Now I just need to find a new spot for the tomatoes.

Springtime Fun

Apr27

The weather is perfect, the pond leaks, the mulch is here, and Donna wants to rearrange the furniture. With all this going on, the only thing I want to do is wander the yard with coffee in hand.

But there’s a couple yards of natural mulch in the driveway and it can’t stay there. It looks nice and dark right now, but will fade quickly unlike the dyed mulches. I don’t mind. I want to focus on the plants, cut down on weeding and save some watering. Plus my garden can do without the dye and whatever else they put in.

I guess furniture moving is first on the list. Then move the furniture again. Then talk paint colors (furniture moving always leads to multiple projects). Then try to make my escape. The mulch beckons and it will take me forever since everything has already sprouted and needs to be mulched around. Plus I stop all the time to admire stuff, and with tulips opening there’s lots of stuff to admire.

There are mixed lily flowered tulips, of which only the yellow/red seem to return reliably…. not the pink and white ones that I preferred.

These are “apricot impression” going on their third year. I have luck with tulips here, probably since I don’t water in the summer and they like the drought. Still, after three or four years division is a good idea. I guess we’ll see in June if I remember or not.

Seedling Update

Apr27

I’m not as far behind as I thought I was. Even though not a single garden center would ever worry about me as competition, there are a few things looking like they might be ready to go in the ground. Two weeks earlier and a week or two in the cold frame (which doesn’t exist) would have been perfect… but this is where I’m at… and chances are next year this is also where I’ll be at. I’m a slow learner.

This was supposed to be the warm season light, with tomatoes and peppers and such, but I think it’s still not warm enough. The empty pots are things that just didn’t want to germinate, and the ones that did did it ever so sloooooowly. I think I need a heat mat to speed them up, it sounds like a good idea but I’ve never committed to getting one. Anyone have good luck with them?

The tomatoes and peppers look fine, but the coleus cuttings seem to do much better on the windowsill. Coleus are the one plant that appears to find something lacking in the flourescent lights. They always seem to have a “funny” look to them until they go outside and I wonder what it is.

The cool weather plants under the lights in the back of the garage look a little more impressive.

I think once this stuff hits the great outdoors it will take off…. assuming the bunnies stay away. I’m trying out “bright lights” swiss chard and already like the multicolored stems.

So we’ll see where this goes. Right now the vegetable garden is full of spring bulbs. It seemed like a good idea in October, now I don’t know. But at least it looks nice.

A few good hellebores

Apr24

In the last 4-5 years I’ve noticed that hellebores have entered the tissue culture world. It was just a matter of time I guess, but I feel like it takes away a little bit of the magic and mystery of these plants….. but on the other hand there’s no way I would have ever gotten my hands on some of the newer complicated (usually sterile) cross-species cultivars that are showing up.

This “HGC Silvermoon” is a heavy bloomer with an interesting color. It’s attractively planted too close to a construction area and the bricks are supposed to remind me not to step on it. Too bad the leaves get beat up by the ice and snow, I’ve seen it in bloom with foliage intact and it looks so much better. But you get what you get when you’re too lazy to offer up any winter protection.

“Cinnamon Snow” is from a similar cross involving 2 different species. I could google the info and come off as sounding pretty smart but it’s late and I don’t think I’d be fooling anyone. I believe one of the parents is H. Niger, commonly known as the Christmas Rose, and I think this is the first time I’ve got a nice bloom on this plant. It’s in a sheltered spot so the leaves hold up well, but the sheltered spot also brings the blooms up early so they tend to freeze, abort and not open fully

Hybrid hellebores

The “other” hellebores are the regular hybrid hellebores. They’re a mix of several species, they set seed easily and run a range of colors from white to mauve to purple to nearly black. There are some greens and yellows now and with spotting and doubles the range keeps getting bigger. Nearly all of my plants are from seed, but tissue culture clones are showing up here too. These here are all from Australian Elizabethtown seed (now sadly closed).

I’m still waiting for the fancier ones to grow up and bloom, but I do have a couple anemone flowered (a flower part-way between single and double) starting to put on a decent show…. I hate when any part of my hand shows up in a picture, but hellebores tend to nod and sometimes you need a helping hand to peek inside.

Since many hellebores are seed grown there’s always the chance your plant will be a dud when it blooms, and it’s not a bad idea to avoid buying them sight unseen, but if you go with a decent source your chances for a good ‘un are much better. I would bet that most people in the anti-hellebore camp (if one exists) have only seen poor quality seed grown plants. Get good seed and be patient, things will work out.

Next year should be a good hellebore year. I have way too many seedlings coming along and have actually been taking pretty good care of them. I’m hoping for doubles, yellows, picotees…. all the fancy new types that I don’t have yet. The nursery plants are usually out of my budget, but give me a packet of seeds and a couple years and I’m right there with a decent hellebore bed.

Daffodil season is here!

Apr23

I like daffodils. The color range isn’t nearly as wide as tulips, they sometimes nod a little too much, but they’re still a sure sign of spring. In another couple days daffodil and tulip season will be in full swing here (assuming it ever warms up) and if the wind would only die down a bit maybe I could get some decent pictures.

“Golden Echo” is a real nice shorter one, it grows, blooms and multiplies well but I wouldn’t mind if the blooms stood up a little higher. Still a current favorite.

The yellow in front is “St Patrick’s Day”, a little bit of a nod-er, but a strong plant in the garden. “Barret Browning” is behind, it’s an oldie, but how can I complain about a reliable, good doer that holds it’s blooms up above the foliage and faces out nicely?

“Ice King” on the other hand, is a mess this year. The up and down, cooler temperatures have put alot of greenish color into the blooms, and the wind and heavy rains have thrown the top heavy blooms all over the place. I meant to remove this one last summer but forgot exactly where it was, so only dug up maybe a half dozen bulbs.

The big brother to “Ice King” is “Ice Follies”, the two are nearly the same plant just one has a mutation which resulted in a doubled center (called a sport). Among serious daffodil nuts (those infected with the “yellow fever”) “Ice Follies” is looked down on as the cockaroach of the narcissus world. It’s nearly unkillable and a perfect daffodil for beginners. I have to laugh at this section of my daffodil bed where a nuclear bomb or something has nearly killed off the other narcissus while “Ice Follies” just gets fatter.

I promised a picture of my plain old corydalis solida in bloom, so here it is. Kind of washed out, but it does have its good qualities. Note the attractive Taraxacum coming into bloom on the right. Latin sounds alot fancier than just calling it a dandelion. Also the grassy sprouts with the brown seeds still attached are scilla siberica seedlings. I might be just a couple years away from a new weed problem here.

I’m hoping for better daff pictures this week. I have a few more in the back and I hate to leave you with the impression that all I grow is”Ice Follies”!

Project finale

Apr18

There was no more delaying, and I finally got the apple tree in the ground. I had to since Sunday it went into the bucket to re-hydrate, and Monday it needed to be planted. Plus I had practically all day to get it done since Monday I stayed home for a dr’s appointment. Still I wasted most of the morning, spent three hours waiting for my appointment, and only got into tree planting somewhere around 5pm. Good thing the weather stayed nice.

That’s the tree there with the little bit of yellow tape near the base. I mulched it with a bucket of compost and then topped that with chopped leaves from the early spring bed cleanups. I think it will do well here and it’s already made a big impression for this little corner of the yard. The apple twig has me calling this “the orchard” now instead of “the meadow”. This is the back part of the yard where I don’t mow until about late July or so in order for all the weedy little flowers to get a chance to bloom. The kids enjoy it but not everyone here thinks as highly of the meadow as I do. The annual mowing usually takes place right after some big argument over snakes and ticks and spiders.

The last thing done to finish up the tree planting was to cut down two small aspen trees. I let weed trees (sumac and aspen) sprout up in the meadow and then “edit” them out when I get tired of them. They’re a nice screen along the ugly chain link fence while young, but I have no plans to leave any. A quick zip through the roots with my handy reciprocating saw and they’re gone. I guess I could have reached for the fancy pruning saw, but (1) this one’s a power tool and (2) for the cost of the $3 blade I shamelessly cut through dirt, rocks, and roots and don’t care what I do to the blade. Come to think of it, lots of pruning gets done with this saw. I even use it to cut wedge divisions out of ornamental grass clumps. Sure beats digging.

The pond is in and getting its leak test.

It still looks mighty ugly but hopefully I can blend it in somehow. I think the shape is called natural, but there’s nothing natural about the way it sits all plastic and stiff in the hole. But the birds don’t care, I barely walked 15 feet to get a rake and the birds were sneaking in for a bath. Looks like it’s going to be popular. It’s already popular with the kids, but all they seem to want to do is throw things in. Rocks, dirt, and tools are all fair game.

Also there’s been a death. My daughter informed me that “Matthew” is dead at the bottom of the pool. Don’t ask me how an earthworm climbed the walls and got in there, but one did.

Do you like the little yellow clump of primroses blooming in the shovel danger zone? I hope they survive since I have a bad record with these. This is an older heirloom type given to me by a friend and promises to be a little tougher.

My current favorite daffodil (Pistachio) is open and just about every other daffodil is just waiting for some sun ….. also the kid’s pea plantings are starting to sprout.

Good thing I finally got the apple tree into the ground. As I came up to the front door to call it a day I found the second part of my mailorder shipment. For some reason I thought it would be a good idea to order 7 lilac bushes, a nice assortment of different colors and sizes. Whatever I was thinking last month, looks like I have a new project this month. Plus mulch. Plus did I mention I ordered dahlia roots too?

sorta like suburbia

more than you ever wanted to know about my garden

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