A Little Push

Nov24

It looks like our tediously warm and dry autumn has finally made a turn towards wet, cold, and winter. Warm and dry isn’t the worst thing, but when the days stretch into weeks and the autumn foliage is more a giving up on life it gets old. The garden I enjoy is full of life and surprises and when it’s day after day of plants giving up I lose interest, and when interest is lost motivation follows. I looked at the racks of tulips waiting to be planted. I looked at the dry, baked-hard, beds where they were to be planted. I turned around and went back inside.

But now things have made a complete turnaround, with a day of steady rain followed by a night of snow which continued into the next day. In all it might be two inches of rain and as the snow melts into the ground I think the garden has finally received the soaking it needed and the gardener might have to get back on board. While the snow is melting the bored gardener has gone into the archives to see if he can find some tulip planting motivation, and even if he’s not exactly bubbling over with enthusiasm to go out and dig, at least he’s been shamed into taking a little better care of the unplanted bulbs.

Tulips in the front border this previous spring. Fortunately these seem happy enough coming back on their own each year with little effort on my part, although it’s well past time a few bunches were dug and divided.

I’ve been digging and dividing the tulips in the back garden for a few years now, trying to get ahead of the tulip fire (a type of fungal botrytis blight) which has infected the soil back there. The digging, replanting, and mulching had helped but then this spring, right as the tulips were coming into growth and blooming, a string of cool, rainy weather hit and the problem went from ok to all over the place with each rain shower. April showers may bring May flowers, but when May is also full of cool and damp weather it just brings botrytis to the tulips and that’s not fun.

The purple of Lunaria annua (honesty or money plant) mixes and contrasts well with the yellows and pinks of the tulips. Unlike AI suggests, this plant is a biennial so don’t be fooled by the scientific name.

Although the botrytis is not fun, the worser part is the smaller bulbs I dug as a result of their infected foliage. Digging big healthy bulbs is one of the June joys of the garden and when you’re just finding medium or stunted bulbs… again, not fun. It also didn’t help that June went from cool and damp to hot and dry all of a sudden, triggering the bulbs into an early dormancy, so add that to the list of reasons the gardener has not been feeling the tulip-love this summer.

Tulips in the potager beds, the worst areas for botrytis and the area where all the tulips are dug each summer.

The tulip love is back though, and after seeing the reminder of what it looked like last spring it makes me wonder how I ever even considered thinking poorly about one of my favorite plants. Surely it’s the lazy side of me searching for excuses to pass on the planting and find alternate homes for the bulbs. It’s like a flashback to the year I found rot in the bulb trays and with great disgust tossed everything onto the compost pile, only to have tulips coming up beautifully all over it the next spring, and have compost laced with bulbs the next summer.

I shall plant… soon I hope. It depends on when the snow melts, and how cold it gets for Thanksgiving. And when I dig the cannas and dahlias and plant the garlic, since that’s also on the to-do list since little in the way of planting or digging has been done while the ground has been so dry. Even the fall-blooming snowdrops have looked depressed and droopy, although not a single bloom was lost to slugs this year…

Galanthus ‘Barnes’. One of the earliest for me with only this one late group still in flower. The rest were less photogenic as they wilted and dried out far too quickly in the sun.

There has been one ultra-positive thing which has turned up this autumn, and that’s the bags of leaves which friends have given me and the row of filled bags which greeted me one evening as I pulled in after work. My nephew came through with a collection from one of his lawn jobs and I’m proud to say they’re already all spread about and settling down to feed the garden underneath the snow.

A driveway filled with bags of nicely mulched leaves. A gardener’s delight!

Forgive me for not sharing any snow pictures. The total for our town was in the 7 inch range and it looked beautiful from the inside looking out, but one day later and the higher elevations are still digging out, repairing powerlines, and removing downed trees, as it was a very heavy snow and their totals were almost twice what we received. For hours the interstate was closed. I’ve sat for hours on a closed interstate on a snowy mountain pass in the middle of nowhere and I can vouch it’s no fun.

Fingers crossed that my next post has a ‘tulips planted’ comment, and it’s not something which involved chipping through ice during the Christmas holidays. We will see, in any case I hope it’s a fun time.

An End Before the Start

Mar27

Yesterday I made a point of getting outside for a few pictures before whatever happens happened. Those of you who’ve visited this blog ever probably know that this gardener has more than a passing fancy for snowdrops, and sadly this year the season has passed in a blur with other things and weather taking priority over the hope for idle days in the sunshine crawling from snowdrop clump to snowdrop clump. Instead I was out at night with a flashlight, out in the rain, or wind, or cold, and none of those scenarios make for good picture taking. It happens, it could be worse, and with several clumps disappearing or dwindling this year I guess it was as good a season as any to have fly by. Next year will be perfect I’m sure!

A grainy, just before dark photo of the ‘White Trash’ bed from about a week ago. Galanthus ‘flore peno’ and other “common”, “messy”, and “no special merit” snowdrops fill this bed, and it’s one of my favorite plantings.

We won’t dwell on the weather of course. If a gardener ever hopes to enjoy their snowdrops in this area they need to be prepared for a season which goes from an early spring thaw one week, to frigid temps and snow and ice the next, to overly warm shorts and T-shirt weather for five days, back to snow and a hard freeze. I can always stay inside, but the snowdrops can’t and sometimes end up a little beaten down.

A nice galanthus nivalis with just the tiniest green mark inside. Someday I hope to find an albino, but for now this one keeps me happy.

So here’s where the survivors are at. For you’re sake I’ll try to write less and photo more 😉

Galanthus ‘Cordelia’ a little sloppy yet hanging on and Cardamine quinquefolia just starting with its pink flowers. A few people have lodged complaints about the cardamine’s spreading ways but it looks like I’ll have to learn the hard way.

I can never speak poorly of big flowers on a non-floppy plant. ‘Imbolc’ is representing and hopefully hangs on for a while during our cold spell.

Galanthus ‘Erway’ has a nice paleness this spring which is fairly normal but not always this pronounced.

I think I show galanthus ‘Moortown’ each spring. He’s such a hefty brute.

My thoughts are always mixed on anything from sharlockii blood, but this one has turned out nice. A Belgium drop with lots of green and inner petals almost as long as the outers.

Please don’t even fall for my woe is me comments on this year’s season. Even a bad one is still better than the suffering my non-snowdropping neighbors are enduring. I see them washing cars and trying to liven up a dead yard with a few plastic Easter eggs and realize that my yard has been bursting with bulbs for the last month and more, and the garden year is already off to a good start. Missing the snowdrops is as much my own fault for not being independently wealthy as it is the cruel ups and down of the weather, and maybe a few less garden visits and ski trips would have also helped. I’ll try to work on that… maybe…

A doubled winter aconite (Eranthis ‘Gothenburg’) flowering for the first time after two other years of ‘no thanks’. Please don’t die now is my reply. In this garden new and hard to find winter aconites like to die the year after finally looking nice.

So now I have nothing to look forward to except hundreds of spring bulbs and sprouting perennials and wave after wave of new color every day! Sure there will be a few hiccups along the way, but still I can’t even imagine things being bad enough to make washing the car a decent alternative.

More bulbs popping up. The unspellable Scilla mischtschenkoana doesn’t ask for much but does fade quickly in anything warmer than sweater weather.

I don’t know how people manage self restraint around all the small ‘minor’ bulbs which could fill their gardens. I mean I do, but there are so many tempting crocus and bulb forming iris and corydalis that I really can’t judge anyone who ends up with a bed devoted to species tulips or spring blooming colchicums.

I vaguely remember these not blooming and me digging and dividing the clump. For a couple days they’ll be amazing and then the next great thing will roll along and I won’t even bother to dig out a label for an ID.

Even for someone who is the definition of restraint, things can build up. If I had any backbone whatsoever I’d mow down seedlings, dig bulblets, divide crowded clumps, and just toss the excess but I’m like one of those people who grew up poor and then for a lifetime can’t throw out a decent pair of shoes or nice cardboard box, or even throw out the last six Easter eggs even though you did manage to eat at least two dozen of the ones the kids dyed. Waste is a sin, and who wastes corydalis seedlings?

Hyacinths, corydalis, crocus, and winter aconite were never planted here. I wouldn’t even know where to start if I tried to return this to the original species peonies, single snowdrop, and Muscari azureum (both white and blue forms!)

Before I leave the subject of restraint, here’s a link to an International Rock Gardener article on >the many species and forms of winter aconite (Eranthis)<. I’m not tempted, but perhaps others will enjoy looking at all the different variations you can plant in addition to the not-common-at-all yellow.

I have no plans to show restraint towards witch hazels. They will be crowded and poorly grown but Hamamelis ‘Aphrodite’ needs more company.

I do need more spring snowflakes (Lecojum vernum). I consider them the messy big brother of snowdrops but they come in yellows and doubles and I’m forced to live with just the species form and that’s been making me sad. Not sad enough to go wash the car, but sad enough to wistfully search for other forms which exist but are separated from me by an ocean and at least seven time zones. I don’t think adding two or three new ones would count as a lack of restraint, it’s definitely more of a widening your horizons kind of thing.

The straight form of the spring snowflake (Leucojum vernum, not the summer snowflake L. aestivum, that’s different!).

Unlike most bulbs, Leucojum actually enjoy a poorly drained soil which doesn’t dry out and will suffer in a drier spot. Think riverbanks and wet meadows, and if you find a spot they like you might as well plant a few snake’s head fritallaries (F. meleagris) since they also like that same mucky kind of spot.

A nice pure white form I found a few years back. It’s a nice thing and nicely complements the “yellow tipped” ones behind them… if only they would stay yellow…

And again I’m going on too long. Let’s just photo along and get through hellebores and the current weather.

The first hellebores are starting. A couple nice yellow seedlings.

A surprise anemone form hellebore seedling. I was hoping for a double, but this might even be better.

Construction continues. Maybe today I’ll bundle up and try and dig out the snowflakes and hostas which probably won’t come up through the two feet of excavated fill, but then I’ll look at the rocks and dirt in the pond and feel guilty about not addressing that.

Yesterday it wasn’t raining and snowing too much (just like last Sunday which was the only other time I’ve been out during the day lately) so I spent a few hours scraping fill off the lawn and hoping that at least half the yard can be sort-of back to normal for the year. For what it’s worth “scraping fill off the lawn” means shoveling wheel barrow after wheel barrow of hard-packed rock and dirt and then trying to find the old turf underneath and then exposing enough with a rake so that it comes back to life. I suspect in another week or two it will be mostly smothered and dead so that’s why I’m trying now. In spite of the biting wind… and on again off again rain showers…. and frequent snow squalls….

The snow stopped melting and the light was fading, so the lawn is as good as it’s going to be.

I might not like it, but most of the garden doesn’t mind a little snow and sleet this time of year. We will see what happens tonight though. It’s supposed to be frigid again.

Back in the day I never even imagined I’d have bunches of hardy spring cyclamen here in the mountains of Pennsylvania but then they happened 🙂

I might look at the pond this afternoon. We will see. The winter garden might be a nicer option with its somewhat warm temperature and lack of an icy wind and gloomy skies. It’s a jungle and I need to trim it back which of course means cuttings since I can’t waste a single shoot. Obviously these will be cuttings I do not need.

A patriotic blend of geraniums, oxalis, and streptocarpella. The blue streptocarpella is much too large.

Cuttings galore and I think I should chop everything first and then see how much I can use afterwards. Right now I’m not sure if the water I throw on this thicket even hits the pots underneath.

The amaryllis have been nice. This is a seedling a friend gave me and I might need a big pot of it, even though it multiplies like a pair of miss-sexed hamsters.

I’m going to have way too many geranium cuttings. What to do, what to do…

…and the primrose seedlings have come along nicely. I can sit at my little table contemplating seed orders all the while enjoying the promise of spring and an occasional wiff of primula fragrance.

So that’s where things are at and I’m hoping for a few less-busy weeks to come. In the meantime thanks for sticking it out and if you’re relieved over the missing snowdrops don’t get your hopes up too much. Cooler weather means the season may stretch out the further north you go and I still haven’t ruled out northern snowdrop visits 😉

Have a great, restrained, week!

A Few Words

Apr11

We are wrapping up our fourth week here since entering quarantine and the garden is still surprisingly unkempt and disorganized. The gardener likes to suggest it’s because he’s busy double timing as a common core math teacher to a 6th grader, and in spite of holding a minor in Mathematics it’s a daily struggle, but it’s also been pointed out that the gardener spends a lot of time “thinking”, and often that thinking is interpreted as “just sitting around”. Obviously sitting around does not get jobs done.

Chiondoxa continues to spread. These are all clones off a bulb moved years ago, and seem to be waiting for a partner to set seed, but each time weeds are pulled or the gardener thinks the spot is empty and tries to plant something else there, a few bulbs get moved a little further.

The gardener has been thinking the weather has been great, and the gardener has been thinking the sky is bluer than normal, and the gardener has been thinking it’s nice to have time to sit in the springtime sun without some desperate need to get just one spring chore done before dark. But the gardener has also been wondering if there have always been so many snakes in the yard.

One of the garden’s garter snakes reading a snowdrop label. It’s ‘Three Ships’ Mrs Snake.

I do like the snakes. One chilly morning I came across three little balls of snake out in the morning sun and I was surprised. A good surprise though, not the EeeAhhhugh Oh! surprise you get when one of these slithery serpents zips away from your reaching hand or approaching step. I think there’s something primordial in our natural fear of snakes, and I don’t entirely trust a person who just shrugs them off. Pick them up, fine, handle them, fine, you can think your way through that, but when one zips across your path you better jump a little.

The raised beds are coming together in the potager. It’s going to be very neat I suspect. I hope I don’t miss the late summer mayhem of overgrowth and decay, but who’s to say that won’t happen anyway.

It’s been taking forever it seems to get the raised beds built. There are a number of plants to move or pot up, but I really do blame the gardener. Not to dwell on the snakes, but work was called off entirely the other day when rustling in the boxwood hedge turned out to be an inappropriately writhing ball of snake procreation…. with an embarrassingly plural number of participants… it was watched for longer than it should have been, but it was interesting to see and of course if that’s what they need to do amongst the daffodils then lets just call off work for the afternoon to give them some privacy.

The cool days and cooler nights are bringing out the richest colors in many of the narcissus clumps. Here’s the daffodil ‘Glaston’, looking luscious and tropical with its fruity cup colors.

So rather than work hard, the gardener looks at daffodils.

Daffodil ‘Beersheba’, a pre 1923 daffodil (according to Daffseek) and nearly 100 years later, still a wonderful thing to have flowering.

Honestly the daffodils here have been tortured by poor drainage and neglect recently, and the show is not nearly as impressive as in other years, but the fewer words on that the better. What does warrant a few more words are the corydalis. They’ve enjoyed the cool weather as well and still look great. Mostly. Rabbits gave most if the ones in back a haircut, so….

Corydalis solida, some named. The pink in front is the highly acclaimed ‘Gunite’, while the darker red in back is ‘Milda’.

I do like poking through all the corydalis seedlings. Some are great and plenty are nice, and there’s not that pressure you get with snowdrops to pick out and consider naming every next great thing. I guess corydalis don’t offer the same wild diversity that snowdrops hold 😉

Even with all the nice seedlings, I’m still willing to try a few new named ones here and there. This new one was described as having exquisite “sky-blue lips and white spurs”… and I suppose that’s possible.

Of course why stop at a good thing? If you can killed expensive named forms, why not try knocking off a few harder to find species? These next two prefer summer-dry, Russian steppe/rocky woodland type environs. The gardener isn’t sure if he should be insulted that the garden contains these types of planting areas, or pleased that the garden has made these happy for a third year, but in any case each spring could easily be their last.

Corydalis schanginii ssp. ainae growing well in the same conditions that favorTaraxacum officinale. Apparently much of my garden is well suited to Taraxacum officinale.

Many gardeners crave blue corydalis. I’ve discovered a knack for killing blue corydalis. It’s kind of silly knack considering how easy blue scilla are, and hyacinths, and grape hyacinths, but if you know a perfectly perfect flower also comes in various blue shades, of course you need that color, and this gardener is no different.

The first blue corydalis to last more than a spring or two (and not look completely miserable while doing it) Corydalis fumariifolia might even be expanding its reach. I could use another clone. Maybe seeds could happen with cross pollination…

Lets get back to easier things. A few words for the front border as daffodil season hits its stride.

Perhaps spring flowers can distract the neighbors from a shoddy cleanup and an un-edged and un-weeded front border. Seriously, what does that gardener even do around here?

As I think on it (there he goes again not really doing anything measurable), the gardener spends way too much time on nonsense. To mention a few words on the front border we could say ‘hyacinths and daffodils are easy and they look great’, but there goes the gardener again poking around and making things complicated. Amongst all the daffodil color he’s most excited to see a few purple leaved moneyplants (Lunaria annua ‘Rosemary Verey’) finally showing a good amount of purple. It was hard yanking the all green seedlings which used to rule, but over the years they are finally as purple as the strain should be.

Those are not weeds, they’re the much anticipated purple leaves of Lunaria annua ‘Rosemary Verey’.

I’ll leave you with even fewer words. Hellebores are up.

A nice picotee yellow seedling.

Another year without a late freeze and they’re all looking good.

‘Golden Lotus’ and ‘Peppermint Ice’ with a mess of less showy things.

Hope this post finds you well. Snow squalls are keeping the gardener inside today so rather than clean the bathrooms he’s blogging, but in spite of that he still gets fed three times a day. Not bad.

A Down Day

Mar24

I don’t know how non-gardeners do it. Today was a sloppy, sleety, chilly day and after just a few hours of being cooped indoors I’m almost ready to try doing the taxes on my own. We are hunkering down for our second week at home and although the yard doesn’t look much better for it, at least the open air and sunshine was a nice distraction. One day inside and I can’t imagine what the rest of our neighbors do to fill the time. I wonder if they even know the birds are singing and the buds are bursting in spite of the messy weather.

Pussy willow just starting

Things weren’t perfect before, but it was good enough with a coat on and decent mudding shoes, and considering it was still mid March I consider that to be excellent. The sunshine and warmth ended the snowdrops but there’s always more on the way.

The first daffodils are coloring the front beds a springtime gold. ‘Tête à Tête’ in front, ‘Tweety Bird’ towards the street.

Corydalis solida and the first daffodils are leading the next flush, and in spite of the snow they’re a sign of real spring.

‘Tweety Bird’ is my favorite early daffodil. It handles the weather well and I love the form.

Maybe a down day is a good thing. I’ve been pruning, trimming, transplanting, and fixing and after being inside for winter and work, I’m a little short of the normal gardening endurance levels. Nothing a little a dose of Tylenol can’t fix 😉

Corydalis solida ‘Purple Bird’. Many of the named corydalis just abruptly disappear in this garden, but their many seedlings are often just as good (or dare I say better?)

I won’t bore you with the less than impressive transplants and prunings. Most are just balls of mud in new positions which only I will notice, but one thing which may be noticeable is that plans are afoot.

The work never strays far from a convenient rest spot. It’s always good to reflect on any progress.

The plans are the byproduct of too much sitting around and thinking, and when it gets bad the gardener decides change for change’s sake might sound like progress, so giddy up!

So wood has been ordered for the construction of raised beds. Someone here thinks the vegetable component of the potager will be much more productive if the beds are raised… I think planting fewer flowers might help… we will see. In any case I’m sure it will turn into much more work than it should be, and take far longer. That makes sense since it’s already cost more than we’ll ever make back in fresh produce. In any case, have a productive and healthy week!

Corydalis and then Some

Apr14

Warmer weather has finally reached NE Pennsylvania and within days buds are swelling, sprouts are showing, and the earliest spring bloomers are putting large swathes of color into beds which have spent the last few months exploring black and white themes. Finally I can take those nice leisurely garden tours and not have to harass the same old snowdrop shoots every few hours, looking to see if they’ve changed at all. New things are coming on faster than I can keep up with and all I can say is it’s great 🙂

Sitting on the front porch step is my favorite way to take in the front garden. Right next to the step is where I plant many of my smaller treasures, but in the past couple years the pinks and mauves of Corydalis solida seedlings have started to crowd out just about everything else.

Depending on what the thermometer does we’re just a few days away from bunches of hyacinths and the earliest masses of daffodils, but for the moment Corydalis solida dominates the front garden.

Corydalis solida ‘Beth Evans’ spreading out along the street border. It’s a lot more pink than I prefer but after months of brown and snow who cares.

I’d have to look, but it’s only been a few years since I planted about 15 tubers each of pink ‘Beth Evans’ and redder ‘George Baker’, and from there on they’ve exploded across the garden. They seem to enjoy the better-drained garden beds, in particular spots where other perennials will come up and cover them after they go dormant in a few weeks. Restraint is not something I think of when these come up, and if you’re of the type who prefer a more ordered garden I would highly recommend avoiding them. Corydalis solida does its own thing and if they’re happy in your soil you’ll have them showing up everywhere.

A weak attempt at adding named varieties has left me with just one survivor… and possibly a bunch of just-as-good seedlings. Keeping named plantings “pure” requires much more diligence than I chose to pursue so of course I just let them go.

In a few days all this color will fade away and the plants will quickly ripen seed and shrivel away to disappear underground for another 11 months. If I’m on top of things (which has NOT been the case so far this year) I’ll dig a few of the more crowded clumps and tuck them in to all kinds of new territory… or just do it accidentally in August when I dig up a shovel full of the little round yellowish tubers. In the meantime here are two other surprises from the earliest of spring garden.

Drumstick primrose (Primula denticulata) were a steal off the late fall clearance rack. I have no idea if they’ll last more than a year, but right now I’m thrilled by how early they are and lucky I was to find such well-grown plants. -Thanks Perennial Point!

Near the shelter of the house the hyacinth have started. This wimpy, washed out pink is my most exciting hyacinth ever since it’s the first to flower of a bunch of seedlings off the clump to the left. Six or seven years is all it took which sounds terrible but since I never did a thing for them other than leave them alone it hasn’t been bad at all.

Pink. My favorite color. Still it’s my firstborn hyacinth and I love it, and look forward to seeing how it develops over the next few years.

So that’s it. Spring is exploding so that’s really not even close to what’s going on, but like you I’d also rather be in the garden versus on the computer so off I go! Hopefully after missing most of yesterday for all kinds of events, and today for more events (and plenty of rain in the afternoon), something valid gets done in the garden before the work week returns, but you never know. I’m fine with just sitting around taking it all in. Plus, as I discovered yesterday, parts of the compost pile are still frozen so I guess we’re still just starting.

I love the start. Have a great week!

I Think I Can, I Think I Can

Apr8

The ten day forecast says spring will arrive on Tuesday, so if you’ve been dilly dallying because of the snow I suggest you get ready to hit the ground running! It is April after all, and although our weekly and sometimes daily snowstorms might hint otherwise, I do see a 70F day approaching and then no below freezing temperatures for the next week…. as long as we wait until Tuesday of course.

Monday morning and the kids began the first week of April with a snow day.

Most everyone has been complaining about the weather but I always like to remind these buttercups that we live in the mountains of Pennsylvania, and the whole ‘April showers’ thing was probably dreamed up by some idle poet wasting away another gloomy English morning on a sofa by the window, waiting for the sun to make an appearance. Come to think of it this cold and gloomy, precipitate-rich spring weather is what I imagine spring in the UK and Pacific Northwest to be like. It’s excellent weather for growing things like moss and liverworts but less entertaining for the gardener. Even if it does keep the winter flowers like snowdrops in bloom for what seems like forever.

Some late, almost completely white snowdrops (Galanthus nivalis) still looking good in spite of the on again off again snow cover.

Now would probably be a good time to pat myself on the back for not going as far overboard on the snowdrops as I usually do. You’re welcome. Even though it’s been one of the longest seasons ever, with not too-much heavy snow and zero single digit arctic blasts, it’s been cold and dreary and I just don’t enjoy taking pictures when it’s so miserable out. That and I’ve been posting a lot on Facebook through the ‘Snowdrops in American Gardens’ FB group. That probably helped as well, and probably saved many a reader from straining an eye muscle from too frequent eye-rolls. I don’t know about elsewhere but optic strain seems to be a problem in this house when I mention snowdrops.

A snowdrop cousin, the spring snowflake (Leucojum vernum) coming up in a damp corner of the yard.

I will round out the season with one last mention of snowdrops. Two years ago I found an amazing clearance deal on bulk snowdrops and planted about 300 Woronow’s snowdrops (Galanthus woronowii) late in the season. As fate would have it, great joy is often tempered with tragedy so of course they were nearly all destroyed by a brutal freeze just as they were coming up that first year. This year it’s been better though, and a few of the survivors are actually strong enough to put up a flower. Green tipped snowdrops are always a pleasant find and there are only a few green-tipped woronowii, so finding this one was a real treat.

Woronow’s snowdrop, aka the green snowdrop, aka Galanthus woronowii, with strong green tips and some extra green on the inner petals. Woronowii are often a little boring, so of course I love it 🙂

In between snowstorms I’ve been ‘that guy’ trimming back perennials, cleaning out beds and hauling mulch on the day before six more inches are predicted. To be honest I started in February when we had our first warm spell, but it was only last week that the far end of the front border finally lost enough of its snow cover that I could finish up. For those who don’t already know, my mode of attack for spring cleanup is trim it all back to the ground with the hedge trimmer, rake most of it onto the lawn, run it all over with the lawnmower and bag it up for mulch. As a finishing touch I cut the lawn real short and bag that as well so that everything looks obsessively neat and green and ready for spring.

The least professional part of my cleanup is when I lug the chopped leaves over from the neighborhood dump at the end of the street, and spread them out across the bed. Another man’s trash…. plus it covers all the twigs and debris that I didn’t care enough to rake off.

Not to rub my garden cleanup obsession in too much but I actually finished the last of the spring cleanup yesterday. It doesn’t all look pretty, but at least there will be no dead stalks and dried weeds to bother me in May.

A mulch of the chopped debris from out front will keep the weeds down in back. It’s just fine for the first daffodil, ‘Rijnveld’s Early Sensation’, flowering for the first time that I can remember. Usually it’s usually too early and the buds get frozen off in February.

All the cleanup has distracted me from seed starting, of which I’ve gone overboard with this year. The cold left me inside way too long and I’ve been up to just about everything else except the starting of tomato seedlings which should have sown two weeks ago. I’m sure I can find one at the nursery if things get desperate. Much better now to focus on the unnecessary native southeastern NA fern spore dust which has miraculously done something over the last few weeks. I spend way too much time admiring the green fuzz inside a baby food container, but to be honest I still can’t believe the dust I sprinkled on top had done anything.

I think I have ferns! Not to gloss over millions of years of primitive reproduction but the spores grow a green fuzz and the green fuzz does the sex stuff which results in new fern plants. I suggest searching for more on the topic in case I’ve become too technical 😉

I’ll leave you with even more evidence of snow day idleness. Coleus plants ready for new cuttings to be taken, and way too many succulents. I started even more a few weeks ago and still have absolutely no plans for what to do with them, so we’ll see where this ends up. Maybe they can go outside Tuesday even though that does nothing to answer the question of what to do with them.

Succulent cutting in the winter garden. They’re another thing I spend way too much time looking at.

In the meantime enjoy whatever weather comes your way and I hope spring has either found you or is well on its way. Hopefully the weather doesn’t turn too nice though, I still need to start a few tomatoes…. and plant some pansies, since I may have bought some pansies 🙂

Moving at the Speed of Stopped

Mar25

Spring would be nice but it’s snowing again, and it’s hard to look normal trimming back dead perennials and grasses in a white-out so even I will be staying indoors this morning. I suppose spring will make it eventually, it usually does, but in the meantime looking at snowy snowdrops while my toes are freezing has lost its magic. Whatever.

Most of the snowdrops have recovered from being buried in snow for two weeks. This is ‘Nothing Special’ for those who need to know.

As the snow continues to accumulate now might be the perfect time to confess a few more gardening purchases. Let me start by first congratulating myself on not ordering any hardy camellias from Camellia Forest Nursery. They are extremely reasonable in price and I was already excited about them through speaking with Charles Cresson and having several of my own seedlings survive last winter’s cold. Right now I’m not buying any, but you never know what will happen if this cold lasts.

I’ve spent some money on far more reasonable purchases. $4.88 for some water soluble plant food and $22 for a new pair of long handled loppers to help in the spring cleanup. The fertilizer is for some of the potted bulbs in the winter garden and the loppers are to replace a pair which disappeared last summer. Really I should really charge the loppers to the ‘child care’ fund but there’s also a possibility I’ve thrown them onto the compost pile again, so for now it’s a garden charge.

A not-so-reasonable purchase was $14 for rabbit repellant. The snow crocus were true to their name and emerged right as the last snow melted so as usual the rabbits are excited and hungry for something other than blueberry buds and dwarf conifer shoots. I don’t mind losing a few flowers but based on the math of over a thousand bulbs planted I would think leaving a half dozen or so might be a reasonable expectation… unless you’re a rabbit. One day of blooms were enjoyed and then another snowstorm appeared to have neutralized the repellant. My meadow is once again bare.

A few crocus out back in the meadow. There are still a bunch of late ones coming along, but once the rabbits find them they don’t stop.

So I don’t think that’s too bad. $41 to add to the tally and for the most part it’s all gardening essentials. The local garden center opens again next week so I’m already accepting the fact some pansies and a hellebore will follow me home, but for right now responsibility is the name of the game. Good for me 🙂

$5 fertilizer
$22 new loppers
$14 two days worth of rabbit repellant
(oops)$95 worth of obscure Japanese Solomon’s Seals from Michael Vaughn via Facebook
(oops)$79 worth of unnecessary, uncommon and therefore expensive things from Odyssey Bulbs

$547 total so far for the 2018 gardening year.

A Mayday Celebration

May5

The last few weeks have me drowning in the color of spring bulbs. They’re not the fanciest varieties and they’re not laid out into the most exquisite vignettes, but they are bright and to me they’re just about the nicest explosion of spring that I could imagine.

Perennial Darwin tulips in the vegetable garden. I keep threatening to evict them in order to make room for tomatoes, but tomatoes can wait and for now this is something you just can’t buy at the grocery. *photo credits to my wife for this one. The spring color lured her out as well… in spite of allergies!

Every summer I make an attempt to reclaim the vegetable garden and every spring it seems like the bulbs are multiplying faster than I can dig. The daffodils are carefree, but even the tulips make a go at it, and I think the summer baking in thin, heavy soil is really what they seem to enjoy. If only the vegetables did as well.

The area more commonly known as the “Potager”. To put minds at rest I’d like to proudly announce that the center bed actually now contains vegetables as well as a few blooms. The seed potatoes finally went in this week.

Not to paint myself as some greedy, plant hording ogre but here are the tulips which were supposed to end up next door in my brother in law’s yard. At the time it sounded like an extremely noble gesture, this selfless donation of extremely fat tulips to someone else’s garden… but then I had second thoughts and into my own garden they went. Looks like my petition for sainthood will still face a few bumps in the road.

The orange tulips were already here, but the purples, reds and whites were newly planted from a bag of ‘mixed Darwin tulips’. They’re nice enough, but as it is with these mixed bags from a big box store they’re not Darwin tulips, and they’re nothing like the photo on the bag. They are colorful though.

Another issue with my sainthood (other than still being on the living side of the divide) was that I actually pulled out a few tulips from this mix which were deemed too ugly to stay in this garden. This was horribly judgemental on my part, but the tulips were a grossly congested, small white multiflowering thing and even though I would have never thought I’d ever see an ugly tulip, there they were…

The beautifully pristine narcissus ‘Bright Angel’. The early and midseason daffodils may be over but these are still just perfect!

While the tulips are taking the spotlight there are still plenty of daffodils. This is the tail end of the season, and the late varieties are really welcome as the others begin to fade.

Narcissus ‘Irish Linen’. A clean, pure beauty which has stood up well to the wind and changing weather.

For this little slice of Pennsylvania 2017 has been an excellent daffodil season. Occasional rain, reasonable temperatures and no brutal freezes have reminded me that these bulbs can be overwhelmingly awesome, and I’m almost ashamed to admit I considered entering a few flowers into a daffodil show. What kind of fanatics do things like this!? The closest would have been a two hour drive each way and me being a complete novice I just couldn’t rationalize my way into it. For now maybe I’ll just rejoin the American Daffodil Society and consider a try in 2018… that sounds entirely reasonable.

The fragrant double ‘Sir Winston Churchill’ on the left with ‘Requiem’ to the right. Both deserve more recognition than that of a passing rabbit or lone, wandering gardener.

Looks like we will have to wait and see what happens. Spring is such a busy time and I hate to lose a full Saturday during primetime, but for some reason it’s tempting. Must be that attraction of spending time with equally crazy plant people, I think that’s what always gets me 🙂

‘Requiem’ again. The Petals have a lemony flush to them which I love, and the small cup looks so perfect.

Daffodil shows or not, one thing I definitely need to still consider is the call for adoptive parents for the many extras which fill the bulb beds. The beds are packed and I need to get rid of hundreds of bulbs from old favorites to heirlooms to newer varieties. Please leave a comment if you’re interested in any, all it takes is the price of postage. Please.

Narcissus ‘Mission Bells’. This one deserves a little more room but…

Now I really can’t justify the next flower. Double tulips are gross wads of colorful tissue paper stuck onto the ends of pipe cleaners and pen ends. Completely lacking in class and of course just what I need more of.

A few years ago I planted a ‘Magic Carpet Mix’ of double tulips and I’ve been digging them each summer and moving them around trying to find just the right spot for them. I’ll let you know if I ever succeed.

I admit I do like tulip monstrosities. The singles are so plain and elegant it’s nearly unstable of me to want anything else, but I do, and I know next year will see a few more doubles and probably a few of the twisted and distorted parrots as well. I think the only oddities I don’t like are the fringed tulips. It’s probably good to draw the line somewhere.

More ‘Magic Carpet mix” double tulips. The taller pink and blush flowers make excellent cut flowers btw.

It’s not all bulbs here, there are a few other treasures here as well putting on a nice show. As this is my 9th spring here I’m starting to wonder where all the billions of seedlings I start each spring go. I kill thousands, and another million are annuals, but here and there I’m starting to see a few nice perennials joining my garden. Not as many as you might hope for or expect, but it’s still a fun trip.

Here’s a bleeding heart from seed. The seeds were labeled as being from ‘Valentine’ and the plants do have darker stems (which have faded in some warmer weather) and the red flowers of its parent, but as for growing it from seed I can’t give any reason other than you can and I did 🙂

One group of seed-grown plants which is almost a problem now (since I keep starting more and more each spring) are the primroses. A few of the tougher types such as the polyanthus and veris (cowslips?) types are building up decent clumps, but I’m still pretty sure they just tolerate my garden and aren’t really that thrilled to be here. I’ll take what I get though and for now they’re worth the extra trouble of watering.

Seed grown primula from the American Primrose Society seed exchange.

Although most of the other types (mostly the p. aucalis and wanda types which usually show up at groceries in the spring) die off during the summer, but eventually I hope to find a few others which aren’t too much trouble. Granted “too much trouble” is a very relative term if it’s something you really, really, really need to grow!

More primula from seed, these are probably ‘Sunset shades’, a cowslip (p. veris) strain.

Okay, I’m already distracted by the bulbs again. As we move around to the front yard the Camassia are blooming in the front foundation bed. I love them but they flower so quickly, especially if we get a few hot days. By the way these need to be divided as well, so if anyone wants a couple dozen…

The foundation bed with blue camassia and (in my opinion) a very nice blend of foliage colors and textures.

More tulips. The “Incendiary Collection” from Scheepers is flowering in the newest section of the front street border and I’m more than pleased with it. The mix is a blend of three colors but even for the gardener who planted them it looks like a mix of two unless one looks really hard. No problem though, all I notice is the bunches of perfect color and the…. well really, the tulips are the only thing I notice.

A $40 splurge on 80 bulbs. They weren’t even on sale and if I were the introspective type I’d wonder why I bought them and how I rationalized it after saying earlier “no new tulips this fall”.

Actually I did notice one other thing. Still tulips, but they’re a much shorter and more subtle version of the group. It’s tulip “Green River” and they’ve come back nicely for a second year.

Tulip ‘Green River’. I’d call this an orange sherbert color and although it’s not as showy as the others I still think they’re cool. Don’t overlook the variegated foliage, it’s another subtle touch on a pretty little tulip.

Spring is moving fast so it’s really best to soak these things in while you can, and believe me I’m trying. The house has a ton of projects which should be getting done but whatever. I’ll leave you with a parting glimpse of the front yard tulipomania.

Bright flowers, green grass, and springtime sunshine.

Hope spring is going great for you as well. Have a wonderful weekend!

Earliest. Cleanup. Ever.

Feb21

The title says it all. Nearly all the snow has melted, jackets were thrown aside, and for a glorious weekend we enjoyed obscenely nice spring temperatures and sunshine. I didn’t even do the responsible thing and wash the car first, I went straight for the clippers and rake and tidied winter away from the front yard. With flowers bursting up out of the soil it was the only logical thing to do.

The first snowdrops and the bright yellow of winter aconite (Eranthis hyemalis)

I’m not one to hem and haw about “is it too early” or “can I uncovered the perennials yet”, I just dive right in as soon as the weather gives me the chance. Sure it will probably get cold again, but I find that covered or not they’re going to start growing anyway.

The earliest of the common snowdrops (Galanthus nivalis) came up completely as the snow melted Saturday. I think they look even nicer coming up amongst a nice groundcover of hardy cyclamen.

I’d love to assault you (again) with far too many snowdrop pictures, but for now will limit myself to just three. I do want to have a few readers left for the other 11 months of the year…

‘Wendy’s Gold’ is one of the “yellow” snowdrops. The color is exceptional this year, and just as bright as today’s sunshine.

After a downright miserable snowdrop season last year, this year (all three days of it so far) is shaping up to be outstanding. With the usual optimism of a gardener I’m positive that last year’s arctic blasts and heat waves, combined with downpours and hail, will not repeat. I see nothing but idyllic temperatures and sunshine, even though it is about a month early. But just in case, I’ll keep watering the winter garden since it’s coming along as well.

A few of the hyacinths I forced this winter. Not bad for a bunch of clearance bulbs.

The indoor snowdrops are mostly over, but the cyclamen are going strong and the primrose are promising a nice show as they send up flower buds. Miraculously I’ve managed to see my Primula auricula through the winter and bring it back into flower again under the lights. I managed to grow this from seed (somehow) and I’m afraid it’s literally led me down a primrose path to membership in the American Primrose Society. Now for a third year in a row I’ve ordered more seed and just in case you’re brave enough, the society has just opened up this seed exchange to non members. Click here for a link to some of the best (and cheapest) primula seed available in the US.

Definitely not the fanciest example of an auricula primrose, but it’s my very own (and most importantly I haven’t killed it yet). The fancier versions come in rich reds, blues or greens with larger flowers, bicolor blooms… all with that cool white-powdered center.

I’m excited again about the primroses, but Cyclamen coum are still a favorite. Their numbers have dropped a little due to someone not being the most capable cyclamen grower, but I have plans to turn that trend around. I’ve been going and dabbing pollen from flower to flower in the hopes of getting a few seeds to form, and if all works as planned there will be a new batch of these coming along in no time.

Unpollinated flowers will wilt and fall over, pollinated flowers will curl up and tuck themselves down close to the ground to form a seed pod. I think this is one of the most curious traits of these little plants.

As the cyclamen set their seeds and the other flowers join the show I’ve decided to bring a few of the forced tulip bulbs under the lights to see what they can do. Tulips indoors are a first for me, but with the way our weather’s going the ones outside will be nearly open anyway so it’s no great loss if failure strikes.

In typical fashion bulbs have been carelessly stuffed into a too small pot, and although I don’t anticipate any overwhelming demand for this less than attractive photo, in my opinion it looks extremely promising.

And we will see where this season takes us. It’s a freakishly early start to spring but even in a normal year there’s plenty of unfortunate weather to go around, so a beautifully warm weekend in February isn’t the worst thing. I guess we will just have to enjoy it while we can, and of course I’m fine with that.

A freeze and the daffodils

Apr30

I can’t really hold the weather against them, but I do. Again and again I told them not to get such an early jump on the season but they ignored me and sure enough one final blast of winter came through and taught them all a lesson. Three weeks later and I’m still mourning the daffodil season which never was.

Can you guess the prevailing wind direction? Like a windswept bonsai this daffodil ‘Actea’ still managed to pull through and open a few blooms in spite of the 20F winds which blew through.

I shouldn’t say the whole season was a wash but if I had to guess I would say about half the daffodils lost their buds and blooms completely and only about a quarter opened up nicely. A quarter goes a long way though and I’m still grateful to have what I do, plus the weather has been very accommodating since so I suspect the surviving daffodils will put on an extra special show next year.

Isn’t that typical of a gardener? It’s always “wait until you see this next week” or “imagine next year”…. or the apologetic “you should have seen it a few days ago”. 🙂

One of my many favorites, narcissus ‘stepchild’ is later and in a spot sheltered from the wind, and although neighboring clumps were still de-flowered by the cold, she seems as pretty as ever.

In spite of the wild swings in temperature the various butterflies of the garden seem unfazed and continue to shake off the cold and go about their business as soon as the weather warms enough. Perhaps I hadn’t noticed in previous years, or perhaps there were other non-freeze burned sources of food available, but this year the daffodils have been very popular with several types of butterflies.

A black swallowtail feeding off the windblown and weather-beaten flowers of narcissus ‘kokopelli’.

I hope my wallowing in self pity hasn’t made it seem like all is lost in my end of the woods. Spring is a fantastic relief even with its frequent ups and downs and if one looks past the blackened cherries and mushy primrose blooms and perennial shoots there’s still more good than sad.

Later is better this spring, and because a late replanting last fall set daffodil ‘Newcomer’ back a few days, its blooms missed the worst of the weather. The tulips as well, the shelter of the garden’s tiny boxwood hedge seems to have helped them avoid the full brunt of the winds.

In the lee of the house the front garden missed the full force of the wind. Here if I ignore all the mushy, blackened hyacinth blooms, and wilted early daffodils I can still find plenty to enjoy.

Blooms of the good old reliable daffodil ‘geranium’ set off by ‘pink impression’ tulips, yellow Euphorbia polychrome, and the purple flowers of ‘Rosemary Verey’ Lunaria annua (moneyplant). I was hoping for darker foliage on the Lunaria but maybe having all the old leaves frozen off a few weeks ago left me with only fresh new green ones.

Maybe this freeze was a warning to diversify. I admit to having way too many daffodils and maybe adding more supporting players isn’t the worst idea (as if I need a reason for adding more plants!)

Finally! After several failed attempts and then a three year wait for my only sprouted seedling to grow up, the first Virginia bluebell (Mertensia Virginica) is in bloom. Others claim it to be nearly weedy in its ways, but I managed to kill the first one I bought and then never found it in the garden center again.

I’m kidding of course. Although I do need to find new homes for many of the most promiscuous daffodils (please let me know if you can take any in), there are billions of new plants on the way regardless, as seeds sown last fall and winter begin to sprout. I always love these new surprises as much as I love the warmer up sides to this spring’s manic mood swings. Even a bright yellow dandelion makes me grin when the sun is out!

Creeping Charlie and dandelions on a sunny day. A beautiful lawn in my opinion…. even if Charlie does get on my nerves later in the season.

I have one more gloomy post as I complain about the assault which the cold made against the tulips, but after that things should return to a happier tone which more accurately reflects the joy of the season. Have a great weekend, I’ve spent far too long on the computer and need to get out there and dig a little before the first Little League game drags me elsewhere 🙂

sorta like suburbia

more than you ever wanted to know about my garden

Tag Archives: spring bulbs