Out of the Blue

May6

Seriously. If anyone has ever considered abducting me, all it would take is a white van and the promise of a plant inside. What!? You have a variegated clematis in there? Move over, let me see…

Within days of starting a conversation about bulbs with a new online friend, I was convinced Crinum lilies were missing from my life and I needed a few. A week later a (quite heavy) box from Jenks Farmer shows up on my porch and I’m tearing up the garden making room for a bulb or three.

The Crinum bulbs which showed up were huge. I was so excited I made sure every vaguely disinterested family member had an opportunity to admire them and hear a little about them. They seemed very grateful.

It’s not easy just squeezing a cantaloupe sized bulb which needs several square foot of space, into a fairly full perennial border, but I no longer even pretend to worry about it.

Realistically, four square feet of space would be a good start for planting a small crinum. Obviously this bed has quite a few four foot gaps which need filling 😉

I worry about stupid things instead. There were a few grassy threads of something which looked like allium seedlings in the spot where the one crinum should have gone. I’d really like them to be allium seedlings, but they’re too small to risk moving so of course I planted the $40 crinum in a second best spot crammed between a hellebore and penstemon in a spot which was unavailable until I moved the 90 pound “landscape” stone out of the way. I thought this was the best option rather than risk anything happening to the six or seven tiny weeds which maybe have a 15% chance of become amazing alliums in another half decade or so…

Crinum powellii album nestled into its new home. It might be an expensive annual this far North, but the bulb is huge and if all goes well maybe a single flower stalk will grace the garden before winter smashes all my dreams of global warming granted hardiness.

Let me just mention the alliums quickly. They’re three bulbs of Allium karataviense ‘red and pink hybrids’, and even at 50% off during a late November clearance sale, they were still kind of costly. Not snowdrop-costly but still kind of pricey when you consider they’re basically just onions with an ego. Of course they’re too self-important to bother splitting and multiplying, but maybe those seedlings are a start.

I think their broad, water-repelling foliage is very cool in itself, but the flowers aren’t too shabby either. I suspect these are hybrids based on Allium karataviense ssp henrikii, but that’s only if you really want to make your onions sound fancy.

I’m going to apologize now for going on and on about tulips again. A short post mentioning some new crinum bulbs was the plan, but then I got tulips on my brain again, and well…

The hot colored tulips mark the last stage of the front border’s spring flush. It will face a short lull now as (I hope) the summer bloomers come along, but for now it’s awesome. Also please note it’s been an excellent dogwood year 🙂

In case you haven’t noticed, my garden follows manias, and I’m sensing another tulip mania coming on. Bulbs will be dug, moved, stored, replanted… and hopefully next year there will be even more tulip excitement! Unless of course some epimedium thing or bearded iris obsession develops, you never know. Sometimes I like to consider how nice this garden could look if the gardener would only focus and organize, but obviously that hasn’t happened and instead I always opt for “interesting”, even if it’s only interesting for me 🙂

I think black tulips are interesting. The gray leaves of Scotch thistle are also interesting, as well as the weedy yellow roadside mustard behind them. I think I should let the mustard go to seed and check those out for spiciness, that might also be pretty interesting!

Awesome is also a good option. Some of the tulips rate pretty high on the awesomeness index.

No idea on the name of these luscious cherry with orange flowers, but they rate awesome. The white with red flames behind aren’t too bad either, they came in a mix and I believe they’re the tulip ‘Happy Generation’.

The one new tulip purchase for this year were the antique ‘broken’ tulips purchased through Old House Gardens. If they return next year I’m sure you’ll see too much of them, but for this year the five single bulbs I planted are more of an obsession rather than an amazing landscape show. An obsession because of the beautiful, virus-induced patterning and its connection to the raging tulipmania of the 17th century, and just plain interesting because of the great age of these cultivars. The ones planted this year range in age from one to three hundred years old!

The solid color of these tulips has been ‘broken’ by a virus they carry. I shall keep them away from other tulips (and true lilies) and hope for the best.

As I was considering how old the tulips were I kinda felt a little old myself. There I was admiring the nice blue mat of what I think is Polemonium reptans and I realized I’ve been tending this plant in some way or another for over forty years. It was growing in the garden of my parent’s house 51 years ago when they bought it and it’s one of the first things I realized I could move and divide and not end up killing.

I don’t know if this is plain old Polemonium reptans or some selection or some other species or hybrid, but it just keeps chugging along year after year. Never sets a single seed, but slowly creeps along.

Things that I can’t kill are good to have. They say Crinum lilies are next to impossible to kill so that’s promising, but any idiot knows that winters here are cold, and considering that I know winters here are cold, that may explain my decision to plant them…

It’s been pouring rain today. I made a point of photographing the primula sieboldii yesterday as a memory of what they looked like before they drowned.

So as usual we will see where these questionable decisions lead. Container crinums would likely be a smarter choice but then I would have to find a big enough container and that might be even more trouble than dealing with the loss of yet another borderline plant. In any case if I hedge my bets with a bunch more tulip plantings this fall I’ll have plenty to keep me happy in case the other stuff fails, so obviously my apparent madness is actually a well devised plan of attack.

Hahahaha, sure it is. Have a great week, and remember to stay away from those white vans, even if they say they’re full of rare violets and hosta 😉

Spring!!!

Apr29

This is the time of year when I like to complain about how terrible my allergies are. The burning eyes and runny nose and sneezing… they’re really not all that bad but it’s the only season when I have something to blame my general laziness on. It’s not aimless sloth, it’s dust and pollen. I’m a victim I shout but then someone suggests I come in out of the polleny wind and clean the basement. As if.

A few primrose have not only survived, but have even prospered in the dry shade which has suddenly appeared in parts of the garden. I swear I just planted those trees a year or two ago.

Saturday was actually a pretty busy day around here and things were weeded, mowed, pruned, and a few things were actually transplanted. That’s good but in the sprit of easing into ‘hard labor season’ the gardener took Sunday off and photographed a few things. The photo shoot was followed by much sitting around, and then the week since has been much of the same.

More shade treasures, Lathyrus vernus was mowed by rabbits in March, but fenced in April. This spring vetchling could have been nicer but at least a few flower buds survived.

My excuse the past two days has been heat. 79F yesterday and 84F today. The warmth was such a shock today I almost started an inside cleaning frenzy before coming to my senses. Fortunately things didn’t have to go that far since the house is again super neat with both kids home all day in a return to online learning. I’m sure every parent recognizes the sarcasm dripping off every word in that last sentence.

The pink form of Lathyrus vernus, ‘alboroseus’, was fenced before the rabbits got to it. Anyone else would recognize that fencing should be done each spring but I like to surprise myself anew each year.

So now I’m trying to burst on past this wall of laziness and at least get a blog post up. My garden has a springtime peak as the tulips and dogwoods come into bloom, and I’m absolutely ready to devote hours to just wandering around admiring bloom after bloom. It’s similar to snowdrop season except there’s more than one color and I don’t have to crawl around on my hands and knees.

Some of last years divided and replanted daffodils, this one a nameless double which looks similar to ‘Tahiti’ but just a bit more yellow and slightly smaller.

The daffodils are really in full swing and the Darwin tulips and other early season tulips are opening to join them. I know I brag about it all the time but this mostly exposed and summer-dry garden seems to be just what these tulips enjoy.

This is what the snowdrop bed degenerates into as other things come up. The daffodils are intentional but only the reddish ‘Spryng Break’ tulips were planted, the rest came in via compost or squirrels.

The vegetable garden had been a major tulip stronghold, since every batch of compost and every turning of the beds seemed to spread them a little further, but last year’s raised bed project cleaned that up a little. Many bulbs were collected, flowering plants potted up, and some were just lifted to new spots, but I did try to reduce the numbers…

The front bed is filled with bulbs collected during construction. For some reason I hate the color mix and every day I am just minutes away from pulling the short purple and white tulips and tossing them… it may still happen. The back bed just needs emptying out… way too much yellow 🙂

Once the flowers are over and the foliage yellows, the bed above will be lifted, dried, stored, and replanted in the fall. The flowers are sparse and small this year, but next year they’ll be fine again having spent the whole spring growing rather than suffering a mid April move. I just need to get a few more pinks into the mix and get rid of the dumpy little purples.

I probably planted these tulips as well. I probably even thought it was a good spot and I wouldn’t need the room for more brocolli and lettuce tranplants.

Although the raised beds… I mean ‘Potager’… is having a down tulip year I still think tulips are a far better idea than just planting more cabbage. More leftover and stray bulbs were planted in the concrete bed and (1) they did fine in a kinda exposed bed and (2) prove I need more red as well! I can honestly see a day when the entire potager is filled with tulips 🙂

I gave away some ‘Spryng Break’ bulbs but these were deemed “too small” to pawn off on unsuspecting gardeners so they were replanted. Now of course I’ll have even more and still not know what to do with them all… but I do know they’ll have to be planted next to something other than the short and moody burgundy ‘Muvato’ now behind it.

Yes. I do like tulips. Tulips and only the occasional deer make for a wonderful spring and I don’t know what I’ll do if the deer start making a habit of visiting.

The fine red outline of this Darwin hybrid will slowly bleed into the flower until it becomes completely orange. I love it but have just too many of this one.

A lack of deer does not mean complete bliss. Some parts of the garden are plagued by tulip fire, which infects the foliage and blooms and makes overcrowded and damp bunches turn to mush. Th potager re-dig helped immeasurably as did mulch and thinning, and this year I’ve been spraying with Neem oil and between that and a drier spring it all seems to be helping. A better gardener would destroy the infected plants and not replant for five or so years but…

Some tulips seem more susceptible to tulip fire. This orange late tulip has practically melted away while ‘Pretty Princess’ seems untouched.

I could really go on and on about tulips but I’m just about blogged out for the night and I’m sure you’ll be fine without my babbling. I’ll just leave you with some tulipomania from the front yard.

Tulip ‘Pink Impression’ on the left, and a few not-pink impression on the right. All are excellent.

Tulip ‘Burning Heart’. A big beauty who keeps coming back just as huge as they were in year one.

The star magnolia is finished but I think this end of the front border still looks decent. It could use a few more tulips of course, and more daffodils won’t hurt either!

Tulip ‘Beauty of Spring’ anchors the other end of the front bed. The red on this one will also spread as the flower ages. With all the yellow daffodils I don’t know why I needed more yellow tulips, but there they are.

Fun fact. As I was double checking the name on ‘Spring Beauty’ I came across an online site using an older picture of my clump to sell their wares. I wonder if this entitles me to some kind of site discount…

Anyway it’s bedtime, so I hope these past few days also have you out enjoying the garden and reveling in the explosion of color called spring. Perhaps it’s not spring in your neck of the woods, and in that case I hope there’s plenty of other joys to discover this week, in any case the key word is ‘enjoy’ 🙂

An Executive Summary for May

May22

Lockdown continues
Working from home keeps us surprisingly busy considering we’re home all day
Laziness could still be a factor in things not getting done

The Potager Pandemic Project is progressing at a pitifully poor pace. I will not share pictures until it looks a little better (Allium ‘Gladiator’)

Multiple harsh, late, freezes did in another year of wisteria blooms and damaged many early risers
Spring continues regardless

Surprisingly, Primula sieboldii continue to do well in a damp, part shade location. I divided and moved a few in early spring and they haven’t complained a bit.

I still love you spring

A range of seedling Primula sieboldii. I’m pleased with how well they’ve done, obviously they’re not that hard to grow!

iris have been delayed and disfigured by the cold
lilacs have not

A selection of lilac flowers, mostly Father Fiala hybrids and older varieties.

Older lilacs with names such as ‘Atheline Wilbur’, ‘Paul Thirion’, and ‘Marie Frances’ roll off the tongue in a way that ‘Bloomerang Dark Purple’ and ‘Pinky Winky’ never will
Have a wonderful week

I Like Tulips :)

May8

There’s a freeze and awfully cold precipitation on the way, but the sun was out this morning and the tulips in the front border are at their peak. Whatever route the weather takes this Friday I think we’ll be ok… as long as I don’t think too long about all the fresh lily stalks and iris blooms that won’t easily shrug off real cold temperatures.

Out front the tulips are quite nice this year.

Whatever. I have a long established belief that protecting outdoor plants from outdoor weather is a lot of work, and I have an even longer established belief that more work=bad, so if you do that math for that one you can easily see that the plants here won’t be protected. Better to just enjoy the sun and admire tulips.

‘Marit’ is a favorite of mine. There are a lot of favorites, but right now she’s on top.

So I don’t know why the tulips do so well here. Obviously deer and other vermin aren’t a problem, but beyond that they last for years with little attention from me, and I hear it from many others that this is not typical for most gardeners.

Four years ago I planted the ‘Incendiary Mix’ from Van Engelen and they’re still going strong.

Most of the books would say this is probably not a good spot for tulips. The ground is heavy and thin, doesn’t drain well, and all kinds of other things grow over the tulips from June on. I think what they do like is the full sun and the compost and leaves which I (usually) mulch with in early spring. Also it’s fairly open and breezy which keeps moisture from sitting on the plants. The tulips do start to dwindle when they get overcrowded, but… well honestly they usually just end up dwindling… A better gardener would dig and divide when the foliage yellows, but who has time for that!? Plus a new bag of tulips in October really won’t break the bank.

Honestly. I deadheaded daffs and cut the grass, but only after I enjoyed the tulips and took pictures. Here’s the view from the mailbox.

All is not bliss in this tulip world. ‘Tulip fire’ is a fungal disease which is better or worse depending on how wet the spring is. It spots the foliage and scars the flowers, but from ten feet it’s easy enough to ignore. ‘Tulip breaking virus’ is also here, and it shows up as colorful streaks on a normally solid bloom. Three years after first noticing it I’m still hemming and hawing about pulling and tossing the infected bulbs, and as the years pass they still fascinate me too much to destroy.

Tulip breaking virus on a solid orange tulip. I can see why the red and yellow streaks could cause a mania.

Some tulips just carry the genetics for streaking. I’m not sure how one tells the difference, but according to the seller, ‘Spryng Break’ is a genetic sport and not virused, and last fall it was just what I needed to top off a bulk snowdrop order. Actually I didn’t need them at all. At 50 bulbs for $15 I just couldn’t resist.

‘Spryng Break’ fully open, flanking the front porch, and highlighting my beautiful little deadsedge .

I keep coming back to the tulips along the street though. In the backyard digging and moving have not done the tulips well, but out front they are excellent.

A driver actually slowed down the other day and when I looked up to see who it was they said they were just admiring the flowers. Lucky them, if it weren’t for social distancing I would have made them get out and take a tour.

The tulips this year are giving me bad thoughts. The raised bed construction in the potager is nearly complete, and I can’t imagine anyone wanting to use all those beds for just some vegetables that you could easily pick up at the farmer’s market…. without struggling for weeks to fight off bunnies and birds and bugs… so I’m thinking they would make nice tulips beds. Maybe. Just one. Or two. The tulips do need dividing after all.

The Purge

May5

The late daffodils are still rounding out the season, but I can’t wait any longer. While their blooms are still fresh in my mind I’ve gone around and done a daffodil inventory, and then let loose with the first round of narciss-icide. I’m down to a baker’s dozen times ten, which I don’t think is excessive at all. The second assault will start in June, when I dig the crowded clumps and only save as many as I *need* for replanting.

Three more buckets filled. The survivors look nervous, but I told them they were safe for now.

It looks ruthless and sort of is, but when a bulb or two slowly turns into a foot wide, congested clump, something needs to be done. Actually something should have been done a few years ago, but better late than never, right? Let me know if you’re interested in any, I still feel the slightest twinge of guilt tossing perfectly fine daffodils just because.

A happier view of daffodils. ‘Geranium’ in the front border alongside some moneyplant (Lunaria annua’). It was beautiful on Sunday and the flowers glowed.

Now I’ll wait until the foliage begins to yellow, about six weeks after bloom, dig the clumps, dry off the bulbs, hang in mesh bags, and then replant this autumn. Hopefully by then I will still have enough empty spaces to put them all back in to!

Have a great week 🙂

Time For a Few Daffs

Apr22

There was a time when I had a lot of daffodils. I’m working on that. It’s not because a lot of daffodils is a bad thing, it’s because they do need a little care here and there and this gardener has been slacking in that regard. So in an attempt to mend my ways I’ve been culling the herd lately, trying really hard to convince myself that I don’t need hundreds of varieties and that maybe just one hundred might be enough. I have to do it fast and without much thought. No composting either. I tried that with the tulips and it just ended up with tulips everywhere the compost was spread.

‘Williamsburg’ and ‘Red Devon’, two keepers.

My garden just isn’t big enough to do daffodils the way I’d like to do them. I want big clumps full of flowers but how many of those can you fit in without crowding the masses of snowdrops also planned? Something has got to give. When a friend first led me (willingly of course) into the world of yellow fever I thought I’d just try a few to see what I really liked and what did well here, and then just back off… and I suppose that time has come.

‘Curlew’ doing well along the street and ushering in the late season daffodils.

Two endlessly rainy summers and some garden drainage issues helped immeasurably. At least half the clumps out back have disappeared completely, which to me says they were more prone to basal rot anyway… maybe… so no need to replace those. Today I plan to go out, ID a few clumps which have lost their tags, and then shovel prune a few more. Even after starting this process last year I just want to reassure you that I still have and will have plenty.

‘Cassata’ looking exceptionally orange this spring, thanks again to the cool weather.

I find that once they’re gone there are only a few I ever miss. Not a big problem. The other reason gardeners are usually so generous with their plants is for just that reason, a friend can always pass a piece back when you need it.

‘Dress Circle’ is a favorite. It’s always done well here, crowded or not.

So here are a few keepers. They also need digging of course, but I’ll save that for June when they’re dormant and I can divide and replant.

‘Kedron’ has an overall orange tint that I really like. It’s one of the few affordable versions of this color combo.

One of the first “pinks”, ‘Mrs RO Backhouse’ needs some photoshopping these days to keep up with the newer pink varieties, but she’s a keeper anyway and always reminds me of the friend who gifted her to me.

‘Modern Art’ is frillier than I prefer, but my friend Tim just loves all these overdone daffodils so I’ll keep it to show, just in case he ever visits 😉

I think this daffodil is ‘American Heritage’ although it came to me misslabeled. It will look cooler as the cup fades to more of a pink… and also a better spot with better soil and more space won’t hurt either…

An unknown but still loved double daffodil next to ‘Coral Light’. Of course both of these are right in the middle of one of the new yet-to-be raised beds.

‘Montego’ looking nice as the shrubby dogwood ‘Midwinter Fire’ spreads through it. I’d consider digging this one, but the dogwood is all in there and… I would dig it to toss, it’s just too “leafy” for my taste.

… and of course there are two other things I just can’t not share. Primroses are loving the cool wet.

I’m still disproportionately proud of the primula auricula which has yet to be killed. I did grow them from seed after all.

And a first bloom on a purchase from Edgewood gardens. Two years after buying a tiny pot of gravel, the little root inside has developed into an amazing Paeonia daurica. I love it.

Ok, so I already loved the foliage on this when it was smaller, but now that it’s big enough to bloom… even better. I may rip out a hosta or two to make more room for it 🙂

So even with freezing mornings and snow squalls rolling through there’s still plenty to be enjoyed in the garden. Work? Sure. But if this is what I can get by being lazy, imagine how amazing things will look after a little care and attention.

Who am I kidding. Two years of drought or some other new pestilence on the horizon will surely turn everything back on to its other ear and we’ll be back to square one again. It’s a fun distraction though, and I hope this week you’re enjoying your own garden distractions as well. The cold will end.

Primula Sieboldii

May12

I guess it always starts innocently enough. A friend tells you about a plant, you see a couple pictures of the plant, and before you know it a few seeds get ordered or a plant gets boxed up and something is in the mail headed for you. You didn’t get carried away yet but sometimes things just happen. This spring Primula sieboldii just happened, and of course you can’t place the blame on this gardener.

Primula sieboldii and a few other things in the spring garden.

I’m going to blame the American Primula Society and the endless rain. Primula in themselves are a nice enough group of plants and as a rule they do like ground which is typically damper than this garden normally provides. When a few survived our normally droughty summers I thought whatever, let me try and kill a few more. That’s when the Primula Society seed exchange stepped in. Some of the best seed in the world is practically given away and who am I to say no to that?

The basic form for Primula sieboldii in shades of pink.

Each winter a few more batches of Primula seedlings would get started. It was almost too easy. A pot of soil topped off with a thin layer of chicken grit with Primula sieboldii seed sprinkled on top. Put outside. Winter snow and ice and sleet and more ice and sleet and… well you get the idea, seedlings appear in spring. Once large enough to handle, better gardeners would prick out seedlings and grow them on during the summer, but some people have been known to leave them in their seedling pots all season and then desperately cram them into a hole before leaving on a vacation and still have reasonable success. They will bloom the following spring.

Interesting seed will produce interesting flower forms. A darker reverse with fringed and cut petals can be one nice result.

As you may suspect, Primula sieboldii is not the most difficult thing to grow. They are a plant of open woodlands and damp meadows through Eastern Siberia, Korea, and Japan and if you match those conditions that’s good enough. Cooler summers will allow more sun as long as the soil stays moist, but if your soil goes dry in the summer they’ll probably just go dormant (as mine often do) and reappear in the spring. I think fall or early spring are the recommended times for division, and a fertile, heavier soil is preferred.

Primula seedlings were not the only things hastily crammed into this bed, it also doubles as a snowdrop bed and triples as a species lily bed, so maybe it’s about time these babies got a little more room. I love the seedling variations.

Mine are due for division and a little more room. I have a few favorites that I’d like to see flourishing, and they can’t really do that where they are now. Surely that’s not my fault as all this unexpected rain really has caused them to explode into growth, but I expect some planning and foresight could have avoided this predicament.

I do like the fringed ones. Right now I’m on the lookout for a pure white, but even with a touch of pink they’re pretty cool.

A more disciplined and ruthless gardener would rouge out the plainer forms, but more than likely I’ll just replant them all, see what turns up, and then maybe steel my soul enough to make those tough decisions later.

A nice lilac shade of Primula sieboldii

I do have a favorite. Frilly and pink is not my usual calling, but it’s found a place in Primula sieboldii, and ‘Frilly Pink forms’ is officially my nicest seedling.

I think the subtle color streaks and finely cut petals are just perfect in this one.

I’d go outside and see if a few new ones are open but of course it’s raining again and there are Mothers Day breakfasts to be made. Hopefully the weeds don’t mind yet another stay of execution.

Have a great week!

The Vortex of Gloom

May4

Vortex of gloom might be slightly dramatic, but the endlessly overcast days really seem to be extending far beyond the usual April showers. Last I checked it’s May and this nonsense should have been all worked out a week ago.

‘Pink Impression’ tulips doing well along the street, even though the shrubby dogwoods are beginning to take over.

No matter. The ground has still not degenerated into the slimy muck of last year’s endless monsoon so there’s still hope… but considering the growing season is only just off to a start, there better still be hope!

Tulips are one of my favorite flowers. The form can be so elegant, and the colors and patterns so intricate.

I didn’t know what to expect this year as far as the tulips go. For the past two springs I’ve been dealing with the fungal infection called tulip fire, and when I say ‘dealing with’ I hope you understand I mean more of an emotional coping rather than any kind of actual physical activity. This lazy gardener did go around and pick off many of the most infected leaves (spotting and distortion) and dug a couple hundred bulbs to thin and replant in the fall, but as far as sprays and other more sure-fire solutions… meh.

The carpet of corydalis is disappearing under the next wave of plants. They next wave would probably look better dry and not-windswept, but you get the idea.

All in all it’s not a bad show. The earlier part of April was dry which helped, thinned out clumps probably helped, and since it’s a soil-borne pathogen I think mulching helped as well. Add to that my insanely strong resolve last fall and the fact that I didn’t add a single new tulip (in spite of clearance sales, flash sales, and glossy catalogs galore) and there might have been a good enough combination of culture and luck that things worked out. Now if we can only avoid a fungal fueling month of dreary, wet weather there might be some hope for next year as well.

I’m not sure how I like smoky rich tones of ‘Muvota’, but they might look really cool in a more elegant garden as opposed to my 8-pack Crayola colors garden.

To be honest the ten day forecast does not look good. For now we’ll just have to enjoy the raindrops and lack of watering chores and look forward to the jungle which shall rise over the next few weeks. Hopefully it won’t all be weeds.

My tulip plantings are a mess and I’m fine with that. Smarter gardeners would pull them each summer and enjoy a cleaner palette of new color-coordinated bulbs planted each fall….

This almost looks planned. I could dig them after the foliage dies back, thin out the smaller bulbs, replant in the fall as a mix, and it would probably look even better next year… but that does sound like a lot of work considering new bulbs can be bought for under $10.

As far as useful information in a blog post goes, again I apologize for not providing any, so here’s one bit of selection advice. Most of the early doubles and parrot tulips don’t appreciate day after day of heavy rains and overly rude winds, so if you garden anywhere that weather happens you should expect these to get floppy.

More advice: Don’t plant your new snowdrop bed over where you ‘thought’ you dug up all the tulips, and while we’re at it don’t throw spare bulbs in the compost and then use the compost before it’s done.

You may have guessed by my tone that it’s still too damp this Saturday morning to get out in the garden, but to be honest it’s still all pretty awesome. I love spring, rain and rot and everything!

Wherever the blueberries have outgrown the reach of the local bunny population, the branches are full of flowers. Advice alert: you should do better than me, put a little fencing around in the fall and all of your bushes might flower as nicely.

Primrose are on the way. Many are still a little too insulted to grow well in my miserable soil, but a few hardier souls are thrilling me to bits.

Primula veris, the cowslip, doesn’t mind a little summer drought and rooty shade. Gardeners in better soils might even accuse it of weediness.

The last two rainy years have almost tricked me into thinking I can grow a bunch of shade loving things such as native woodland wildflowers, but I won’t fall for that. The ones I have can enjoy the moisture while it lasts, but let me say it now… I WILL NOT BUY ANY TRILLIUMS.

My amazing bigleaf Magnolia (M. macrophylla) seedling. Individual leaves can range from 1-3 feet in length and hold the title for largest simple leaf of any native N. American plant. Sadly a few hours after this photo was taken a surprise freeze shriveled this foliage, but new ones are on the way!

Come to think of it I shouldn’t buy any new plants, but who seriously expects that? If there are any promise I can keep this year it’s to actually buy more. Someone chilled me to the core by mentioning my favorite nursery was actually considering closing after a terrible season last year. It was a landslide of personal tragedies that can effect any small, locally owned business where the employees are more a family than a work-force, but combined with the bad weather and its influence on outdoor sales, things start to add up and seem overwhelming. I don’t pretend to know all the circumstances, but I do know I can buy more plants! Fair warning that rain of shine I’ll be scheduling plenty of visits to Perennial Point this season. Once a week sounds like a decent start, and after spending a billion dollars to take a couple kids to a movie and buy a few drinks and popcorn, I think a minimum budget of ~~$20~~ $30 a week is very reasonable 😉

Arisaema sikokianum looking a bit rain-battered, but still impossibly white inside.

I’ll cram the new plants in wherever they fit. I’m never happy with where I put stuff anyway, so why should I always stress over it, and unless I suddenly become gifted with the powers of good-design sense, it should all work out anyway. Case in point and also Advice Alert: Move/remove small tree seedlings that sprout too close to the house and you won’t be faced with having to deal with big tree seedlings that have sprouted too close to the house. If the tree wasn’t there you also wouldn’t have to feel guilty about cutting it down, but on the other hand (and sort of trying to get to the point), it doesn’t seem to matter anyway. The gardener mentioned that he has to remove it. The boss stated that she likes it. The boy claims he likes seeing it out his window. The tree remarked with some enthusiastic blooms. The boss restated that she likes it. Case closed.

I didn’t get authorization to trim the evergreen down a few years ago and there words exchanged, so when the dogwood appeared and also grew too big, I figured I’d mention the deed before doing the deed. It’s staying… but I wonder what will happen when the little Japanese maple seedling at the bottom right of the photo becomes large enough to get noticed 🙂

That’s it from here. It’s still gloomy, but I’m pretty sure the front porch step is dry enough for sitting with a second cup of coffee, and the birds seem happy enough and the tulips still glow. I’m sure within a few minutes I’ll be wandering about and the neighbors will again wonder how I can spend so much time looking at dirt, but I’d like to suggest I’m now looking at weeds as well.

New this year, Allium karataviense ‘Red and Pink Giant’. I love it already!

I guess I do have to deal with the weeds. Looking only does so much.

I think I said all the blue fescue grass needs dividing and replanting…. but not now, it looks so nice with the grape hyacinths (Muscari).

Have a great weekend!

I’m So Funny

May12

And I am unanimous in that opinion.

My mother in law lives next door and has the wonderful fortune of being able to look out upon the Sorta Suburbia gardens whenever and for however long she wants. She rarely comments, but did make a point of mentioning how “terrible” the lawn looks with all the dandelions. I had to agree. There’s too much brash yellow, and I reassured her that it will look much better once the creeping Charlie spreads some more and adds a cooling wash of pale lavender to all the green. She was not amused.

All the colors of spring

For as well as I grow the common dandelions, the other sorts have been remarkably troublesome. I managed to kill the ones with a delicious purple tint to the foliage, and the pink ones never really took off. Fortunately my seedlings of the white dandelion (Taraxacum albidum) are finally settling in. This Japanese cousin of the golden dandelion appears to be much tastier than its common neighbors, and eventually I had to resort to caging it in order to keep the bunnies away long enough for it to establish.

taraxacum albidum

While I consider how best to establish a patch of white dandelions in the lawn I’ll leave you with another weed. When we first moved here I brought along a small wisteria which originally came as a cutting off my parent’s vine in NY. After a few years in the veggie bed it moved again into the meadow garden and made a habit out of looking out of place for four years. After losing its buds to late freezes for the third year in a row I took a saw to it. Fortunately the roots suckered in the vegetable garden and being that I’m far to lazy to search them all out, I left one. Its fragrance filled the yard yesterday evening, even stronger than the struggling (intentionally planted) lilacs.

A wisteria twig… perhaps someday a tree… or maybe I should build a pergola here 🙂

So for all my efforts the best things in the garden right now are weeds. Come visit and I can finally be the person who gets to say “Oh that old thing? I should really just rip it up, it grows like a weed for me”.

…and Tulips

May11

The daffodil season was here and gone so quickly, I barely noticed. Hot winds wilted the mid season bloomers and singed any flowers just opening. It was all a little rude, but you’ll have that when you garden on a hilltop and the weather decides to finally heat up.

A few daffodils escaped the wind. Having too many helps in this regard.

Fortunately I have way too many bulbs coming along, so even if a few are less than perfect there’s still plenty more where that came from.

Narcissus ‘Conestoga’. You may notice the birch branches cut as holiday decorations last winter have found a new home as part of the parterre archway.

The daffodils were missed, but to be honest I wasn’t all that in to them this spring. They’re overcrowded and in need of digging and replanting and as I thought about it this week I decided many will find their way to the compost pile this summer. As long as we’re being honest here I may have even filled a wheelbarrow with a few hundred ‘less favorite’ bulbs yesterday in an effort to speed up the process.

As the daffodils fade the tulips take over.

I was pretty sure last year that the tulips around here were on their way out. Tulip Fire has hit the garden, and it’s not uncommon to find the spotted leaves and twisted stalks of bulbs affected by this fungus blight. Late freezes, hail damage, and a wet spring for two years running have helped spread the disease around the whole garden but this year’s turn to drier weather seems to have slowed the fire. I had my doubts last spring, but now I’m happy to say there are many more tulips surviving than I thought there would be 🙂

Although the heat brought the tulips on too fast and also fried many of the blooms, the color is still great. Don’t look too closely though, there are plenty of signs of Tulip Fire here as well.

I’m sure there’s a lesson to be learned here. Maybe I shouldn’t just plant any bulb I can find… maybe I should be more faithful to the ones I have… maybe I’m not a good person to look to for tulip advice, since all you’ll learn here is that playing around with too many tulip bulbs might just leave you with a disease.

I promised abstinence last summer, but by the time autumn rolled around there were again more tulips. Exotic parrots proved irresistible although these came up with a few fringed tulips mixed in.

Fortunately I have enough space to let these things run their course. Tulip Fire (Botrytis tulipae) is specific to tulips and shouldn’t bother anything else, and between thinning crowded clumps and removing overly infected leaves, maybe I can control it somewhat without resorting to chemicals.

Other parts of the garden still have plenty of the stray tulips which always seem to hitchhike in with the compost. The colors might be a mess but it makes me smile!

Enough about my problems. Out along the front border I didn’t expect much of a tulip show (given all of last summers rain) but to give in to a little bragging, I think they’re glorious. Not public garden glorious, but for me and my crappy soil, with all my weeds and mediocre budget, and lack of chemical support, I’m going to claim glorious 🙂

Even an ugly duckling which sprouted up out of a patch of shorter tulips can steal the show. It was supposed to be a ‘Pricess Irene’ mix…

I bought smaller packs of bulbs last fall from a new supplier and results have been mixed, but the year before that it was the ‘Incendiary mix’ from Van Engelen that earned a click on the proceed to checkout button. They were amazing last spring, but I think they’re even better this spring… who cares if the flowers are a little smaller…

Tulips in the front border. It’s perfect right now, the spring bulbs are up yet the weeds are still too small to notice.

Ok one more issue. I noticed a few of the solid orange tulips have ‘broken’. Broken color means the tulip has been infected with a tulip breaking virus which causes the color to streak. It’s the virus which brought on several of the most beautiful historical tulips ever, but it’s still a disease. I shouldn’t let them stay. For as pretty as it looks I don’t like the way it’s spread this year, and even if I don’t have a tulip growing livelihood to protect I think it’s time to do the right thing.

Orange tulips streaked with flames of yellow. It wasn’t there last year and is likely a tulip breaking virus.

All these problems are forgotten the minute I look at the next best thing. There are still late tulips on their way and I think they’ll be just as amazing… even if much fewer in number.

The twisted fat buds of the last of the tulips, the parrots.

We just had a “lively” thunderstorm barrel through and I wonder how the flowers made out with all the wind and rain. I’m hoping for the best but even if that’s not the case I noticed a few bearded iris nearly open. There’s always a next best thing at this time of year, but it still goes too fast.