Waiting

Again it was too cold to work outside.  Sunny, but in the 30s and blustery.

I keep thinking I can get a lot of heavy work done while it's so cool, like removing the Golden Peep forsythia and cutting up sod to expand gardens, but it is just unpleasant and uncomfortable out there.  These are winter temps.

So I went inside and cleaned the basement.  Made a big pile of junk to be hauled away.

I am waiting waiting waiting . . .  Waiting for spring to start.  Waiting for the Okame cherries to bloom, and to see any daffodils.

Waiting to begin yard projects.  Still waiting to hear about the shed (the association has taken a month so far.... well over the two weeks required in the bylaws for responding.  Well, they have responded, but just to tell us they can't make a decision.)  Waiting for the garden centers to stock something; so far they have nothing and some are not open til April.

Brrrr

It never got out of the 30s today, despite sunshine.  The water in the hose by the back patio froze, leaving the hose completely unusable to fill the birdbath, even at midday.

I am so anxious to get out there, that I put on my gardening clothes and a jacket and headed outside.  The ground was frozen solid, so there would be no digging in the earth, but I wanted to get the grasses cut down.  But after only a few moments out in the cold and wind, I went back inside.  My fingers were numb.

Cutting back will wait

Too cold, too raw, not worth being out there.  A real winter day.  Not even pleasant enough to go around taking pictures of emerging shoots or swelling buds.  Too cold.

I went inside and did the taxes.

Then and Now

Compare last spring to this year ---

The 'Okame' cherry on March 27 2010:

The 'Okame' cherry on March 25, 2011, buds hardly ready to open:

Winter Won't Let Go

Wednesday and Thursday it snowed, about an inch, and it melted by Thursday afternoon, but it was cold and blustery and very wintery for two days.  Today is sunny but cold, in the 20s.

Winter just won't let go.

And the voles in the front walk won't either.

I'll try this stuff that I got at Bosco's.  It uses castor oil as a deterrent.  And I ordered more poison baits, I'll keep trying with that.  I just don't want to dig up the whole area and put down the gravel and hardware cloth.

After catching two in the electronic trap, and filling in their tunnels, I'm seeing new tunneling, so they are still there.  I'm still using the electronic trap, but they eat the bait positioned at the far end ... simply walk in and get it without getting zapped.  I'm not sure how to test if it's working. 

I love the way the 'Angelina' sedum looks in winter, very golden bronze.  There are tunnels all underneath the sedums here.

Windmill

Overcast and blustery today, in the low 40s.

I put the windmill from Bob in the Birch Garden and it looks right at home there.  Also put the chicken family from Hope and Steve along the west walk, they look like they are chasing bugs among the plants that line the walk.

Then I spent some time in the cul de sac.  I went there to trim the overgrown rose canes away from the pines.  I thought it would be easy to move one of the azaleas away from the pine while I was there.

Of course it was not easy to move.  Even small shrubs are pretty well rooted and the soil was cold, and I ended up yanking it out and moving it into a hole barely big enough just a few feet forward.  We'll see if it survives.  It certainly was not going to survive much longer inside the pine's lower branches!

As I dug the new hole for it, I unearthed lily bulbs, and pulled them apart and replanted them (not very well) around the base of the linden in the cul de sac.

Then I went after the front walk.  After bagging two voles, I hope they're gone.  I hope.  I filled the tunnels in, left the electronic trap out, and we'll see if new tunnels develop.

The brand new little itea had about 15 green shoots coming up right under it and through it!  The voles had moved the bulbs to the empty space where the itea's roots had been and bulbs were packed densely in that space!  I pulled up the itea (barely any roots), scooped out all the bulbs and replanted them throughout the walkway garden... not even sure what they are, they might be the allium moly or the autumn crocuses.  They were small.

The itea was replanted, my hope is it will regenerate some root system and grow.  If not, I'll need to replace both of them.

One remaining iris reticulata popped up in Meadow's Edge (I thought I had moved all of them).  I dug it out and put it along the front walk with the rest, all blooming now, but still needing to clump up and spread for more impact.

As I did, the bloom snapped off.  : (

First Day of Spring

March 21, first full day of Spring:

This is Spring?

Should I have brought the pots in?

Dreary.  Cold.

Success With The Trap

It got cold after the warm sunny day on the 18th.  Yesterday and today have been in the 40s, but very blustery and quite cold.  Very March.

Another dead vole in the electronic trap today.  Two down.  This may be the solution.

First Warm Day

It reached 70 today, and it felt like summer!  It was actually kind of humid, a little stormy feeling in the a.m., but then sunny, breezy and warm in the afternoon.

The sweetpeas indoors have sprouted.

Tasks today were all about clean up.  The whole Birch Garden is chopped back, everything.  And most of Meadow's Edge.  I just have to cut down the grasses there, and the grasses along the west walk.

Got a vole today in the electronic trap I placed along the front walk.  One down.

After cleaning up I decided to do something about the liriope that edges the back garden.  It doesn't do well with the maple roots and in full sun.  I bought so many to make a cascading line of mounded foliage at the front edge.  Nah.

The deer eat them to the ground, and the clumps they miss are awfully ratty by early spring.  If they had better soil, less competition, and didn't get so chomped, they'd be nice mounders.

Liriope 'Big Blue' - will it look this good in a pot?

My thought now is to take out some, and leave a few, interplanted among the sedum kamtschaticum, which is spreading and has really nice, ground hugging foliage.  But taking out a half dozen was a chore!  They are wound around the maple roots and had to be chopped out.

I put what I dug up in five low containers and if they mound over and cascade the way they should, they will cover the pot edges.  I can use them various ways... maybe plop them in the garden in their pots as foliage fillers.  They do have nice blue spiky blooms.

I just hope they do well in the containers now.

The gardens look so bad right now, but spring is coming.  I love the only green thing in Northern Exposure right now, the Pieris "Bisbee's Dwarf'.  It has such a dapper shape and clean shiny foliage.  That's what I think every time I look at it: it's so dapper!

3/18/11

And in just three weeks look at what it will look like: this was April 7th last year:

4/7/10

Abundant Sunshine

All is forgiven from yesterday!  A glorious warm spring day today, after the rain of yesterday.  Sunny all day, in the 50s, but out in the sunshine it had to be in the 60s.

The heath is in bloom.

I worked in the yard and got too warm!

I even sat on the patio in the sunshine late in the afternoon.  Just lovely.

A little iris reticulata has appeared among the still blooming snowdrops by the front walk.

Tasks accomplished today:
Cleaned up all of Northern Exposure.  Cut back the amsonias, cleaned up the foliage from the tiarellas, got it all neat.

Cut back butterfly bush, Montauk daisies and cayopteris in Meadow's Edge.  Cleaned up and cut back around the patio.

Got short metal stakes and tied up the sourwood to re-straighten it.  Re-did the stake and ties on the top branch of the black gum in back, (trying to force it to become the leader.)

Much more clean up to do.  I haven't even cut back the grasses yet along the West Walk, or touched the Birch Garden, but it's only mid March.  There is time.

Zinnia seeds indoors sprouted after three days! 

I got the potting bench organized and put tools and stuff back out there where I can get to it, and hooked up a hose and turned on the water.

A concern: the big green plastic potting bin was coated inside with a smelly oily substance.  I think the Vine-X, which was tipped over, has spilled into it.  I left it out in the sun to dry out, I certainly don't want to rinse it out and get herbicide all over everything.

Will March Ever Be Over?

36 degrees, steady hard rain today.

I did not leave the pots out on the deck yesterday.  They could handle the cold temperature, but I wanted them in out of this heavy rain.

So everything is back on the porch, making it impossible to walk out there.  There are seed trays are to the right of the door too.

I really hope the rain is not washing the Preen away, or the hort oil I sprayed yesterday.  A light rain to water in the Preen is good; a heavy rain washes it away (and worse, could wash the toxins into the pond and storm drains). 

I didn't think it would be such a downpour all morning.  I'll need to reapply the hort oil later anyway.

I gave the big rosemary in the bowl a haircut to tidy it up a bit and encourage a fuller shape.  It's growing really well and the fragrance when you touch it is intense.