The World is Burning

Jun9

Just to let you know, there’s nothing nice in this post. A few flowers, but mostly a miniseries of complaints and disappointments and all the bumps in the road which gardeners imagine won’t happen this year, but then happen. I guess the most obvious place to start is with the smoke. It was noticeable earlier in the week, eerily oppressive mid week, and then apocalyptically thick yesterday. The smell of smoke was everywhere, and I can only imagine how it’s like closer to the source. My thoughts go out to the firefighters and residents who are out of homes and in fear of their safety and wondering when they’ll get a reprieve.

About four in the afternoon, looking out beyond the berm towards the industrial park. Visibility is less than a mile.

Fortunately, although the woods are dry and a good wind has been blowing, local brushfires have been relatively quiet. About a week ago we had a half inch of rain, which was enough to take the most desperate edge off for a few plants, but of course it’s nothing close to what we need. I think for May this area came in as the driest May since 1901 and the soil is already taking on that deep-dry that usually doesn’t set in until August.

The front yard isn’t a desert (yet) but most of the lawn is crispy and I’m not even going to bother planting annuals. Maybe it’s a good year to open things up and create some mulch patches.

Earth moving is now on pause due to rock-hard conditions. It was hard enough working through the rocky-compacted-subsoil before, but once it dries to the concrete stage even I have second thoughts.

The weeds were thrilled with the brief shower we had and perked right up. It’s a sad year when you end up relying on crabgrass, mullein, and oxeye daisies for a garden high point.

Most of my plants know they’re somewhat on their own in the dry. I hate watering and only do it as triage to keep the most desperate treasures alive, and it takes a real dramatic shriveling, dry look to guilt me into attempting a save. Usually it’s just in time, but I’m afraid our one rain event tricked me into thinking I could take a couple days off. As a result there’s a good chance I lost two newer dogwoods, a couple struggling rhododendrons, a witch hazel or two, and a few seedling pots. I’m sad about it all but only really upset about the one dogwood. It was a special gift, can’t easily be replaced, and I suspect when the dust of this season clears it will bother me even more.

Maybe a just in time watering saved this witch hazel for another few days. Maybe. There are long, likely-dry, hot months ahead and I don’t expect this missed watering to be the last.

Dry weather is nothing new, even if it comes at a time of year which is normally the most perfect gardening time of the year, but this year it’s on top of one of the latest freezes ever, and the garden is still trying to move on from that. Browned new foliage is still trying to grow out on magnolias and willows, only to advance right into wilting stage due to the lack of water.

I was so excited to see flower buds all over the rambling rose ‘Wartburg’. Its clusters of pink roses should look nice with the first flowers of the clematis ‘Venosa Violacea’… until they didn’t… I only just realized that this whole side of the rose is more exposed and was likely more damaged by the cold. I’m seeing stunted roses on some of the other bushes and of course am hoping that next year they’re perfect again.

The freeze damage could also be worse, and up in the mountains it was. The beech forests were really hit hard, worse than I suspected even just a few days ago. Patches along the road are all browned and whole trees have their new foliage burnt. That’s annoying, but not really as bad as it looks. The trees will recover if not for the other thing going on. I’m seeing large swaths of beech forest infected by Beech Leaf Disease… much much more than last year and it looks severe on a few trees. Beech trees are a big part of the canopy in some areas and with a six to ten year fatality I’m not looking forward to adding stands of dead beech trunks to the dead ash trees from borers and the bleached oak skeletons from prior spongy moth (gypsy month) infestations. The forest needed a break, not a new pestilence.

Plants in waiting on the driveway. There’s a backlog in moving things out into the soil of the rock-hard garden and that’s probably a good thing, since they’re likely better off here. The amaryllis are definitely happy here!

Did I mention it’s also cold? Normally Canadian air brings bright blue skies and cooler weather, but it was in the 40’s the other morning and that’s terrible to have the week after you open the pool(which of course has a leak on top of everything else). I was digging tulips in a sweatshirt rather bathing suit and thats not normal.
See? I promised a post full of complaints, and I believe I’ve delivered. Everything seem to be going in the wrong direction without an end in sight, and I guess I should be more miserable but I’m not. Bulb trays have been built, tulip are being dug, and I’ve fallen back to the potager, daylily farm, and anything the drip irrigation lines can be hooked up to. The deck containers look nice, a few day lilies are sending up bloom scapes, and I spent twenty minutes this evening watching baby bunnies nibble weeds and chase each other around the lawn. Spring still has a few good things tucked up her sleeve and as long as I can putter in safety I’m grateful. All the best.

Cooler

Mar21

We missed most of the snow, but in general it was cool here last week. In a fit of mid-March optimism I drug a few of the hardiest things out of the garage and onto the driveway for a little sun and fresh air and then forgot about them for a few days. Things got cooler over the weekend with a Friday night low around 25F (-4C) and I had my concerns for the rosemary, Fatsia, and potted Dracaena, but in the light of the next morning they didn’t look too bad. Of course I left them out for the next night as well, with similar temperatures, because like a small child I’ll try and get away with it for as often as I can until things backfire. Some people only learn things the hard way.

A spring shower and March sunshine have brought on the big dutch crocus (Crocus vernum ‘Pickwick’). The rabbits only nibbled a few of the blooms, but they’ll be back soon enough to finish them off.

In spite of two cold nights, the calendar and stars both say today is the first day of spring, and I’m happy the heavens have finally caught up to where I’ve already been for quite a few weeks. It’s exciting to know that spring has been given its official recognition for the new year but also sad to think that some of the most exciting highlights of the year have already passed. Next week promises warmer weather and with it the peak of the snowdrop season and then the fading away while other things step up for their moment. Already the witch hazel are dropping their petals and the winter aconite are on their way to setting seed and I’m almost missing those chilly afternoons shuffling around the garden looking for the first sprouts.

In a nook shaded by the fence, the last of the winter aconite is holding on to bloom. Seed pods will come next, ripe seed thereafter, and soon I’ll be scattering a new crop of flowers into the next patch of garden.

I think this gardener is feeling a bit of a crash following the abundance of snowdrops this spring. They’re still amazing and a few late ones are just starting and trust me I spend more time than I should soaking them in, but maybe I’ll need some help coming off the high this year.

‘Melanie Broughton’ is just one of the many late forms which supply perfect flowers once the earlier sorts begin to look tired. Maybe I need a late bed strictly devoted to these kinds so they’re all perfectly perfect together. Surely the garden can handle one more snowdrop bed?

Maybe daffodils can be my methadone. In spite of this weekend’s turn to cold the first daffodils are just a few degrees of sunshine short of opening, and you can trust I have my eye on them.

New waterlily shoots frozen into the night’s ice. I’m continuously amazed that soft things like fresh lilypads and tiny things like fresh duckweed can survive a solid freeze.

Oops. One thing which I didn’t have my eyes on were the four pots of daylily seedlings which were put out into the coldframe last week. Daylilies are hardy enough plants, but for seedlings to come out from a cozy winter under the growlights and face a freezing cold night (or two since what’s done is done), might have been more than they should have to handle.

Kinda mushy and wilted, the frozen daylily seedlings will hopefully survive to enjoy spring. Hopefully.

Generally if things freeze off I’m quite quick to write them off and move on, since there’s never a shortage of new seedlings and divisions and gifts and purchases waiting to find a home, but the frozen daylily seedlings could really be a setback to the future of the farm. I was counting on these to provide the 2025 introductions which would be unveiled when I put out my first daylily catalogue. Golly. This really does throw a wrench into things.

You can’t look at snowdrops all day, so Saturday I decided to regrade the entire construction area. The wife kindly pointed out that working on closets would be a better use of my time, considering a machine could do this in a day, but God forbid I have to join a gym to work off my winter fat.

So moving a couple tons of rocky fill did help ease the stress of the ups and downs which come with building a world quality daylily farm, but the even better part to all the hard labour was filling in a few more square feet of the low spot which haunts me in the back of the yard. I feel like the Dutch must have felt when they reclaimed their land from the sea. Every square foot of flat ground holds the potential of a new planting area, and perhaps in their honor I should plant it all to tulips one year, just in case the daylily farm doesn’t keep me busy enough.

The lowest areas back here were perhaps three feet below where I’d like them to be, so into the dip went all kinds of stone and mortar debris, now to be topped off with a foot or so of rocky dirt/fill.

I’m estimating this job should be finished up somewhere around late 2027, assuming I don’t end up in the hospital first. Hmmm. Actually I’m surprised that didn’t come up in addition to the talk of closets, and honestly don’t know if I should be flattered or insulted by that. In another year I’ll be closer to 60 than 50 so…

In the last few days tulips have started to sprout in the potager beds. There will be no room for cabbages, but three or four heads of cabbage didn’t stand a chance against armloads of tulips.

Well that’s not the direction I had planned for this post. It’s the first day of official spring and as always I’ll be gardening as if I’ll live to be 120. In my opinion it’s the only option since imagine planning for a bucket-kicking at 90 and then sticking around for another 30! That’s a long time to regret the unplanted acorn.

That Was Rough

Feb5

We are on the fourth day of winter here and there’s even a dusting of snow on the ground to make it look serious. People were finally zipping up their winter coats and by Friday most of the mountain lakes had ice extending from shore to shore. Seeing winter weather here was half a relief until I looked at the ten day forecast and saw at least three days next week where the daytime high was over 50F(10C), so calm down. Don’t pull out the ice fishing equipment just yet.

The snowdrops (Galanthus ‘Colossus’) are mostly wilted and flat in the cold. That’s a good thing actually.

Based on the daily news reports I’m sure everyone was aware that cold weather was headed across much of the US this week. I’m actually surprised there were no evacuation postings based on the way they were describing it, with dramatic windchill predictions, ‘record-breaking’, ‘life-threatening’ lows and all the dangers associated. Maybe someone even named the cold front. Cold front “Karl” is bearing down on the Northeast, buy your milk and bread (minus the egg$) now!!! before the brutal assault begins.

I did manage to bucket a few clumps and then threw fleece over this bed for good measure after ‘Mrs Macnamara’ and ‘Barnes’ flexed their previously damaged foliage and made me feel guilty about neglecting them last time.

Today when I woke up we were down to -2F (-19C). That’s about right in line with a normal winter low, even if this winter has been nothing close to normal. I strolled around a little in the afternoon when the thermometer had risen to around 20F and things might not be too bad. In spite of how advanced many of the sprouts were, two days of cold prior to the plunge allowed plants to get ready for the blast. The witch hazel curled up and the snowdrops went limp. Limp, sugar concentrated snowdrops don’t freeze as well and the wilted foliage doesn’t burst as easily from expanding ice crystals. Tomorrow when spring arrives we will see what bounces back. Hopefully most everything will since the coldest weather was just one night and things were somewhat ready for it. Nature can be smart, probably smarter than an idiot teen who needs to be told to go back into the house and put on a coat before this car is going anywhere for goodness sakes it’s not even 8 degrees out…

It was so nice and sunny (yet cold) Thursday after work that I did go a little overboard with the freeze protection. Cut evergreen boughs, buckets and fleece were doled out for the most precious and precocious of the snowdrops.

I really can’t blame the teen entirely. His father is the one who planted all these European and Asian snowdrops and witch hazels, and thought a winter garden would be a good idea in a climate which welcomes brutal winters. He’s not exactly the brightest either but let’s not dwell on that right now.

Even the regular golden winter aconites(Eranthis hiemalis) are thumbing their noses at this winter. In another week they’ll be sprouting up everywhere with an enthusiasm better suited to March.

So in another moment of brightness I’m declaring the winter of ’22-’23 to be over. February and March can be cold here but I’m giving up on winter, and next week everything is being uncovered and I’m starting the official spring cleanups regardless of historical averages. I should be disturbed and cautious but that’s our world these days and I’m saying it’s time to plan for snowdrop season and make a few calls for this spring’s snowdropping adventures. Giddyap I say and plan on making the best of the warmth!

Spring in January

Jan30

Saturday was awesome. Nearly 50F (10C) and sunny, with just a touch of wind kicking up in the afternoon, it was the kind of weather which might be a touch warm for an Irishman but for me it was a perfect spring day… in winter of course. We are still in a weather pattern which has been luring more and more plants out of the ground and into harm’s way, and things could come crashing down any minute. Actually that minute might be this Friday night when a front is threatening to knock lows down to about zero (-17C) so we will see.

The warmth and sun have coaxed the pale yellow winter aconite (Eranthis hiemalis) into full bloom. These flowers will melt in the cold, but the plants should survive to try again in spring 2024…

Oh my gosh I have so much random babbling to get out of my system that I barely know where to start. Perhaps complaining about a lack of blog views is a perfect place to begin since I’m already on to the woe is me, the weather is getting cold for two days, pity party. 2022 ended and my stats are the lowest numbers since 2014. Rough calculations on my part show that in that same period of time the global population has grown by 253 million, so as you can see it’s even worse than you would think since even a quarter billion supposedly tech-savy babies can’t be bothered to visit my blog. Shall I change my business model or content? Maybe branch out into alternate platforms and super-connect with social media? Heh heh, you know me better than that, obviously continued laziness will be my answer, and you can expect few to none on those new tricks on the horizon.

Galanthus ‘Bess’, with ‘Richard Ayres’ behind will suffer melted blooms in near zero cold, ‘Bess’ will probably be the worst just as she was two years ago from another freeze but maybe the lazy head gardener can cover a few things to help them along.

I happened to notice my visitor stats when I received notification that 2023 will be my ten year anniversary at Sorta Like Suburbia. You can take my word that a ten year anniversary on a blog which I don’t think I started that long ago did not help me feel any younger for a recent birthday celebration. Also not helping were reminders that in another year I will be eligible for senior discounts at most of the local restaurants.

Galanthus ‘Castle Plum’ is so perfect today, and one of my favorites for an early snowdrop. Still only one bulb after several years but who am I to pressure him to start having babies?

Obviously this gardener is not the type who gets bubbly and excited for his birthday, just in case you didn’t notice. My thrill was that the weather was beautiful and my celebration was being able to finish cleaning out enough of the front street border so that the earliest flowers can come up through something other than dead twigs and windblown trash. It might be early. It might be too early, but things are coming up anyway and if I wait longer my clumsy footsteps will do more damage to the plants than this and other likely-to-still-come hard freezes.

This hellebore (unlike others in the garden) doesn’t usually suffer from extreme cold snaps. I’ll let you know how it makes it through this one.

By the way, I also noticed that my earliest posts from the golden days of this blog were much shorter and far wittier. Maybe I should at least make an effort to keep this short.

More pale eranthis (only pale ones since the normal dark yellows are still waiting for warmer days). Some of these snowdrops might make it, but they’ve also lost flowers in freezes in years past.

…and more helpful. Posts about how things should be grown and what you shouldn’t do (I’m very good at that!) might be something to reconsider rather than endless whining about how we are finally going to have two cold nights this winter.

‘Mrs Macnamara’ rarely makes it through a winter here without a beating from the cold. Last winter was so rough on her she’s actually blooming a bit sparsely this year, and if she wasn’t such a good grower I’d have sent her to a more Southern garden years ago.

So here’s my tip for sudden freezes while your plants are already in growth. Buy a greenhouse. Fill it with hardy things like snowdrops and cyclamen so that a broken heater isn’t the end of the world and it might be a fantastic diversion for when the arctic visits. It will be a great place for ‘Mrs Macnamara’ and she deserves it, doesn’t she?

‘Daphne’s Scissors’ will probably not appreciate the cold but might also be just fine. When I was reviewing this photo I noticed the vertebrae of some poor little creature’s spine at the base of the clump. I guess the garden is always an up and down, life or death kind of place.

So I don’t know how we ended up on the topic of greenhouses. Hmmm. More economical advice will be to invert an empty pot or bucket over these tender shoots and maybe that will help with icy winds or possibly to catch a few degrees of protection. It will be worth it and I’m already preparing a scolding for myself for not bothering.

The Turning of the Tides

Jan27

I had a nice surprise Tuesday morning on the way to work. The normally dark and gloomy ride was brightened up by something I haven’t seen in a while, a sunrise. To call it a sunrise is giving the event a bunch more credit than it deserves, but it was a pinkish glow spread across the edges of a smattering of clouds and was much nicer than the black abyss I’ve gotten used to over the last few weeks. It’s a hopeful moment. There will still be plenty a day before I can walk into work with an actual sun over the horizon, but until then a promising glow in the morning counts for a lot.

With or without morning sun, the first of the witch hazels (Hammamelis x ‘Pallida’) has opened up for a full-bloom show of color in the otherwise bleak landscape.

The promise of seeing daylight again on the ride to work is a nice affirmation that days really are getting longer and spring will someday be more than an idea. Nice isn’t always good though, since this week typically brings the very coldest days of the season, and getting all sentimental and hopeful weeks too early can be torture when a string of snowstorms rolls through from February to March. Actually it can get expensive as well. People get delusional about expanding vegetable gardens and starting viburnum collections and planting new cannas everywhere. People can also get judgmental toward delusional gardeners, and let me state clearly here that that’s not ok. You should never be judgmental about people just trying to make the world a better place, and that’s exactly what a February gardener is trying to do with their not-as-well-planned-as-they-could-be new plant decisions.

First blooms on a new little witch hazel. ‘Spanish Spider’ was a totally unplanned and perhaps unnecessary purchase which is proving itself invaluable and essential this week.

For now on I will consider midwinter purchases as brilliant, perhaps genius, foresight. Leave the bean-counting to accountants and go ahead and buy as many bean seeds as you think your ‘Year of the Bean’ needs. Tell the naysayers they’re the type who would drive unrecognized genius to cut off an ear, and unless they want to be part of the problem they should instead help choose a nice yellow Romano pole bean to go with the heirloom purple.

More pale yellow Eranthis hiemalis are hearing the call of spring…. or maybe winter… they are also called winter aconites after all.

So enough with the aimless babbling and back to the garden. We’re still running a good bit above average temperatures. Skiing is happening but the ice fishermen are still on the sidelines, and plants are still trying to start growing just a little too early.

Peony shoots always seem to come up too early. These Peonia daurica buds look awfully exposed but they’re really quite hardy. At least that’s one thing I won’t have to worry about.

Fingers crossed that the early sprouts mean an early spring, and not a disaster of melted and blackened tender foliage in a month or two’s time. A few things are still reeling from December’s blast.

The fall blooming snowdrops (G. elwesii ‘Barnes’ in this case) did not appreciate going from North Carolina to Newfoundland in 12 hours. I see new growth though, so I suspect all is not lost.

A Sternbergia lutea (autumn daffodil?) which might be worse than it looks. All the browned damage is right close to the bulb and the rest of the leaf might follow as the damage works its way down.

Another Sternbergia lutea just a few inches away, further out into the garden which should have been more exposed and therefore damaged, but no, it looks untouched. The narrower foliage could mean something, and it’s also from a different source. Maybe it’s just variations in the species, but who knows?

Some of the hardy cyclamen (C. hederifolium and C. coum) were blasted by the cold, but I know they’ll recover, and by the looks of these early buds there’s still a good chance for an excellent spring flowering.

Obviously I can’t leave off on a gardening report with a down note on snowdrops. They’re inching forward, and hopefully still pace themselves in spite of the continuous above average temperatures.

The double ‘Ophelia’ is moving right along and should make a great show in a few more weeks. Unlike some, I don’t think she’s ever been bothered by a later freeze.

A few snowdrops are always eager to get started. Some years it’s cold enough to hold them back to bloom alongside the later varieties, other years they pop up early, hopefully miss the worst weather, and the season is extended that many more weeks:)

‘Wendy’s Gold’ will bloom during the next nice day, I suspect Sunday or Monday… right before the possibility of two actual winter days… maybe…

So snowdrops are still good just in case you were worried, and by the way the winter garden is also still good even if winter hasn’t been as healthy as he should be.

Another year of seed cleaning and sorting is finished and now my little coffee table is all tidied up and set for the main round of seed sowing.

It’s all the usual suspects under the lights, plus a few pots of daylily seedlings for the farm. If all goes well this will become a deliciously overgrown mess again by May.

There’s always a few new things. Someone gave me a bromeliad (Neoregelia) last summer and after a billion hours of online bromeliad searching I can proudly say I still only have one and I also haven’t moved to the tropics to grow them better. Go me!

I wish I could say the same for succulents. Who knew 20 bucks on Etsy could get you a tiny box of 10 mixed Echeveria agavoides cuttings!!?? 20 more bucks can get a handful of lithop seedlings to show up at your doorstep!!

So not to brag, I think I’m handling the depths of winter quite well. Witch hazels on the way, snowdrops in bloom, and exciting things under the grow lights. I could get used to these non-winters… assuming the two days of cold next week don’t become a habit… but even if they do there’s still always those longer days, the stronger sun, and there’s only so much winter can do against that.

Have a great weekend!

Untitled

Apr12

Spring has taken an odd turn here. The weather has been fantastic and there’s been time to spend in the garden but I have absolutely no interest in doing anything. Maybe it’s the lull effect. Snowdrop season come on so fast and was over so quickly, it was hard to keep that high going. Then the warm days were followed by two nights of hard freeze which singed the corydalis and melted half the hyacinths, but oddly spared the magnolia buds. This has become the norm lately, but for some reason the freeze-damaged flowers have me a little bored, and the return to warm days has me hesitant about starting too much transplanting. Fortunately the front garden looks ok with some spring daffodils, and my little twig of a magnolia cutting has grown into something which finally shows off.

Magnolia stellata, probably ‘Royal Star’ anchoring the far end of the front border. You can see the mother plant from which this plant came from to the right of the neighbor’s house.

I’m 87% sure last week’s freeze again killed all the barely pea-sized wisteria buds, but the almost open magnolias are fine. Go figure.

This year the flowers have a flush of pink to them, but that will fade to white in a couple days.

Right now, with a nice cover of shredded leaves, the front border seems optimistically weed-free, so even if there is transplanting and thinning to do I can still pretend it’s all under control for a few weeks longer. A gardener with more foresight and enthusiasm would probably scuffle through the mulch with a hoe now, before the onslaught of seedlings put down roots, but…

The daffodil ‘Tweety Bird’ flopped a little for the 21F night but has bounced back without a second thought. I’d say it’s one of my absolute favorites.

As I said, the hyacinths are probably the one bulb which took the biggest freeze-hit. Some are fine, but many either melted or suffered freeze damage to the flowers. Of course with all this pessimism running through my veins all I see are frosted flowers, even though I know I’m the only one to see it.

It saddens me to see the damage on ‘Woodstock’, but maybe a lost year of flowering will just mean a bigger show next year!

The hyacinths usually lead the garden into full daffodil season, which is also normally a big thing, but last year’s purge of the narcissus beds has left a noticeably smaller show in the back yard. Again, I’m the only one who notices these things, but I do miss them.

Maybe “MORE!!!” is the solution I’m looking for. I could divide up the hellebore ‘HGC Silvermoon’ and spread hyacinths all over… and then wonder how I ended up with so much pink 🙂

Actually the daffodils will be back next year, they just need a year to settle in and bulk up, but what I still want to celebrate is my first self-sown daffodil!

‘Holland Sensation'(supposedly) on the left, and a nearly identical seedling to the right.

I had been watching the daffodil seedlings for a few years and of course had all these amazing possibilities in my head, so it was a little bit of a surprise to see a nearly identical child show up. It’s going to be interesting to see what the others turn out to be since there are quite a few ringing the mother clump… all about a daffodil stem’s length away from the seed source.

Tulips will be next.

Honestly there are still plenty of daffodils to come. They’re later than normal from the digging and drying and storing process, but there will still be enough. Tulips on the other hand, there are never enough tulips! I replanted some of the ones I dug last year, but they were stunted from the ‘in the green’ transplanting process so only about half will bloom this year. But that’s not a bad thing since the transplanted tulips are showing perfect foliage, and that’s not been the case recently. The foliage is usually scarred with the pocks and streaks of the tulip fire fungus, and the tulips I didn’t get around to moving are again showing this kind of damage. I considered fungal sprays, but they all sounded so toxic I was going to just try digging these as well until I saw Neem oil spray. An organic option which doesn’t sound too eco-toxic so I’m going to give that a try on top of moving them. I’m not 100% sure when is best to spray, and I’ve never used it before, so please let me know if you have any suggestions.

Cleaning up the pond. Of course the pump broke halfway through.

Since we ended up on the repulsive subject of tulip fire, let me just stay with the theme and say that pond cleanup is also repulsive and probably the most disgusting part of spring cleanup. There was a slimy layer of rotten leaves coating everything, with a robust algae population and who-knows-what-else ecosystem of muck. Even with gloves it would be super-gross, but of course I was too lazy to go find them, so into the unknown my fingers went. The best part though was when the dog found something delicious in all that muck to chew on. What a disgusting little beast. Yuck.

So sorry about that segway into grossness. It’s probably just a symptom of my dark mood which will evaporate just as quickly as the first tulips open. In the meantime I wish you all a wonderful and safe week!

A Bit of a Chill

Apr2

The low last night was 23F (-5C) and tonight promises more of the same, although possibly a little warmer… as if that matters… so I’m going to dwell on the warmer days from earlier this week. To the relief of many snowdrop season here has ended and we are hurtling forward through corydalis season but not yet fully into daffodil season. After the highs of the snowdrops it’s almost a lull, but then I looked at the photos. Not bad at all I thought, although a few more days of snowdrops would have been nicer.

‘Tweety Bird’ is my first daffodil to open making a ‘bold’ contrast to the pinks of the corydalis solida ‘Beth Evans’.

Weird how the sun and warmth melted the galanthus yet hasn’t really brought on much of the other stuff yet. I suspect it has something to do with the weeks of snow cover and some things growing up through the snow yet others waiting for the melt to happen first.

Scilla mischtschenkoana picks up right after the snowdrops finish, but even in a good year barely flowers for more than a week or two. One rough week of work sometimes means missing the whole thing!

It might sound like complaining when I lament how short a bloom season might seem but honestly I bore quickly, so this (with the exception of a quick snowdrop season) actually works in my favor. There’s always the excitement of a next wave approaching and as long as a hard freeze doesn’t ruin things… hmmmmm…. maybe I shouldn’t yet discount late hard freezes…

Pasque flower (Pulsatilla vulgaris) is one of the first perennials to bloom, right alongside the hellebores.

Pasque (Pulsatilla vulgaris, formerly Anemone pulsatilla) flowers are a full-sun perennial which I don’t think I’ve ever seen for sale on a nursery bench. Of course they flower too early for Mother’s Day and don’t last long, and in this age of “does it flower all summer?” the answer is no, and some people just don’t want to hear that. Actually many sensible gardeners aren’t crawling around their perennial beds yet, and the pasque flower’s early blooms pass perfection so quickly I don’t blame them for not bothering with this plant, but I of course love their fuzziness and optimism against cold and ice and always end up thrilled to see their blooms catching the springtime sun.

Same pasque flower, other side while a cloud passes.

I bet a few early, miniature daffodils in cooling lemon and white tones would be perfect alongside even more pasque flowers. Other species come in reds and pale yellows and whites, and they’re easy from freshly sown seed and… well I digress again.

Galanthus ‘Peardrop’ is one of the latest to bloom here.

Sorry for throwing in two last snowdrops. -I was doing so good!

‘Galadriel’ is an elegant beauty with a fitting name. I should move it to a more open spot where it can be a focal point… hahaha, as if any of those spots are still empty 😉

That’s it for snowdrops. I hope there’s something equally exciting on the horizon, and I think I have it here with this next sprout.

A plate-sized eruption of foliage means the cardoon (Cynara cardunculus) really is as hardy a sort as promised. Cardoons have always died away over winter here, so this is mega-exciting. I guarantee you’ll hear more about it in a month or two! (please ignore the sea of allium seedlings in the background)

Maybe the promise of a year filled with cardoon photographs wasn’t what you were hoping for, but at least I didn’t sneak in another snowdrop. Here. Corydalis are also not snowdrops, and after a few years here they’re also not as formally named as the latter.

Maybe Corydalis ‘George Baker’. The plant on the left looks rightish, but the other side of the clump looks a little different.

Honestly I can’t keep my corydalis straight. Besides being promiscuous they must somehow resent how I try to pamper named cultivars while overlooking equally attractive stray seedlings. Out of spite the $15 named corm disappears while a sea of seedlings comes up to surround the lonely label.

Last year the final named form in this bed opted out on renewing for another year. Maybe it was the weeds, but everyone else seems relatively happy.

I don’t mind. They come up, flower, seed, and are gone before I even think about the other perennials and annuals which share this same space later in the year. Maybe native plant purists and lovers of bare mulch beds will complain about weediness, but just come here I’d say, and I’ll show you some weeds you can complain about.

Ugh. One has even jumped across into the next bed. When I dig a few of the daffodils I’ll try and remember to weed out this corydalis.

I’d like to move a few of the nicest forms into a bed where they can clump up, but so far my clumsy attempts at moving them in bloom has caused more casualties than it has attractive corydalis plantings, but eventually I think I’ll get it.

Everyone here admires the corydalis. I’ve been informed this little guy lives under the porch and often comes out to sun himself on bits of trash while admiring the flowers. Word is he is really looking forward to meeting my friend Kimberley 🙂

So then this….

Magnolia are well known for how bravely they endure the ups and downs of early spring…

The weather started to “shift” yesterday.

Forsythia ‘Show Off’ which I planted next door. I’d show you mine but it appears the soil on my side of the property line produces more rabbaliscious growth and as a result it hasn’t broken the four inch mark because of its annual pruning.

And now for a few hellebores. I dug up a few as giveaways last week and have to say it’s a much nicer way to clear space for even more hellebores than sending them to the compost pile would be. It would be nice to think I’m “upgrading” but since the new ones are unflowered seedlings, who knows but at least it’s much more exciting to see something new next spring!

I think this was supposed to be ‘Pink Fizz’, a single pink, but sadly I ended up with this very un-single flower 😉

I have a little thing for growing hellebores from seed. A few get planted every fall, and eventually the pipeline is full enough that each spring there are new surprises from the years past.

I believe these were supposed to be a ‘slatey’ mix of seeds. Kind of average, and not really slate-ish, but still nice for a few springs.

Someone was too lazy to separate this pot of seedlings when planting. I like the effect!

I might have too many of these… a double pink hellebore, maybe ‘Nellie’ from seed I ordered 8 years ago from Australia. They’ve finally gotten some room and are looking great, but 6 plants of it!?

The hellebores will be fine with the cold. Most everything will be fine until it’s not, and even then it will likely recover for next year. *yes I’m talking about last year’s lost lily season*

A frozen peony (Paeonia daurica) this morning with other frozen stuff…. all recovered by 2pm.

I just noticed that the melting peony is back to almost normal. Maybe now it’s okay to take a stroll and see how everything else has made out, and briefly consider the wind and how likely it is that I’ll do any gardening today. I actually want to work out there, but with low 20’s tonight maybe I’ll wait one more day before transplanting a few little white bulbs around. They probably wouldn’t care either way, but choosing patience would make me feel a tiny bit better considering tonight’s cold will likely kill most of the flower buds on the wisteria (again).

Oh well. It’s always something and if worse comes to worse I know where the Easter chocolate is.

Have a great holiday weekend!

Winter Arrives?

Jan7

With the calendar turning over for the official start of a new year, I had the opportunity to see my blogging stats as a year end summary. I usually expect a disappointing show but how exciting to see that for the first time since 2016 my visitors and views have actually increased! I’ll still point out that there was far more interest in this blog five years ago than there is today, but I guess any move to the plus side is worth celebrating, and I think my first move will be to show off these numbers to my bank account. It’s been slacking in the numbers department as well, and this might be just the inspiration it’s been waiting for.

A former vegetable bed has filled with hydrangeas and other things more colorful than vegetables. Now a messy mulch of leaves looks suspiciously like the cover for a future snowdrop bed. Hmmmm.

My concerns over declining views are matched only by my race to improve them. In the last four years I’ve done nothing. That could be part of it, but at least the weather was beautiful last Saturday and I was able to do something outside and actually weeded a few spots and spread a little mulch. Not bad for January, and I think I’m as set as I will be for the earliest spring bloomers, some of which have mistaken sunny days in the 50’s for the end of an extremely short winter.

Mrs Macnamara is an early riser, but unfortunately this weather tricks her into being too early. In the five years she’s been here her early blooms have been destroyed five times, and I have yet to see her flowers open and look their best.

History does not bode well for an extremely short winter in this garden. A review of last year shows various things up and nearly in flower the first week of January… and then also shows the wilted, frozen mush of snowdrops and hellebores by the end of February. I doubt there’s a gardener out there who doesn’t know this same story.

I would have removed the hellebore foliage but prefer to mow it all up, and honestly the lawnmower deserves at least a few days off for winter so I’ll wait.

I guess there’s no easy way out. A more mature and sensible gardener would just not grow the plants ill suited to their garden. That’s a good idea, and you of course should do that even if I won’t.

On the advice of a better gardener I’ve started trimming the old foliage off my hellebores at anytime from late December on. Tender, easily damaged shoots seem to show up whether the leaves are removed or not.

I apologize for speaking of warm sun while showing gloomy snow and sleet but one of the blog stats which stood out for me was that this blogger used to post twice as much. Because Saturday was a beautiful, busy day and no photos were taken, I was forced to go out Sunday into the sleet for something to blog about. Quantity over quality is my new mantra and we will see if more frequent posts will be the secret to overwhelming my site counter and bringing on that lucrative movie deal I’m still hoping for.

Or spring. I won’t mind if more frequent posts bring on spring 🙂

In Like a Lamb

Mar11

I’m considering filing a restraining order against March this year. Every spring-like warm spell brings the hellebores and snowdrops on a little further along but then some new brutal weather event comes by to smack them all down again. It’s clearly an unhealthy relationship but I just can’t move on. Every time the sun comes out again, spring becomes so real I just want to forgive and forget and say just one more chance.

Possibly my favorite snowdrop, ‘Brenda Troyle’ looks extremely average but it’s also so reliable and perfect I can’t say a single bad thing about it.

Most of the snowdrops were lost after the first chance for spring came and went, but a few hid here and there either underground or cozied up to the house foundation. A shame they didn’t warn the hellebores about how fickle the season was being.

The hellebores which could have been.

I admit I’m not much help in protecting things. A few snowdrops received a plastic tub or bucket cover for when the thermometer dropped to 7F (-14C) one night, but most things are on their own.

Galanthus lagodechianus tried hiding underground for a while and did manage to avoid the hail, but then came up just as the latest arctic blast was about to hit. Fortunately a simple cover saved its perfect flowers from damage and at least this week I’ll be able to enjoy the yellow coloring which is exceptionally bright this spring.

The various snow crocus in the meadow garden are always a risky bet so I can’t complain much here. The weather gets whatever the rabbits didn’t so even in a good year you need to be quick.

Some warm sun might be too much to ask for. I keep waiting for the spring where I see a whole swath of opened crocus basking in the sunlight… but it hasn’t happened yet.

To hedge my spring flowering bets I went around yesterday and plucked any undamaged hellebores which were still around. A few remained and they were enough to remind me why I still bother growing them…. since last year’s season was mostly a bust as well.

Snuggled up right next to the porch foundation, hellebore ‘Cinnamon Snow’ has actually flowered well this year. Usually the buds are killed much earlier in the winter and never make it to this point. Wish I could say the same for the others, but this small handful were the only undamaged flowers I could rustle up.

Hopefully the rest of March is a little gentler on the hellebores and the later flowers can still develop and put on a show. It would be nice to see a few showy clumps instead of the wilted and blacked stalks I’ve been getting used to seeing.

Fingers crossed that this is the last of the hail damage. At first the magnolias didn’t look so bad, but once the damage started to brown it was a different story. Fresh foliage will make this all a memory in a few more weeks… I think.

One last complaint. For some reason these snowdrops (G. woronowii) really took a beating from the cold. Maybe it was the 62F to 7F drop in temperature, or the wet soil, or the exposed location, whatever the case I think a few might not be salvageable.

Sad seeing freeze damage on a snowdrop but it’s not my first time. Maybe a few will survive, but they (and about 200 others) were looking so promising for their first year.

I guess some days it’s just better to stay indoors.

The first of the forced tulips are coming into flower. I’m sure their shortness says something bad about their culture but to be honest the height actually works out perfectly for under the growlights 🙂

The indoor garden should really have many more seedlings getting size on them for spring planting, but for whatever reason I just haven’t yet been in the mood to tackle a whole under-lights seed agenda this year. I planted onions, that’s it. Good thing the primroses are filling in and starting to flower.

Photographing yellow is still a sticking point for me, but hopefully this picture still gets across how nicely this primula auricula has done.

Having my yellow Primula auricula survive for a second year was a surprise in itself, but the fact that it’s actually multiplied and flowered again is borderline unbelievable.

I still think the mealy powder on these flowers is one of the most exotic things.

These indoor flowers will have to keep me and most of the East coast going for the next few days since March just decided to come back and slap us with a surprise snowfall. Normally this would be another reason to complain, but at least snow should insulate things for the temperature drop which will follow.

Hellebore ‘Cinnamon Snow’ in the actual snow.

Temperature drop and then more snow. Right now they’re saying lots more but given the forecasting track record it’s still too soon to tell. Wouldn’t that be something though if we get more snow in the first few days of spring than we did all winter. March must know I was planning on a garden visit next weekend because I bet this weather forecast is what jealously looks like. Stop it March!

Too much money

May8

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

more than you ever wanted to know about my garden

Category Archives: freeze damage