Behind on Everything

May14

Happy Mother’s Day! Here in the hill-like mountains of Eastern Pennsylvania the sun is out and there’s promise of another beautiful day, and I hope yours is as well. It’s been staying cooler and I’ve much enjoyed it, but the strong sun and a decent rain have everything sprouting and growing and of course have put me way behind where I should be. Right now it’s looking like a season of repairing the garden from construction rather than a season of getting everything planted and weeded, but we will see where the energy meter goes to. We’re currently at ‘moderate’ but sadly that means energy for painting and closet building with an occasional break to dig and move tons of dirt, and not weeding and planting, but at least the very last of the tulips are still in bloom… and the Motrin and Tylenol supply is well stocked 😉

The “broken” tulip “Insulinde” is still holding strong. I love it this year, even with a subtle dark and dusty look, the swirls and patterns can draw anyone’s attention.

Nearly all the tulips in the Potager are dead-headed and focused on fattening up bulbs for next year, and even if that sounds sad remember that this weirdo looks forward to digging the bulbs and seeing how well they bulked up. I’ve set some old wooden pallets and wire mesh aside and hope to throw a few bulb racks together for drying… so that’s one more super-important thing added to the to-do list.

Another tulip who’s coloring has been “broken” by virus is ‘Mabel’, an antique dating to 1856.

We will see if that happens. Iris season is coming, and the first of my favorites began to open yesterday and I forgot how fragrant some of them are. The scents of grape and lemon are drifting through parts of the garden, on top of the last of the wisteria and lilac aromas. It’s a nice break from the diesel exhaust and asphalt odors which you run into just down the street.

One last one. ‘Black and White’ goes back to at least 1920 and to me is somewhat similar to ‘Insulinde’, especially when the latter is short on its yellow base color.

Totally without scent, there’s one more cool thing to share this morning. A mystery seedling on the side of the house has revealed its identity when the poppy-like buds finally opened up into bright red blooms. For the past year I’ve been watching fuzzy foliage rosettes grow in this bone-dry, hard packed spot in full sun, and have suspected the gardener threw seeds of something odd here and forgot or didn’t even expect them to grow, but here they are.

The blackspot horned poppy, Glaucium corniculatum, is an European annual or biennial which is probably a weed most everywhere else, but here I’m pleased to see it. ‘Poor to moderate, dry soils’ describes its preferred growing conditions so it’s likely to seed around here… until we get a monsoon year and they all rot, devastating the gardener…

So I bring you more virused tulips and horned poppies this week. With all the beauty of spring I feel peonies and clematis would be more welcome but I’m sure Instagram is full of that, so maybe this is more refined? I doubt it, so thanks for reading anyway and I hope you have a wonderful week.

On the Eve of May

Apr30

I hope no one is expecting the entertaining, witty narrative which usually accompanies these posts. It’s been raining all day and the gloom has me drowsy, plus hours of inhaling varnish fumes this weekend probably killed off more brain cells than I can afford, so be prepared for a somewhat dull post.

The potager last Friday. The cool weather has been good to the tulips, but wind and rain is starting to take its toll.

As the first order of business I want to reassure everyone with the announcement that I have resolved my overabundance of yellow tulips problem. They were looking a little tired Saturday so I just yanked a good amount of them and tossed them on the compost. Sure they’ll probably show up everywhere now, as the compost will be contaminated by bulblets, but today I’m pleased with myself. Never mind that it took me weeks to come up with this solution, despite the fact many people pull their tulips after bloom, but in this garden I celebrate where I can.

My only 2022 tulip purchase, ‘Tom Pouce’. Five bulbs purchased, one came up yellow, but I love the other four for their delicious yellow with pink frosted colors.

So in a moment of distraction I started wondering who Tom Pouce was, since there’s also a pink and yellow lily, and pink and yellow daffodil named after him, and to have three flowers carry your name must count for something impressive, so off to the library I went.

Or Google… and then Wikipedia… “A tompoes or tompouce is a pastry in the Netherlands and Belgium. It is the local variety of the mille-feuille or Napoleon, introduced by an Amsterdam pastry baker and named after Admiraal Tom Pouce, the stage name of the Frisian dwarf Jan Hannema”. Apparently it’s a pastry taken seriously in the low countries. Color may stray, the pink and yellow may change based on national holidays or serious sporting events, but you don’t mess around with either shape or ingredients. It sounds like a pastry I would enjoy getting to know, although there also seems to be a little bit of a quandary on how it should be correctly eaten. I believe that discussion is outside the scope of this tulip post, so I’ll stop now and wonder about Frisian dwarves all on my own 😉

Not named after a pastry, ‘Insulinde’ is an example of one of the virused ‘broken tulips’ which are a virus risk, but just amazing enough to try growing anyway. This one dates back to 1915.

Soon the tulips will be a thing of the past, and just like snowdrops and daffodils it will be another 12 months before they return, but at this time of the year it barely matters. There’s so much coming along that even on a miserably rainy and dark Sunday you can’t help be a little excited. In the potager the wisteria is blooming again, and although it should only be a year since the last time, it’s really three since late freezes have done it in for a couple seasons. The scent of the flowers fills the potager air, even stronger than lilacs and probably just as sweet.

This wisteria only looks like it is supported by the pergola since I wouldn’t dare release it onto crushable aluminum supports and a frame of mere two by fours. Once a week for the entire summer stray tentacles of vine are cut back to a leaf or two to keep it under control. This plant is a beautiful monster.

There’s more blooming and growing out there, but I’ll spare you all except this last peony. Paeonia daurica subsp. mlokosewitschii is a mouthful so most refer to this plant as ‘Molly the Witch’. I did want the pure yellow version but when my seedling finally bloomed it showed to be a pale yellow with a pink tint, which is also within the range for this species. I love the foliage but to me the bloom is relatively small and somewhat mild mannered. Time will tell if it keeps a spot here in the garden, but even if it doesn’t I’m sure some gardening friend would take it in for me.

A nice pink tinted version of Paeonia daurica subsp. mlokosewitschii.

The rain is coming down strong again and it’s getting late. There’s work tomorrow. Ugh. I think I need something sugary and fatty or just plain greasy, because I feel like Monday has already arrived and I’m not excited. Enjoy your week at least!

Tulips

Apr24

It was warmer than expected and most of the garden’s tulips opened for the weekend. That sounds good but it was hotter than they like and a few fried up, and then the wind picked up and they took another beating… and then we had a downpour…so today they look a little tired, but the cooler weather in this week’s forecast will be perfect to keep them fresh looking for another week at least. It’s not botanical garden glorious, but I’m quite pleased with it, and also grateful that a couple friends were able to stop by and take a look as well.

Mixed Darwin tulips in the vegetable garden beds.

Some ‘Spryng Break’ lined out with the others

Another view of the potager beds

Honestly it looks much better in the closeups. From a distance you can see all the “works in progress” around the yard and these beds look more like some maniac just stuffed too many flowers into a tin can vase, but again I’m pleased with it and wondering if I have enough beds of tulips yet 🙂

Some of the tulips out front. Like everything else they need dividing but with a gardener who just waddles around the beds smiling at each new bloom there’s only a slight chance that could happen.

Originally the mix came around when I collected stray tulips and wasn’t sure what they were, so just planted them all together. There have only been a few times when I wasn’t happy with them all together, and when that happened I just pulled out the offenders and all was well, but this year I’m wondering if growing a few as separate color blocks might be fun. I’m envisioning a Dutch bulb field look with rows of color, and since I think I have too many yellows anyway as long as I’m separating those out might as well separate a few other colors as well, right? -I can almost hear you saying obviously…

I like them. I think I need a few more still. We all have our weaknesses.

Marking and sorting out tulips sounds like a lot of work. I may have to plant them with some better spacing so they can sit where they are for two seasons rather than being dug each summer, and I think if I keep them along the edges of the beds there will be room for zucchini or whatever and hopefully the extra watering won’t bother the dormant bulbs. I always miss a few anyway, and they do fine so in theory this should work.

So much color

In any case I know I’ll have plenty more tulips next year. These will likely double in number for next year and my friend Kimberly at Cosmos and Cleome will hopefully 🙂 offer me her leftovers again when she ejects her own tulip patch to make way for the season’s next show… I’ll gleefully add them somewhere here to grow on until they’re big enough to bloom again.

An old bulb bed where a few tulips still come up through the grass and weeds. Even with the potager beds packed and in full bloom, a trio of flowers in the weeds is still amazing.

Sorry this post is just the ramblings of a tulip maniac. To make it somewhat useful I guess I should reveal all my secrets about growing tulips so here they are. Wait until frost kills off whatever is in the vegetable bed and remove the dead vines and stakes. Grab a shovel and dig a shallow grave. Dump a reasonable amount of bulbs in and to make yourself feel like you’re putting in some effort, space them somewhat evenly and turn them pointy side up. Fill the grave with the dirt and old tomatoes and rotten peppers and whatever else you were too lazy to cart off to the compost. Cover the beds with a good inch or two of chopped leaves so that no one can see how poorly you prepared the bed. Wait for spring.

I think my reputation is established enough that no one expected the “work” involved here to be anything special. I have plenty of other jobs to kill myself with here so no sense letting the tulip planting have the upper hand, but it surely helps that I love digging them up again to see how well they’ve grown. Tulip flowers are nice enough, but sacks of tulip bulbs curing in the garage must really thrill the dormant prepper in me, and make me feel like I’m more than well prepared for any civilization crumbling tulip-shortage that could happen at any moment. You never know. It’s always good to be prepared.

April in Bloom

Apr21

We had our earliest 90+ degree day ever last week (33C) and I was unimpressed. Daffodils melted and hyacinths fried and the gardener turned on the air conditioning and did nothing in the shade. Three days later he froze standing around at a track meet with a brisk 41F (5C) breeze and the occasional snow flurry. Such are our springs. As usual things are busy and people are probably relieved that photographing snowdrops had to take a back seat to work and trips and home repairs, but I did take a minute Sunday to photograph a few things. Lets start at the end… the end of snowdrop season 😦

Here’s the double snowdrop ‘L.P. Short’ holding on to a last bloom while a sea of Spring Beauties (Claytonia virginica) bring on the next show.

Galanthus ‘Narwhal’ is still hanging on in spite of all kinds of weather and me stepping on him at least once…

Of course the end of snowdrop season is always a sad time, but at least there are plenty of distractions to ease the trauma. Actually as things come on so fast and furious it will be at least another month or two before the reality sinks in, and by then I can start digging a few bulbs and buying a few new ones, and dreaming of next season 😉

I might have added an Epimedium or two over the last few years. Shade tolerant, drought resistant, deer and rabbit resistant, nice all summer… I’ve been avoiding them for a while, but what’s the harm in adding another two or ten? This is ‘Purple something’ since I lost the tag and possibly didn’t write the name down anywhere…

As trees grow, this full sun garden is becoming shady in spots and I kind of like the early flush of spring bloomers.

Some dogtooth violets (Erythronium americanum) a friend gifted me a few years back. I was shocked to see them blooming this year, I thought for sure the cool speckled foliage would be all I’d ever get in this crappy, rooty, dry as a bone all summer, growing location.

From far enough away the somewhat-shaded part of the garden actually looks nice.

Shade is nice, but full sun is still something I treasure most. All kinds of bulbs are now filling in the beds and it’s awesome to see the return of color and growth, even if at times it seems to move along too fast.

The grape hyacinths are absolutely common, and somewhat weedy if not dead-headed, but the blue color is perfect and lasts a while.

For all the treasures I see in the garden, most of the people coming and going from this house don’t mention a thing about the garden. You can imagine my shock then when not one, but two people commented on the ‘pink tropical looking flower growing alongside the porch. Species peonies are nice enough but two people? Honestly I think they’re just messing with me, but when they immediately lost interest upon hearing the blooms only last a week or so, I knew they were authentically interested… even if it was only for a minute…

Peonia daurica by the front porch.

No one mentioned the dandelions, not even the fancy white Japanese version I’ve been pampering along in the front border. I wish it would seed around a little, that would surely draw more attention.

It’s a favorite of the rabbits at least. Taraxacum albidium must have a better flavor than the regular dandelions since I practically have to cage it to keep the bunnies off.

The daffodils might draw attention even if it’s never mentioned by anyone. I need more, and I need to move a few bunches back into full sun since they’re sulking in the shady spots I tucked them into. They’ll bounce back, but I was so proud of myself when I found all that room under the trees along the side of the yard. I guess there was a reason for the empty spaces since apparently nothing really wants to be there including the daffodils.

Narcissus ‘Bravoure’ front and center near the door. It’s very nice and refined and I can’t find a single fault other than I’m not so crazy about it. Maybe it’s too stiff. I really shouldn’t try and find faults.

Narcissus ‘Stella’ aka Kathy’s Sweetheart is not too stiff. She nods and sways and has joyfully twisted petals which fade from cream to white and I’m surprised how she’s grown on me. I was trying to be a show-daff kind of person but I guess I’m not.

This one just showed up. It doesn’t match anything which used to grow here yet I’m pretty sure it had a name at one time and I either never knew it or lost it. It’s a keeper though, I like how the color of the trumpet bleeds into the petals… something which I believe show-daff people frown upon…

Newer, fancier daffs which are not doing as well in the ‘terrace’ as I thought they would. It’s frightening to think how these should also be moved to a better spot.

I don’t remember ‘White Collar’ from last year, but this year he’s living up to the name and I definitely approve. Behind him is ‘Bronzewing’. Bronzewing is again amazing.

To be honest the shaded daffodils escaped the worst of the heat and are still somewhat nice when compared to the fried daffodils in the main beds. But what fries the daffodils grows the tulips, and from here on it’s the tulips which will shine.

Darwin tulips in the front border.

Years ago I took out the double tulips, but I must have missed one and over the years the one bulb has been clumping up nicely. I suspect it’s the tulip ‘Abba’.

Most of the tulips here come and go as I add new ones or accidentally dig up and then divide old ones, but the potager is filled with the tulips I intentionally dig and divide each summer. There are a couple hundred and although I planted them too thickly (entirely because I was too lazy to plant them properly), they still seem to be coming along nicely. There’s no room for lettuce or onions but by the weekend all I’ll care about is how amazing it looks.

More (mostly Darwin) tulips in the vegetable beds. Another warm day and the main show will start.

Honestly the tulip show is nothing when compared to the big shows where bed after bed is filled with a curated display of color echoes and blends, but I like it, and on a beautifully sunny day all the color is just a celebration of spring.

One day I’m telling my sister in law that this is one of the less-interesting, sloppy forms of tulip, and then two days later I think it’s one of the nicest in the garden. ‘Orange Emperor’ has a delicious color and I like the touch of green on a few of the blooms. Thanks Kimberley, I like it!

There is a little bit of a stink hanging over the display. The pear tree is covered in blooms and without a freeze in the forecast I’m anticipating a good deal of pears this summer. Fortunately this ‘Bartlett’ pear doesn’t seem to stink as much as the yucky stench of those Bradford pears planted all over the place. This one only comes on as a wiff here and there, the Bradfords stink up your whole car if you drive by with the windows open.

Plenty of pears to be.

While on the topic of flowering trees, the magnolias were amazing this year, but the heat pushed them over far too quickly. I’ll have to get photos next year of two new ones but for now the new standard magnolia ‘Ann’ is still putting on a great show. New flowers open for a while and the fruity fragrance always wins against the stink of a pear.

‘Ann’ will never be more than a small tree, and that’s a perfect size for this side of the yard.

The side of the yard where ‘Ann’ is planted is somewhat mucky in spring when runoff works its way down from the yard next door and the front of this house, and for a while the spring muck followed by summer drought rejected pretty much everything I planted here, but finally two plantings are doing well. Spring snowflakes (Leucojum vernum) and Snakeshead fritillaria (F. meleagris) rebel against good drainage and don’t mind sitting in water when water sits. Both are actually happy enough to seed around.

Fritillaria meleagris seedlings are blooming here and there below the magnolia and my plan is coming together perfectly except for the fact you don’t notice the purple flowers under the purple magnolia. Hmmm. But at least they’re happy 😉

Plenty of things don’t work out to plan here, and plenty more things don’t work out without a plan so miss-colored fritillaria are one more thing which needs moving but will probably stay put for decades. I’m fine with that. The thing or two which do work out keep me happy enough and for the next couple weeks I’ll be swimming in tulips and that’s more than plenty.

A mess of tulips

I hope your spring is also filled with plenty. Have a great weekend!

Cooler

Mar21

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

May I say Amazing?

May27

As we approach the end of May I’m pretty sure things couldn’t be better. There was a moment (actually quite a few) when I was sitting in the backyard, looked about and thought to myself, ‘wow, this is friggin awesome’. It wasn’t just one thing or another, it was the warm breeze, the scent of iris blooms, birds chirping, the wind rustling fresh foliage, flowers here and there, it was all that and it just feels great after months of seemingly endless cold.

Three warm days and a few rain showers ended tulip season and moved the garden into it’s blue phase with iris and aquilegia.

To be completely honest there were a few days in there when the heat was almost bad enough to say something mildly bad about too much heat, but then a quick sit in the shade fixed things. With enough rain and sun you can almost hear things growing, and I like that.

When they were bulldozing the coal wastelands to build the industrial park behind our house I came across and saved two columbine plants (Aquilegia vulgaris) by digging and bringing them into the garden. Ten years later they’ve self-sown everywhere, creating a nice blue haze.

There used to be a lull in flowers between the last tulips and first iris and roses, but by carefully buying too many plants each year for the last few years I’ve ended up filling that gap. I shall try to keep up that effort and see what else wonderful results from overplanting. Maybe it’s the secret to thicker hair or longer life, you never know, better to err on the side of caution since I think I saw something once about a lack of new plants being linked to excessive weight gain and cognitive decline. Be careful is all I’m saying.

The yellow of King’s Spear (Asphodeline lutea) is back after a couple years of too much rabbit nibbling and columbine crowding. I like the spikes of bloom and will try and give it a little more space again.

This talk of new plants has me a little worried because work and a pile of mulch to spread has kept me too busy for my usual nursery runs. I did manage to finish off the front yard mulching, but after bailing out eight or nine bucket of water out of the basement Saturday I told my contractor he owed me another load of mulch. He agreed. A new roof is nice, but when all the water is now directed to a spot just above the basement door, and the gutter is missing, and you can see water flowing into the house it can be discouraging. Good thing mulch makes me happy.

All the early corydalis and scillas are yellowed and gone and with new mulch spread it looks almost suburbian neat in this garden.

Plenty of other things make me happy as well, and since many of the plenty are things which bloom in May, even the latest round of water in the house can’t dampen my spirits.

Amsonia hubrichtii is care-free in full sun and only needs a wack back to half it’s height in June to keep it from sprawling everywhere.

Even though the rain doesn’t need to fall in downpours of one or two inches it’s still worth it to have a green lawn in May rather than the beginning of drought. Everything seems happier after a good soak, provided there’s some sun and warmth afterwards… rather than endless damp and grey.

With all the other blue a new blue lupine was probably unnecessary, but I wanted something to go with the red one… and of course now the red one’s not flowering…

You may be wondering how the construction is going if all this rain and water is still getting into the house, and I wish I could say we’re almost there, but we’re not. Things are crawling along but with a contractor who is often a one or two man show, crawling is as good as it gets. Good thing we like him and it’s always (eventually) a job well done 🙂

With much of this end of the border bulldozed down, the weeping white spruce (Picea glauca pendula) has a chance to get the space he deserves. Maybe the fresh mulch will keep the bulldozer from coming back!

So bit by bit I try to bring back the parts of the garden ‘touched’ by construction. Areas are looking better but the pond was one spot I’d given up on. There are large rocks and nearly a foot of dirt which have fallen in, but just last week everything changed. I heard frogs singing, and then I heard more. In the muddy, murky waters I see many frog eggs and suspect this corner of PA will soon see a tree frog population explosion. I’m already trying to figure out what I can feed them with since I can’t imagine there’s enough whatever in this pond to feed so many future tadpoles.

There are hundreds of frog eggs in here, and those are just the surface ones which I can easily see!

So if all goes well this summer shall again see an abundance of baby gray tree frogs entering the garden. Perhaps that will make up for the missing garter snakes.

The stone wall is about as good as it gets. In a moment of brilliance all the potted succulents ended up on top of the wall rather than on the deck steps. I think I like it but it’s hard to level a pot on such ramshackle construction.

For all the rocks which came up out of the construction hole, I’m a little disappointed by how short a rock wall I was able to build. People who garden on rocky sites are likely rolling their eyes and saying we have plenty, come get a few, but nearly all my rocks are covered by shale and fill and would require a little quarrying to get to them. Hmmm. I’ve heard of people who have done as much and according to my book, if someone else has tried it maybe it’s not so crazy. Maybe I could start a ‘small backhoe campaign’ and start talking about backhoes enough that eventually someone will say ‘just get the stupid thing if that will shut you up’. That could be fun 🙂

The new wall makes a nice divider between the lawn and the meadow… otherwise known as where I mow regularly and where I don’t…

Having a backhoe BEFORE I moved several tons of rock by hand would have been a smarter move, but if the early settlers were able to clear a field by hand and build miles of wall I think I should be able to handle a few feet.

The succulents will spend all summer out here, unwatered for the most part and maybe here and there a splash of liquid fertilizer will land in their pots. Also maybe I’ll pot up another dozen or so other succulents I happen to have laying around. If 20 pots look nice wouldn’t 30 look nicer?

So what other silliness has been going on around here… the entire winter garden is out of the house but bags of canna roots and pots of caladium corms are still waiting their turn. Many of the deck planters have been planted and overall it’s nearly all overwintered things and not much new. That’s good for the budget but at the moment the repotted mandevilla vine looks like a whole lot of dead, and not quite the highlight of any summer display, so maybe it will still be a few weeks before I share photos of that.

The potager is remarkably under control for May. Garlic and onions are growing, tomatoes have been planted, and I suspect there’s another bunny nest in the tulips. Baby bunnies are too cute to resent. I will tell them to keep away from the lettuce.

In some parts of the garden I think I’m overcompensating for the construction destruction. The guilt of bulldozed and buried plants has me trying to make other areas extra-neat as I try to balance those out with areas I’ve abandoned.

btw chives (Allium schoenoprasum) might be my latest, latest, latest obsession. Here’s pink ‘Forescate’ with white ‘Album’ behind. I might have a lead on a darker variety and when I pair those with the regular lavender sort I think it will be quite nice. Oddly I can’t rememebr the last time I ate a chive, but whatever.

Speaking of abandoned areas, the snowdrop beds are all on that list. Maybe I’ll weed and divide things this summer, or maybe not. These days I can call it a wild garden and don’t think anyone will judge me too harshly, plus it’s always going to be much more interesting than mulchbeds and lawn, even though 90% of my neighbors would much prefer mulchbeds and lawn rather than the excessive plantings which find their home here (the other 10% are undecided).

Weeds amongst the snowdrops. A few nice things but I really need to remove the mugwort and powerwash that birch trunk!

Honestly sometimes I’m undecided if all these questionable plants and sweaty labor are changing things here for the better, but when the tadpoles come I will know they are. Actually every new thing which comes up has me convinced it’s all for the better… except maybe poison ivy seedlings. I can do without those.

Enjoy these last days of May, they pass far too quickly!

Bragging Again

May7

The weather has finally warmed up enough here to get things growing, and as usual it’s the tulips and daffodils which are my absolute favorites. They’re not at all subtle and I think that’s needed in order to distract from the raw construction of other parts of the garden.

The border along the street is looking good with a nice show of returning tulips. Some have been in place for over five years and are way overdue for dividing.

Tulips and daffodils are a weakness of mine and it may surprise some that I’ve been on a strict diet for the last two or three years and haven’t allowed myself to buy any new bulbs until I take better care of what’s here. Crowded clumps need dividing in order to show off best and in the case of tulips a string of late freezes and excessively damp springs have brought on some serious plagues of tulip fire botrytis. Fortunately it only takes a few nice flowers in order for me to completely ignore a thousand other issues!

‘Marit’ might be in the top five of favorite tulips. The colors, shape, and size are just amazing to my eye.

This year drier weather has also been helpful in keeping the botrytis down. Between that and some Neem oil spraying last spring things are looking much improved this spring. I’m also ruthlessly ripping out infected shoots and thinning the foliage on still overcrowded clumps. We will see what ‘thinning the foliage’ does to next year’s flowers since obviously the bulbs need the foliage to grow new bulbs, but a few less bulbs might not be the worst thing either.

I’m not sure you can tell that these tulips have been thinned. The one clump of orange was missed, but the others were all dug in late May(?) far earlier than they should have been, and immediately replanted after pulling off and tossing all the smaller bulbs. I’m hoping the show next spring is again solid with color.

I’m pretty sure only the gardener will notice if there are a ‘few less’ bulbs next year. Exponential growth means a hundred tulips can become three hundred in just a year, so better to revel in the luxury of me doing the thinning rather than disease or *gulp* deer or other vermin doing it for me. Thank goodness the deer still avoid my garden.

An overcrowded daffodil patch. Sadly this is a newer replant where I thought I was leaving room, but really wasn’t as I tried to pack too many bulbs into too small a bed…

At least deer don’t eat daffodils. Someday the backup plan might be daffodils and a fenced in potager if worse comes to worst.

An airy little ‘Firebird’.

I don’t know if anyone remembers but ‘The Purge’ took place two springs ago, and daffodils were downsized to just under 150 varieties and that still sounds generous, but I miss them.

‘Tahiti’ will never be downsized. Even as a double in a garden where doubles are under-appreciated, it’s a favorite.

A new bed of daffodils would likely help. I think it’s worth a shot at least 😉

‘Coral Light’ also made the cut and looks excellent with some room to show off. If only I could do more of this planting-with-reasonable-spacing thing I think I’d be alright and things would look much better.

Where would this bed go? Who knows but it would probably involve less lawn and that’s also a good thing… unless someone wants a badminton net strung up and doesn’t want to avoid jumping over daffodil clumps…

The bulbs of ‘Mrs R O Backhouse’ did not look great after the purge, and I was worried, but many of these older varieties bounce back quickly.

‘The Purge’ reached a highpoint two years ago during the potager rebuild, and a couple daffodil plantings had to make way for the construction of raised beds. Sadly since then I’ve found that I don’t like the way the daffodils look in the raised beds, so that’s a new space problem, and even worse I love growing tulips in the raised beds. The digging and replanting seems to really help with controlling the tulip fire botrytis and I can spend hours each week just going back and forth looking to see how much they’ve grown each day, and what new surprise has opened up. Sometimes I really have to wonder where they come from when it’s a flower I don’t remember ever planting or it’s one I haven’t seen in years!

I tried to keep two beds open for tomatoes, beans, and zucchini plantings this month. Next year all bets are off and the whole thing might be tulips.

Actually here’s a confession. Last fall I did add 10 new bulbs of ‘Shirley’ and ‘Pink Impression’, so this bulb diet I’m on isn’t all abstinence and cutting back. Maybe it should have been though, since both varieties were mislabeled.

This is not the tulip ‘Shirley’ but still nice, and for a clearance bulb I can’t complain. The real ‘Shirley’ has more of an inky purple stain that spreads down from the edges as the flower ages, and of course I still need to get that one again… and keep this one now…

A friend with excellent taste in tulips pulls hers each year after bloom and usually I say no thanks, but this year I already put in a save request. I’m also looking through bulb catalogs. I’m also excited about how fat and vigorous this year’s crop of bulbs should be. I fear ‘The Purge’ shall be followed by ‘The Splurge’ and tomatoes will end up in pots on the deck next year… and I’m 100% fine with that! -until someone else here overrules me 😉

The view from my in-potager seating area. When the sun shines and the flowers open wide there’s not much getting done around here.

Usually the saved bulbs end up as mixes since it’s (1) easier and (2) it’s easier. Plus the gardener always misses a bunch of bulbs when digging, stray bulbs get dropped and returned to the wrong box, and the gardener is a little disorganized in general. He tries though. A solid patch of his favorite is always worth marking and digging separately.

I think this streaked orange is ‘Beauty of Apeldoorn’ and I wouldn’t mind a solid bunch of it, as well as the yellow behind which might be ‘Big Smile’ which is plain and yellow, and I have plenty of yellow, but it’s also excellent and I love it.

Don’t worry, there’s a good chance none of that will ever happen. Just getting the bulbs dug will be work enough and trust me the gardener isn’t one to go out looking for extra work.

Most of the tulips here come from generic Darwin Hybrid mixes, and often they turn out to be something else, but I believe the large reddish orange with yellow edges is the Darwin hybrid ‘Apledoorn Elite’ and it makes up a big part of the mix.

I bet a few complementary perennials would also look nice, but all we’ve got is purple deadnettle and a few self-sown clumps of bleeding hearts. There’s much to be said for careful weeding.

One year bleeding heart seed somehow ended up in the compost and they came up all over. Works for me I said!

Enough with the tulips, just one last photo on how much they multiply. I came across this picture from two years ago of all the ones which were dug and saved during the potager upheaval.

The potager tulips all descend from these few saved bunches. A few of the reds were added later as leftovers from the planters out front, but the nerd in me sees the baby pictures of ‘Red Emperor’ and ‘Apledoorn Elite’ just waiting to go back into the ground and explode!

Ok, one last confession. I may have mentioned I did buy a few new daffodils last fall since I had been so good during ‘The Purge’ and made so many adult decisions about how many was enough and how many was too much. They were all one or two bulb purchases from either QDaffs or PHS daffs and were more meant to support small growers and importers, and entirely not because I really needed them… but that sham is now falling apart. I was either sent more bulbs than I ordered or the quality was so obscenely excellent that one bulb really amounted to three normal bulbs, and now there are enough and they’re so awesome that more would be even better. Oh the cruelty of it all.

An older variety, ‘Bernardino’ with a newer variety, ‘Hyperbole’ behind it. Both are outstanding.

Fortunately I haven’t clicked on any new orders. Actually I think it’s downright irresponsible to even allow us to order more daffs while it’s still peak season here, and I kind of feel like I’m being targeted for my weaknesses… but on second thought I may be just fine with that.

‘Red Passion’ in front with ‘Rocoza’ behind. To a daffodilista that’s what red looks like, just like peach is often called pink, but whatever, I always enjoy the enthusiasm of the plant-obsessed.

So we will see if anything new is ordered. I’m leaning towards responsibility and frugality, and more adult decisions which consider available space and appropriate choices, but when you come home from work on a Friday excited for the weekend only to find it’s raining inside the bathroom nearly as much as outside, your resolve weakens. Plus there’s always that gardening budget just bursting with revenue from the new plant tax. Construction is still as expensive as ever but when this genius decided to put a plant tax on all building costs it’s been a huge windfall for my plant budget. This must be how the big oil companies feel when gas prices surge and then stay there… except that’s also my money vanishing… and it’s surely not being spent on plants…

In any case have a great weekend. It’s still raining here (although the extra shower in the bathroom has stopped) but at least the rain has kept me from staring at flowers all morning. Enjoy!

Spring?

Apr27

Last Sunday was fantastic. There was sunshine and warmth, and coffee on the porch, and then here was a nice stroll to look at plants. Then there was more looking and some sitting and then a little more looking. I believe things were actually growing as I watched and that’s a nice change from the chilly standstill that the last few days have had us at… and the snow… but nearly all of that melted when the warmer weather rolled in. Eventually I even did a little work!

This spring has been good for the hellebores… except I probably have too many and I probably have even more seedlings coming along so I probably should open up a few new spots and not plant other things there since I’m opening them up for future hellebore seedlings…

I’ve been a little down on the garden due to gloomy weather and construction debris, but just a couple hours of short sleeve gardening with spring flowers opening had me flying high again. My weedy, disheveled potager with a few tulips close to opening had me imagining the grandeur of Keukenhof right here in my own backyard, but now the reality of another gloomy day has brought me back down to earth. I think it will be nice enough, but things could still use a bit of work here.

Anemone x lipsiensis is a cute little spring bloomer. I bought a little root the same year a friend gave me a piece and I assumed they’d be the same thing but they’re not. Now I need to decide if the smaller, paler clone on the left is different enough from the one on the right to bother separating.

I think a breakthrough was finally making a move on the poor little boxwood hedge which was upended when construction fill had to be shuttled from the foundation hole to the low spot in the back of the yard. My jelly ‘topsoil’ was squeezed to the side by the weight of the backhoe, and when it squished over it took the hedge with it. Part of me wanted to rip it out and rethink things but then the other part decided it would be worth digging out and straightening up. So… the hedge along the potager will be dug and returned to its upright position.

My sad and abused boxwood hedge. All winter it’s been nearly pushed over and I’ve been back and forth on what to do.

The hedge across from it is a different story. It’s also riding a wave of squishy topsoil and I think that wave is about to crash.

The even sadder and more abused neighboring boxwood hedge. Maybe it’s time to say goodbye.

Come to think of it I’m not all that happy with the swingset in the middle of the yard anymore either. The kids don’t use it all that much and when they do they’re not toddlers I need to keep an eye on, rather they’re teens who wouldn’t mind hiding with their friends somewhere off to the side. Hmmmm. And don’t even get me started on the trampoline.

Construction has not been kind to the pond. It’s a muddy mess which fills with runoff, but the waterlily is returning and I see duckweed bits floating about so all is not dead.

Maybe changes are afoot. It’s not surprising that poorly planned projects of five and ten years ago need updating, and the sad truth will be that their replacements will likely be just as hasty and poorly planned. Obviously I’m one of those people who needs to learn everything the hard way.

A pile of rocks might as well become a wall so as to not look so much like a pile of save-them-somewhere rocks.

Don’t think that my whole beautiful weekend was filled with the joys of stone moving and hedge lifting, there was also the fun moment when a small jackhammer showed up so that “if I wanted to start taking out the concrete patio section and digging out new basement stairs” I could. Lucky me!

Virginia bluebells (Mertensia virginica) can be floppy and messy and rapidly die down when the weather gets warm, but I’m determined to get a few settled into the garden.

So even when my day of rest was topped off with three hours of jack hammering and digging I still thought it was a fantastic weekend. The weather was beautiful and I even snuck in a quick hike and garden center run with the daughter. She got it into her head to trim Grandma’s spiral evergreens, pull weeds, and also wanted to plant a few flowers, so needless to say I was thrilled to hear her speaking my language and found the time to look at plants with her 😉

‘Jetfire’ is a nice little daffodil that looks all yellow most years… until a cold spring comes our way. Then the trumpet burns orange just like it likely does every year in more reliably dismal climates.

All this is still a lot of raw construction talk and torn up earth, so hopefully the next batch of photos will be more pleasing and flowerful. I think it will be. The daffodils are beginning and with tulips right behind them I’ll be thrilled, even if the sun is lost and gloomy weather returns. You can’t hold spring back forever.

This year the yellow trumpet daffodil ‘Tweety Bird’ holds the record for longest bloom. A full month after first opening, it still looks exceptional, and it doesn’t hurt that this small trumpet flower form might be my very favorite daffodil form.

‘High Society’ just barely missed the bulldozer blade. It’s such a highly regarded, good grower, and I can’t think of a single reason to justify my luke-warm opinion of this plant.

Hope the garden did well for you this weekend. I feel recharged and can’t wait to get back out there, especially if it’s heavier on the sit and look side than it is jack hammering and stone hauling 😉

Have a great week!

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!

The Perfect Lawn

May9

The rain outside is knocking the last petals off the tulips and surely bringing new life to weed seedlings all over, but I won’t let that bother me… yet… Instead I’d like to show you around a cemetery which I like to swing by on the way home from work. Don’t be concerned, it’s not a fascination with death which brings me here, it’s the naturalized blanket of creeping phlox (Phlox subulata) which weaves through the grass and flowers at this time of year.

Phlox subulata (I’m assuming) seeding and creeping through the cemetery grounds.

I have no idea if the phlox here were planted originally or came in on their own, but the church financed lawn care hasn’t been intense enough to wipe out the spread of wildflowers between the gravestones. I also believe a kind soul is in charge of the mowing since I saw signs of a recent cut, but only a few patches of the thicker grass were mown and the best flower patches were spared the blade.

I’m just guessing, but suspect the churchyard has been in place here for around 150 years.

Over the decades ‘mildly maintained’ graveyards have a way of picking up flowers and when I have the chance I often give them a looking over for spring flowers, iris plantings, and the occasional rose bush. Someday I hope to find that snowdrop filled meadow, but so far…

The phlox were probably planted originally, but since then have seeded about to form an interesting mix of colors and flower forms.

Phlox subulata is a plant native to the Northeastern part of this country, and occasionally I also see it growing in rocky outcroppings or gravely roadsides, but never as thickly as it does in graveyards. It’s not a shade plant, so probably as the East coast has grown up in trees or been improved with bluegrass turf, cut and sprayed to golf course quality, this sun loving phlox has been squeezed out and into much smaller locales.

A paler section of the colony.

Of course creeping phlox is still growing all over, in foundations plantings and mulch beds everywhere, and in my own childhood garden I’m pretty sure a big chunk of every summer was spent weeding grass blades out of my mother’s phlox planting. As you know though, a grass-free planting of creeping phlox is pretty much impossible.

Phlox mixing it up with pussytoes (Antennaria sp), another short wildflower which used to keep lawns everywhere from becoming yawns.

Why fight it then? Just plant your phlox right in the grass 🙂

Easier said than done though. Most lawns are too fertile and the grass and other more common weeds like creeping charlie, dandelions, and white clover will dominate. *My own lawn is an excellent example of this…

Phlox with a few bluet (Houstonia) alongside. There were a couple more patches of bluets and various violets as well, but the phlox seemed much happier here.

I think more lawns used to be like this. If you travel the older parts of town the lawns are often flecked with all kinds of flowers, both native and introduced, and I think it’s a much more interesting look than the hyped-up green swards which dominate suburbia.

Naturalized Phlox subulata

So I hope this little trip to the churchyard was enjoyable. Benign neglect can be a great thing and I may keep this in mind as I consider the ‘wildflowers’ which the rain has brought up throughout my own garden.

Have a great week, and a happy mother’s day to all the moms!

sorta like suburbia

more than you ever wanted to know about my garden

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