Broken Arrow

Cool and very windy.  In the high 50s, even up into the low 60s but the wind makes it feel chillier.

Jim and I went to Broken Arrow today and I picked up some more Rhus aromatica Gro Low plants.  Also got a comptonia finally.  Where to put it? 

And I got another persimmon for the back hill.  They will call later in the week to let me know when a rosa glauca (where to put that??) and some sassafras saplings come in.  They'll hold them for me.  We'll have to then go back down to get them.

Such a great nursery, and the staff was very helpful.  I do wish they had more straight species, (like a sweetgum I wanted) but they specialize in golden or variegated foliage.  The sweetgum was a gold leaved variety, and I just want a regular liquidambar for the back hill.

I also wanted a straight hamamelis virginiana, but they had several other varieties instead.

Yesterday we went to O'Brien nursery in Granby. 

He specializes in shade plants, particularly hostas, but had lots of interesting things to look at (technically he wasn't open, but encouraged us to walk around on our own.)

And what a property, with plantings everywhere, a pond, paths and trails.

It was a very enjoyable tour.

I Am Happiest When . .

It was so cold and windy today that I didn't want to go outside.  Very breezy, sunny and in the mid 40s.  The cold wind seeps into the house.

I just about died at Home Depot with the wind whipping and my hands freezing as I looked at their trees.  I got two 5 gallon whips --- red maples ('Red Sunset').

They were the perfect size to just fit in the Prius, they were not leafed out, so they were easy to handle.  Five feet tall, easy for me to carry.  $30 bucks.  Not the half price $14 bargains I was getting a few years ago in mid summer, but very reasonable and not root bound. 

Perfect.

Lowe's had nothing.

It was so cold I put off going outside to plant them.  Finally went out after lunch, complete with my parka on.  And of course once I got digging, it was wonderfully comfortable, I didn't mind the wind and I got both maples easily planted on the back hill where the now missing tuliptree had left a gap.

I am happiest when planting these size trees on the back hill.

Their size is perfect for me to handle, they grow beautifully in just a few years, and I am so pleased with the idea that I can add screening from the road.  My little forest.

Need more!

To Do --- Ta Da !!

We had a little snow to close out March.  A little rain too.  About half an inch altogether, and it was much needed.  April has started cold and gray.

I am amazed at the To Do List for spring.  All the big tasks got done in March. . . . ta da! 
Finished! 

The berm was expanded and the yellowroot moved.  The sourwood was transplanted and a birch put in its place.  Other things were moved around, the bridge installed, the gravel garden borders filled in.  Etc.  Another To Do list for April must be generated.

Yesterday Jim and I went out to Stonegate Landscapes in Granby.  Mike DeSanto at Bartlett recommended it for a source for an American holly. 

What a place . . . a long maple lined gravel drive leads to an open field edged in zig zag rail fence.  The house and barn are gorgeous.  Just gorgeous. 

Ten acres of huge mature landscape plants are in back.  Don Forde, the owner, took us through the mud to the back lot to see the seven foot tall holly.

Backed up against a pine tree, a little shaded, it was not as impressive as I thought for $850, but we're going to get it. 

Healthy, field grown with a strong single leader, the leaves are beautiful and it will fill out when planted in our more open sunny site.  It will go where the pear tree was to the east of the house. 

What I'm after (I may not get the low branching)

It's a female, and has produced berries.  The pollinator?  Will my meserve hollies or the Jim Dandy winterberries pollinate it?  There are no wild Ilex opacas around here that I know of.

It's not quite branched down to the ground, but again, the sun in our site may encourage the lowest branches to fill out.  Maybe.

Don comes Monday to prep the site, and will plant it this week.  He was quite the plantsman, and spent a long time talking trees with us.  His property was new and his trees were tiny 30 years ago when he moved there.  Now massive maples line the drive, and a forest of giant white pines screen the planting fields from the house. 

I loved talking plants with him and he seemed to enjoy it as well!

(One thing he said is that his sweetbay magnolias -- Magnolia virginiana --- have a heavenly scent.  Mine are 'Moonglow' and I don't think this cultivar will ever have a lemony fragrance like he describes with the species.  Sigh.)

Sunny Day, End of March

Quite cold this morning, in the 40s.  It felt chilly and windy as I worked on the back hill cutting multiflora rose and painting the cut stems with poison ivy herbicide.

By the end of the day the wind stilled, the sun was bright, and Jim and I sat in the gravel garden and just enjoyed a beautiful March afternoon.

I used to like clearing the back hill.  It felt so good to get at the bittersweet and get things "under control" over several days in spring.  Not so any more.  It's discouraging.

I worked slowly and carefully, not ripping vines out as before, but carefully cutting canes, handling the pot of herbicide and brush with caution, and scrambling where I could to paint the stems.  Slow, tedious work, and even this early in the season it is a jungle out there.

It looks neat and easy in the diagram, but it's a job out in the tangled mass of canes and vines.  Not as rewarding as clearing out the brush used to be several years ago.

In the gardens I planted several new pots of drumstick alliums that I got at Warner's.  Such little bulbs.  I added them to the top of the driveway garden next to the new smokebush, and a few around the far edge of the gravel garden.  You need a lot to make a statement.

I added lime and fertilizer to the clematis (Alba Luxurians by the patio, and Jackmanii in the big pot.)

Added bulb booster to the emerging alliums and to the tulips in pots.  One pot is ready to bloom, the white ones at least.

Hauling and Toting

Cold today, in the high 40s and overcast.

The perfect weather for hard work in the garden.  Yesterday I got 10 bags (3 cu. ft. each) of mulch at Warner's and today we got 12 bags (2 cu. ft. each) at Moscarillo's, so Jim and I spread a full 54 cubic feet of mulch today.  That's 2 cubic yards.

It didn't quite cover the spruce berm, but keep in mind we widened it by moving the yellowroot out and extending toward the new bridge.  We still need more.

I took buckets of rotted leaves and partly done compost from the windrow in back and piled it around the sassafras, the clethra and the spicebushes on the back of the berm. Then covered the good rotten stuff with mulch.

Those plants all want moist woodland conditions, and they are competing with big spruce roots on a steeply banked berm.  The decaying compost under the mulch will help with moisture.

I also toted and hauled buckets of half finished compost and rotted leaves to Meadow's Edge garden and spread that about.  A lot of work, but it's good for the garden.

I'll cover that with mulch eventually.  Right now it looks messy.  I even got several buckets of finished compost from the tumbler.

I sprayed the hot pepper wax all around today, an early attempt to discourage eaters.

Moved the cup plant from the berm out into the meadow.

Divided some geums.

My body hurts and I am tired.

Some Changes Here

A little rain today, finally.  Not much, but something at least.  Just 2/10ths of an inch by the time it was done this afternoon. 

The gorgeous big early magnolias all over town, the big saucer magnolias, have turned to brown messes from Tuesday's 25 degree morning.   So sad to see the stately pink magnolia blooms look so awful, top to bottom.

I made some changes in the gravel garden yesterday.  The flimsy plastic Adirondack chairs were always getting blown about and were not comfortable for Jim.  Do you like these better?

And how about the twig tuteurs?  I don't think the plumbago plants made it through the winter in their protected pots in the garage.  I'll have to get more.

It's a different look, narrower, smaller, and not as casual as the low slung plastic chairs, but I like it.

I think I really like it.

Rethinking

Cold last night.  25 degrees.  Yikes.

The little star magnolia that was so cute flowering away all over its tiny branches got zapped.

The left side of the Birch Garden has frustrated me for a while.  It slopes down in full sun and has quite sharp drainage.

All the smallish stuff I put in there doesn't hold any weight with the right side where the nepeta billows, and the left side just fades down and away.

It has always given me a challenge, right from the start, and many different plants have been tried there.

So, if I move the little rose and the small blueberry that I tried here to fill the spot, and instead put in the big Carolina Moonlight baptisia that I already ordered this spring ... what do you think?

Originally the baptisia was to go under the guest room window where the Oklahoma redbud used to live.  A filler.  But it's the only space where I like the now pink Umbrian pot (I'll put a Bonfire begonia in it).  The pot is nice hidden among the grass and conifers, and the fothergilla nearby will fill out more now.

The Carolina Moonlight baptisia will add some big billowy weight to that left side of the Birch Garden.  It won't block the peony since the peony will bloom before the foliage of the baptisia fills in in spring.  That low spot in front is where it will go.

An earlier photo, before I put in the dwarf rose and blueberry

The little rose and the small blueberry can move to the back of the Birch Garden behind the Orange Dream maple, another spot I've had trouble filling.

Hmmm.  Thinking.

More Like March

The hot summer weather is gone, and now it is much more like a normal March.  Blustery.  Cold.  It is in the 40s, but with the strong wind it is really nippy out there.

Forecast is for low 20s tonight, so I brought the pots of tender things into the enclosed back porch.  When I took the big pots of tulips off the front steps, I saw the deer had been there.

Nuts.  The idea was to keep them in pots so they would not be subject to depradations.  But the deer came right up the sidewalk and to the stone steps.  If I want to have these pretty tulips bloom out on my front steps, I will have to bring them in each night.

In the cold wind today Jim and I finished moving the yellowroot, and now that major project is all done.  Great progress and we aren't even in April yet.

You can see how much space there is behind the curving line of shrubs now.  I'll have to put some heavy mulch down to keep the space open, and the yellowroot will fill in a lot and even creep back up toward the spruces over time.

I like it.  Good job.

Bartlett came today and ground up the pear and redbud stumps with their funny radio controlled machine.  They also pruned out the cracked branches from last fall's storm that I could not reach on the dogwood and maples.

Wow, the wind is howling right now.  Jim got all the screens up in the warm weather so we could open windows, and now with March gales, it keens and makes a weird noise.

Making Progress

Well, we didn't get the badly needed rain last night.  Nada.  Today was very cool and occasionally there was spitting mist, but that was all.

We are making great progress on the big tasks for spring.  And here it is still only March.  I thought moving the sourwood would be the biggest challenge but that was easy and it was all done, including moving the river birch into its spot, in two hours.

The tougher job has been to move the yellowroot shrubs.  I thought they would dig up so easily, but they have really spread and are woven into the spruce roots.  So far we have gotten the ones around the birch tree moved forward a bit into good soil.

Jim has already spent two full intense days removing the strip of sod, and I helped for part of that.  Then today we spent a couple hours digging and moving the shrubs, but are only halfway done.

It's not being done neatly or prettily.  I am ripping out shreds of roots and haphazardly replanting them.  They do root easily, but we'll see how this harsh treatment works.  At least they will be lower on the slope of the berm and a little further away from the drying spruce roots.  Need moisture!

I took a walk around in the drizzle today.  Sassafras buds are swelling.

And did I see this before?  Deer rubbed one side of the magnolia 'Elizabeth' raw.  It will survive, but I don't remember if I knew this happened last fall or not.  Reminder to self:  wrap the delicate trunk next season.

The low deutzia gracilis 'Nikko' is doing a nice job of layering its arching stems, and I cut a few and replanted them along the east side under the Rose of Sharon.  They are almost completely leafed out already.

And the stars are the Valley Valentine pieris, and the Ogon spirea.  Such flamboyance for muddy brown March.

Spring Is So Early

Not so warm today, in the 50s and overcast, rain on the way.  We really need a soaker.  Here's what is blooming now:

All over town and all along the highways forsythias are in full glory

Spirea Ogon in front of the ever enlarging Swiss Stone Pine

Spicebush just starting to open its pale yellow blooms

The dappled willows I hacked back are resprouting

I love this little baby Star Magnolia