Summer in March

The record temperatures and sunny days just go on and on.  This is March, for heaven's sake.  It's been in the 80s, too hot to do much outside in the afternoons.  The first few warm days were odd and novel feeling, but now it just feels like summer is here to stay.

Windows are open, even at night.  Jim put all the screens up.  He's been digging out the strip in front of the berm where I'll move the yellowroot shrubs to get them further away from the spruces.  It's hot work!

Curves need some softening, still a lot to do.

Everything is popping out.

Forsythia is blooming, all over town.

Deutzia has leafed out and will bloom soon.

Pieris is blooming.

And look who popped out!  The new little star magnolia.

Record Heat

It must have been a record today, the last day of winter.  In the sun this afternoon it was in the low 80s, in the shade it was mid 70s.  Very still, and actually too hot to work in the middle of the afternoon.  So sunny, so dry, so warm.

4 yards of topsoil / compost mix was delivered today by Envirocycle.  I filled in the borders around the gravel garden, and Jim created a small ramp by filling a dip in the yard leading to the arched bridge across the creek bed.

The bridge looks awesome.  Just the perfect size, and aligned just right, it really finishes that end of the garden.  

I love it.

Right now it is bright cedar, but it will fade, and the dirt surrounding it is dark black, but will be grassed in as the sod covers it.

Just perfect.

Another Warm March Afternoon

Another warm, unseasonable day, in the low 70s, sunny and still.  The morning was quite cold and foggy / overcast, but by the time I went out to cut back the grasses at noon, it was lovely.

This is the time of year I hate ornamental grasses.  Cutting back the smaller ones is not too bad, although you're just left with a big blank spot in the garden when done.  The miscanthus, though, is messy and impossible to cut neatly.  I have to use the Japanese pruning saw.

The fronds blow around no matter how I tie the clump up first.  And then disposing of the light colored stalks is a problem.  They blow around unless weighted down in a pile, and they are an eyesore, very bright colored out in the compost row.

I put them on the back hill and piled other stuff on top, but they are like a beacon from the kitchen window.

The panicums and the Karl Foerster grasses had already been cut back after last fall's snowstorm.

Sitting in the Adirondack chairs in the gravel garden in the sunny afternoon is delightful.  This is still March, unbelievably.  All the grasses are cut back now, and the caryopteris too.

I pruned the climbing hydrangea, which needs much more shape and it needs to be trained toward the pergola, which it just reaches finally.   A lot of the main branches want to arch out in the other direction.

Not a very graceful reach to the top, and it's too woody to bend.

Tangled woody stems almost reach the top of the pergola

I should have trained the very young twigs in the general direction toward the garage side, but I waited till they were long enough, and now they are too woody and twisted in unbendable shapes.  Eventually the lattice panel and the cedar tuteur will be removed, and the vine will stand on its own, reaching the pergola for support.

Removals

Chilly, damp and gray today, in the 40s, but then in the afternoon the sun came out and it got up into the high 50s.  Everything looked better with the sun out.  Yesterday was Bob McGoldrick's funeral --- a cold wet day and a sad day, although the mass was truly a celebration and it was good to see old friends from work.

Today I took things out.

• Removed the last of the irises in the front walk and put them in the Birch Garden.
• Removed the perennial foxgloves from the east side.  Gone.  Didn't like them so much.
• Took out the hops vines.  No place to transplant them so they are gone.
• Removed more daylilies from Meadow's Edge. They are completely wrapped around the maple's roots and impossible to dislodge.  Where space was freed up I moved the small Goldflame spirea.
• Removed lots of grass from garden edges, and weeded some.

I divided the two blue eyed grass clumps into six plants along the edge of the gravel garden.

In the Birch Garden I moved some sundrops so they were not so crowded, and some columbines from where they had seeded.  I divided and moved several of the Elfin Pink penstemons back from the very edge of the garden too.

Last year in March the ground was still too frozen to work.  Here I am this year digging and weeding and moving and dividing, all in mid March, in cool but comfortable weather.  Wow.

I Did It

Much cooler today, an overcast, chilly day in the 40s, no breeze.  Perfect for doing hard work outside.  And perfect for transplanting.

After worrying all winter about my plan to move the sourwood away from the patio and replace it with a river birch, I did it.  It was not so hard at all.  I started mid morning and was inside for lunch, my pants dry and relatively clean because of the chaps. 

Sourwood in its new home

Jim had to help me wrestle the sourwood into its new location, it was quite heavy.  I dug up the three zenobias (I put the non-blue leaved one in the strip in front of Meadow's Edge).  Then I dug all around the roots of the sourwood.  It came out ok.  Shallow rooted, and not very wide (although I cut some long roots to get it out).  But still, it's a five foot tree, and a lot of soil came with it, and it was heavy. 

Oxydendrum does not like any kind of root disturbance.  So this may have been fatal.  

But it moved ok, Jim got it positioned next to the gravel garden, and I filled in with soil.  It is standing straight, there wasn't much maneuvering to get it upright.  All in all, pretty easy.

Then I moved the small river birch into the spot by the patio, put the remaining two zenobias back in, and planted the new zenobia from Woodlander's.  Not a bad project, and I like it already.

Young river birch and zenobias by the patio wall

Here are the pros about this move:

• The river birch is as tall as the sourwood was, but will quickly grow very tall, and finally make some shade for the patio, and that should happen in a season or two.

• The sourwood just looks better next to the inkberry hollies by the gravel garden.  It's better as an element of a woodsy planting rather than the focal point of a patio corner.  And it was just too small next to the patio, not providing enough shade.

• The sourwood might actually do better away from the less acidic stone wall and walkway.  That is, if I haven't killed it.

Some cons about this move:

• I pretty much destroyed some of the alliums I had carefully planted around the patio wall last fall.  Some were starting to come up, but got dug.  I tromped on others.

• The transplanted Mara des Bois strawberries that I wanted to spill over the edge of the gravel garden got destroyed too as I wrestled the sourwood into place.

• I'll get shade on the patio from the river birch, but it will also dominate the view out the kitchen window now.  I won't have such a clear look into the back yard when all I see are leafy birch branches.

So . . .  was it worth it?  Yes.  It was easier than I thought, and I got it done.

Please, please let the sourwood thrive, and may the birch grow quickly without overwhelming that spot.  And let a few strawberries and alliums come up after all.

Feeders are Out, Seeds are Up

Just beautiful today.  72 degrees, sunny, only a light breeze.  But so dry.  The top inches of soil are very dusty, and all the pots left outdoors needed a good watering today.

It's only March 14.  The tulips in pots have fat buds.

I hung the hummingbird feeders today for the early scouts.  Normally I would wait until the very last days of March, but it has been so unusually warm the advance males might be coming through early.

I cut back some more perennials, including the epimedium foliage, but I am leaving the grasses for now.  They still look good, and their tawny waving forms are the only bright spots around right now.

As I have been digging around, I noticed little tiny leaves on the oregano 'Kent Beauty' that I planted out in the soil last year.  I think they made it through a winter here, although this was a mild one.  Each one was in the wrong place for what I was doing, so each got moved, and I hope that didn't do them in.

I set up and organized the potting bench today.

Moved and divided a few of the geranium wlassovianum from the very edge of the bluestone walk back a little (into the open space now vacated by the blueberries).  With the blueberries gone, there is more room, and they were reaching over the walkway too far.

I put out the windmill and the direction sign.

And --- there are seeds popping up under the grow lights in the living room!!  Only five days after sowing, a few sunflowers are peeking up and the linaria (very, very fine sprouts) are up.  Now I need to leave the lights on for 12 - 14 hours every day.

Blueberries Moved

70's today, hot, sunny and still.  Lovely late winter day, unusually warm.

Seeds were planted on Friday 3/9 on trays under the grow lights on the half wall.

Yesterday we went to Logee's and I got three little begonia 'Bonfire' 2 inch pots.  They did not have plumbago or the plectranthus 'Mona Lavender' that I want.

Today, in the nice weather I pruned the blue hollies on the berm into more pyramidal shapes.  Only the one on the far left is the shape I want.  It gets the most direct sun.  The others are smaller and not as well shaped, but the idea is there.

I took the green plastic mesh trunk protectors off the trees today.  The ones on the back hill had been on for two years, and were so tight.  Meaning the trunks have demonstrably grown!  And the linden in the cul de sac was bursting out of its mesh cage too.  That's removed now.

And ....  ta da .... I moved the blueberries, which has been on my list to do for a while.  They do so well in spring in Northern Exposure, but get overtopped by the rampant, rangy amsonias in summer.  The blueberries then languish, too shaded and too wet.  I moved them to the strip in front of Meadow's Edge.

They are shallow rooted and easy to move, but it was a job.  I am feeling my age.  Lovely day, satisfying project, and I wanted that rich experience of coming in at 4 in the afternoon tired, a little sunburned, and happy.  But I am still sick with the awful cold I got in Hawaii, still coughing, nose running, and it was hard work.  Hack, hack.  Wheeze.  No energy.  Wish I was younger.

The poor blueberries --- they do not like root disturbance, so we'll see how they do after transplant.  I watered them well.

Conditions in the garden are SO DRY.  The top inches of soil are dust.  No snow cover to wet the land, and no rain for ages.

Aren't these little iris reticulata so cute?  They are popping up through the kinnikinnik, just as the snowdrops and a lone crocus do.

I like how the groundcover hides the failing foliage, and I really like how the purple iris looks with the red tinged kinnikinnik.  But as with the tiny snowdrops, I need a lot more.  A lot more. They aren't much to look at spread so sparsely by the walk.

Thank goodness they are right by the front walk where I can see them.

Mukdenia

Love this plant.  I really need to get it, and see how it does for me.  I could try it in pots, and keep it in shade that way.

Mukdenia rosii 'Crimson Fans'

from Terra Nova Nurseries

Real Chores

I got some real work done today, digging and planting!  It was near 70, breezy and so nice.  It feels like it will never be cold again, that we are on a straight line to spring.  Ha.

I moved the little 'Tide Hill' boxwoods into an angling line on a slant with the gravel garden.  One actually is in the gravel nestling up against the rocks.

For some reason, I really like this, just like I enjoy the line of four boxwoods to the east of the deck.  I like the way they bisect the edge of the gravel.  Hopefully moving them now, in March, didn't hurt anything.

I also moved some of the irises that needed to be removed from the front walk garden, and put them in the Birch Garden.  We'll see if they do ok there.  There are more to move.

And I took out the nandina that I didn't like.

I wore the chaps for the first time, and they work!  Really comfortable, just need some hitching up now and then, and a little quick adjustment as I kneel.

The key is to keep the straps loose.

And I moved the big pink urn to a more hidden spot under the guest room window, where the redbud was.  Away from the brick wall it is not so pink, and it looks nice tucked in between the grasses and the other plants.

I had planned to put a big leafy baptisia 'Carolina Moonlight' there to fill the empty spot, but maybe not.  The redbud stump is still there, which could make planting difficult, and I could use the baptisia out in a sunnier spot I think.

Another shot of the four Tide Hill boxwoods in their little angled line.   I like it.

And I like the way the big gray whale-rock looks now, with the smaller ones scattered off to its right.  I don't think I need any more.

Got It Done

Warmer today, in the high 50s, breezy but very nice.

I did it.  I got the willows cut back.  I really hope this was worth it and they will resprout and come in full and lush with all the variegation of prior years.

It was really awful work, no job for the loppers.  The larger branches were so thick I needed the pruning saw and it was difficult.  And I am still feeling so sick since getting back from Hawaii.  My cold and cough won't go away, and I had no energy.

I hope this coppicing will work.  They really were lovely colored arching shrubs last year.