April arrives

Really??

Goodbye March

Overcast, gray, in the 40s.  Rain and snow on the way.

I'm over the shed.  And I'm so over March.

Some tasks accomplished yesterday: One more dead vole.  That's three.  The electronic trap is working.  I also spread the castor oil based mole / vole deterrent all over the front walk garden.  It has a very strong smell.

I set up the hoses.  This year a different system.  I had such trouble reeling the long 150 - 200 foot extensions of hoses back to the house after watering the Birch Garden or Meadow's Edge, or out to the back hill.  This year I am going to keep just 50 to 100 feet on the reel at the house, and roll the mobile cart to any place where I need water out in the yard.... just hook it up to the end of the "house" hose.

ready to easily roll to each "house hose" connection where needed

I like the moss green color of this very narrow lightweight hose from Gardeners Supply.  But it is made of a "sticky" sort of material that won't let it slide as it is reeled over the cart.... kind of a problem to reel in.  We'll see how long this lasts!

like the moss green, but the hose itself kinks and is not easy to wind up

And we'll see how the remote station by the side of the deck works this year with two hoses, a coiled short one for watering stuff on that side of the deck and a longer one for hooking up to the rolling hose cart!

will this work?

I ended up not knowing what to do with the pair of silly triangle shaped white vinyl planters.  I put them by the boxwoods, since it's kind of a formal look, and I need to put something in... maybe the crocosmia bulbs I just got, in pots?  Yes, I think so.  A little mini parterre sort of thing.  Kind of.  I dunno.

seems like overkill for this simple gravel area, but what the heck

Unsettled, Unhappy

In the 50s, today, a little warmer.  And the wind was not so strong.

Despite the sunny relative warmth today, I felt out of sorts all day.  So much to do, but nothing can be done in the earth yet, everything is still brown and matted.  April is here Friday, but it comes with snow.  That's not unusual, but it's the waiting, waiting, on-hold kind of feeling right now that has me so unsettled and unhappy while I wait for spring.

And then in the mail: the association denied our request to put in a shed.  They didn't like the color.  Didn't think a $2,800 garden shed was nice enough... a maintenance problem, not anything the occasional walker down at this end of the cul de sac should have to look at.   Chumps.  I live in a neighborhood of idiots.

This is the Shed Not To Be:

Which would have looked like this with landscaping:

Moving on.

I will enjoy the view from the bathroom, which the shed would have obstructed.  I do like Bob's little windmill out there and find myself checking it out the window a lot to see how the wind blows!

I'll still take out the knockout roses, which are going gangbusters, but I never liked the flower color.  I'll put in a smokebush Cotinus 'Grace' I think, and keep it vertical and flower-free with hard pruning each winter.  Or maybe put the new Tardiva hydrangeas there and the smokebush along the curve of the walk?  Hmmmm  Check out Nancy Ondra's 'Grace' smokebush with drumstick alliums, which I have in that spot already:

from her post 3/27 on cut-back shrubs, check out the very end

what it looked like after her pruning

Jim will help me stage the garage with shelving and better organization to get at the gardening tools. 

I've moved on.

North Wind

Sunny, mid 40s today but still windy.

I finally got out there even though it is still cold and blustery, and I cut back the grasses.  The Panicun 'Northwind' (ha! how appropriate for the weather today) are tall and narrow and easier to get at, but this is the season I dislike grasses.  The cut-back is always a chore (sharp stalks hurt, the fronds blow all over even if I tie them, the semi-woody stalks are very hard to cut efficiently, it's a nasty effort).  There is no good place to dispose of the straw colored grasses... sitting on top of the compost pile or dumped in the meadow they are a bright beacon and they blow about.

Then, when the chore is over, you have a stunted blob of nothing in the garden.  But all is forgiven when they grow to screen the AC units and when they are so wavy and elegant in a breeze and when they stand through the winter.

ok, this is when I love grasses: August.  Not so much in March

A job that can be done in cold wind is the heavy duty task of turning the compost.  Our windrow of large garden brush and grass clippings really isn't compost...it's too bulky, but I did go out there and do some kind of job turning some of the layers.  Hard work, and I worked up a sweat in the cold wind.

 

Up on the back hill a large, 9 foot tall oak keeled over.  It was one of the earliest I had planted back in 2006 or 2007, and it was part of the screening that was filling in along the top to hide the road.  Gone, just knocked over.  On inspection, there were no roots:

It was similar to a pin oak that keeled over out by the road cut.  It also had no roots, and just died and fell over.

Compared to Last Year

Mid 40s today but very windy.  It does feel a little warmer than yesterday's frigid winter feel, but it's still too unpleasant and cold and windy out there.

In shady areas the ground is frozen.

One of the benefits of keeping this online journal for a year now is that I can easily go back and compare dates a year apart.  Last March 28 I was complaining about the unseasonable cold!

My pictures from March 31 - April 1 last year show forsythia in bloom, and the Okame cherry blooming.  Nothing even remotely ready to bloom this year!

I found a great article on Nancy Ondra's blog about cut-back shrubs and coppicing, which I saved on the Pruning page above.

I think I will let the 'Nishiki' dappled willows go this year, and cut them back completely next year, alternating years.

Same with the redtwig dogwoods, I'll wait to cut them back every other year.  The redtwigs had great stem color this winter.

The only thing in bloom is the pink heath 'Ghost Hills".  The one smaller plant looks good, but the fuller, bushier one has a lot of dead branches in front.  I don't know if it was voles or too much winter snow or wind... not sure why all the dead twigginess.  They'll both get a severe cut back as soon as the blooming is over.

One looks good . . .

the other doesn't.

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.  : (