The Doublefile is a Star

Nice, cool, dry weather in the 70s. Some sun, some clouds, no rain, although once again we need it badly.

The doublefile viburnum is at its best.

I like these dark clovers in a pot.

The aronia this year is awesome. I don't remember it being such a frothy white or so tall before!

I'm loving the little Tide Hill boxwoods in a slanted row. The strawberries, so prolific all of a sudden this year, are crowding the boxwoods a bit.

The blackhaw viburnum is blooming this year but only at the bottom. I think it got frost damage earlier this spring. I saw frosted blackened leaves and some crispy flowerbuds, so that may explain it.  I do love how my pruning has taken effect -- it's a nice little tree now. Quite shapely.

The Chocolate Chip ajuga keeps going and going.

All good.

Filling Some Gaps

From Dave's Garden  Salvia coccinea Hummingbird

Yesterday's freeze did take out the red salvia seedlings in the pots that I had left unprotected on the berm.

They are gone, and maybe one or two others by the dry creekbed got it, but the rest in the ground did seem to survive.

Everything I covered with a coffee filter or overturned glass is ok, and the angelonia seem to be fine.

Today was unsettled and windy and cloudy. No rain, although it threatened all day.


It appears that I have some gaps to fill ---

• A gap where the agastache is not coming back this year in the Birch Garden. 
• One of the New Jersey Tea plants is gone, leaving a small hole by the gravel garden.
• Where I took out the winterberry holly next to the bayberry, there is a gap. 
• And the two pots with frozen salvia seedlings in them need plants to replace the poor seedlings.

Here are some thoughts, using what I already have:

> Maybe put my new Indian Pink (Spigelia marilandica) in the ground in one of those gaps? Put it where the missing agastache was? Is there enough shade there? 

Spigelia marilandica from BK Perennials

There on the far right back corner is the Purple Haze agastache in August of 2012.
Is there enough shade now, in 2013 from the Orange Dream Japanese maple?
Can the spigelia take quite a bit of sun?

> Put a couple of the Cherry & Ivory Swizzle zinnia seedlings into the pots on the berm? I don't need so many under the birdbath. I just need a little pop of color behind the yellowroot foliage out there. These would be nice.

Cherry & Ivory Swizzle zinnias from Park Seed

Now, what to put near the bayberry?

What to put along the border of the gravel garden where the New Jersey Tea was?

Do I need to go shopping? Do I?

Readings All Over the Place

The forecast was for a low of 41 F overnight. I did not bring in any pots or try to cover any seedlings.

At 3 a.m. I woke up and the reading on my clock from the official local reporting station was 36 F so I got a little worried. I tiptoed out to the kitchen to read my backyard weather station and it was 30 degrees.

A freeze.

So at 3 in the morning I was in my bathrobe and slippers hauling the pots inside on the porch. I covered what seedlings I could with coffee filters, which was all I had at hand.

I never did get back to sleep after all that activity.

At 5 in the morning, my weather station read 29 degrees. As the sky lightened I could see a white frost coating everything outside.

The pots on the porch are safe, and the nasturtiums and some zinnias are lightly shielded by coffee filters. The choca mocha cosmos is too.

But most of the red salvia seedlings are uncovered and I may have lost those. The new angelonias were uncovered too.

If they are lost, I'll get some other annuals to replace those.

How could the forecast have been so far off?

(At three in the morning, in still cold air, it was actually exhilarating to be outside. Not a single car passed in the half hour I was running around out there. Not a peep of sound or a puff of breeze. Stars overhead. Silence and utter stillness and me alone in a garden frozen in time and temperature. It was strange.)

Possible FreezeTonight

Mother's Day was nice, and with the several days that brought some rain, everything looks good.

Now today it got cold. It is only in the mid 50s with a chilly breeze. The Basket of Gold plants look warm and yellow, with the red smokebush leafing out behind.

But it is a cold one, and the prediction for tonight is for mid 30s.

That's too close to freezing. I will need to cover up the zinnia seedlings, the new choca mocha cosmos and the nicotiana. And three little angelonias. The dahlias and black eyed susan vines and salvia in pots will need to come in. Sheesh. It's a lot. Oh, and there are red salvia seedlings out in the garden too.

(update on Tuesday morning: no freeze. It only got to 39 F briefly, but precautions had been taken and everything vulnerable had been covered.)

In the cool weather today I took out the leftmost winterberry holly that had been crowding the bayberry and the hemlock. It opens up the area a lot. Boy does the bayberry look awful, but I know it will green up at the end of May -- it's always such a late one!

I was thinking the New Jersey tea plants were awfully late too. They still look like sticks. But when I look closer I see that one is leafing out from the roots a little bit, the other is not at all. It should not look so completely bare in mid May, even if it is a late one to come out.

Everything is a week or more behind last year's very warm spring, but this ceanothus does not look good. It was fully in leaf by May 18 last year. It is now the 13th and very bare. I don't think it is going to come back from the roots.

I thought the two gaura in the front walk were no shows, but they are leafing out. They are late ones too. I spent some time trimming the heaths today, and cleaning out some of the crowding (I'm looking at you, Angelina sedum) in that strip.

I cut back the Frosty Morn sedums for more compact growth (the variegation is all gone) and there were aphids all over the new growth, eew.

And the sourwood is finally putting on leaves! The black gums too --- they are very slow. You can't even see the sourwood on the right here, it is just a brown stick, but there are little leaves coming out.

Scilla are blooming, but they are such a moody gray-lavender and they don't show from afar. Plus they are overtopped by columbines and nepeta in the Birch Garden. I really need to move them or take them out.

All four clematis vines are putting on height: the new Niobe is the smallest under the Austrian pine, the Jackmanii is filling out the iron tuteur, the viticella Alba Luxurians is rising, and here is Henryi:

Much progress, many things are growing and blooming but this cool spring, and dry period have held a lot back.

And Another Quarter!

There were two separate days of rain last week that brought a mere quarter inch each time. Then Friday was a beautiful cool, brightly sunny day. On Saturday rain returned and brought another quarter inch of rain. So, over the past several days we've had three quarters of an inch of rain, and everything looks great.

Tiarella looks lush this year, and is making a  nice "river " of pink spikes

Geums are bright orange, and the pruned viburnum is blooming.
The flowers at the top are missing, though. I think frost got them earlier this spring.

Chocolate Chip ajuga is rich and purple and spreading!

Green Spice heuchera and Weigela My Monet

Mixed Pansies

Tomorrow: FROST. Oh no.

A Quarter + A Quarter

We ended up getting a quarter inch of rain late Wednesday, and then another quarter inch of rain late yesterday as the bigger, wetter system slid all around us to the north and south. At times Hartford got a lot of rain and the Litchfield hills at the same time, but we were constantly in that weird open bubble of clear sky.

But I will take it. A half inch combined, and everything looks so refreshed.

Jim saw the first hummingbird of the season today at our feeder!

Still Hoping

Not a drop of rain for 17 days and less than half an inch before that.

And now no rain out of this weather event at all. We are in an open window, with rain clouds sliding around us to the northwest toward the Great Lakes. The green blob out in the ocean is sliding toward New York, to the south of us.

Long Island and NY got lots of nice rain, and earlier Mass. did too, but we have not had a drop today.

Still hoping that new storms may form tomorrow.

Dry, Dry, Dry

Still no rain, for three weeks now, other than 4 tenths of an inch 15 days ago. I'm starting to see mild signs of stress as the plants are emerging and leaves are coming out.

We have turned on the lawn sprinklers already and used them twice. I water, water, water all the new trees and the little seedlings I put out and the buckeyes, and the trees just planted last year.

Water, water, water --- it takes up so much time. It's just so dry, dry, dry. But rain is predicted for later this week.

Meanwhile, in the spring garden:

Fothergillas are blooming.
I love the big red pot I got at Home Depot for cheap.
(I put California poppies in there)

I like my little row of Tide Hill boxwoods, marching down into the gravel.

The geums are the happiest flowers in spring, very ORANGE!

Forget Me Nots spill

Ogon spirea is the prettiest, most delicate thing in the garden in spring.

The groundcover alpine willows look good now.
In summer last year they burned and looked awful --
Hoping for a better season this year.

This is how much the alpine willows have spread
under the Dawn viburnum.

All the trees and shrubs I ordered have been planted. The three carpinus, the three sweet birches, the hop hornbeam, and one new sassafras. Six blueberries, plus the two dwarfs in pots. A cornus racemosa, which I actually split apart and planted two pieces of it in the meadow. The plumbago I put that at the front edge of the new arbor.

And the kiwi vine, which will be permanent after the plumbago finishes its one season, also went on that side of the arbor.

All the seeds (marigolds, California poppies, scarlet sage, zinnias) are in the ground, waiting for some rain. We need a soaker!

And We Begin

May first feels like the start of summer. There can be more cold weather, a frost even, and many trees like the black gums and the smokebush have not leafed out yet. But it still feels like The Start! We begin.

March and April are all about getting ready -- clean up and chores and digging edges or making new gardens.

May feels like the time to sit back and start to enjoy. Today was bright and sunny and in the 70s and everything suddenly started to fill in. Still so dry -- I have to water everything. No rain in the forecast.

I got the hop hornbeam and the three sweet birches from Forestfarm, and planted all but one today.

And I received the plumbago, which I think I will put at the side of the new arch, while the kiwi vine grows to some size.

The Frohnleiten epimediums look nice blooming, and have filled the area finally. I need to expand the circle under the dogwood. This year the foliage didn't green up very well before blooming, so there is still some brown foliage under the pretty flowers.

In 2010 the heath bloomed brighlty in March. This year it is finally blooming well on May 1. The pink combined with the bright yellow sedum Angelina is a little weird.

One stray tulip has come up, a remnant from the ones I planted in 2008.

And to celebrate the start of the season I brought up the table and chairs for the deck and changed the bedding to the lighter quilt and summer duvet cover.

We begin!

Red Map

I don't like seeing the red color on this map. It means that precipitation for Connecticut is 50% of normal. April has been very dry.

It hasn't rained a drop in the 5 days since this map was published, and there is no rain in the forecast.

I have been watering anything new that I just planted -- the American hornbeams, the blueberries, my new parrotia and styrax and even the day lilies and alcehmillas. But the year old trees, like my Forest Pansy redbud and the American holly need water too.

And the yellowroot and buckeyes don't like such a dry spring.

The reason spring looks so tentative here is not that we've had such cold weather -- it was cool in early April but is warm and seasonable now.  It's the dry conditions that are holding back the leaves and flowering. At 50% of normal, nothing wants to open up and nothing looks lush.

The grass is very green, though.