First Nice Day of Spring

Callery pear is blooming

Cool, partly sunny and in the high 60s today.  It was the first nice day of April... the 29th.  The past few days have been drizzly, gloomy, gray.  But things are starting to leaf out.

I got up at 6 a.m. to watch the royal wedding, then headed out and got the following done today:

• Moved all the Grow Lo sumacs to the hazel garden. Three more just came from Forestfarm.  The ideas is to have a massed ground cover there.
• Planted all the Chocolate Chip coleus under the Orange Dream Japanese maple.
• Planted three new Midnight Rose heucheras in the back of the Birch Garden.
• Planted three new Physostegia Miss Manners (and divided two) in Meadow's Edge.
• Planted all the inkberry hollies and fothergillas and the dwarf Oriental spruce in the new Secret Garden border.  Jim dug the holes for me.
• Planted the pots for the patio: violas and pelargoniums.  Some say violas want full sun, some say full shade.  Huh?

the view today of Olmstead's side yard

So late to leaf out, they look dead against all the greening up that is going on: the winterberry hollies, the clethra (really dead looking) the lespedeza (but there is new growth at the bottom, the voles didn't kill it), the ceanothus New Jersey Teas (same thing, new growth, but a lot of black branches).  Also late to leaf out: black gums, river birches.

first Geum bloom of the season

Magnolia 'Elizabeth' getting ready to bloom

Miserable

Miserable Day.

More

More damp, more clouds, more rain.  High 50s today, so not so cold, but still dreary and wet. We got over half an inch of rain the day before Easter, now drizzle today.

Despite the soppy wet ground and drizzle I planted more trees.

I put in two Lowe's trees that are a good 5 feet tall: a Red Oak and an Autumn Blaze maple.  I had poor luck with two other Autumn Blaze maples from Lowe's (lost both a couple years ago) but we'll see how this one does.  Both went at the foot of the steepest part of the back hill.

More moves: I moved the two tiny white pines from the Road Cut to the edge of the meadow right behind the black gum, where I can see them and they will provide some structure.  One of them I planted three times in three different holes until I got it right where I wanted it.

I moved the bearded irises --- again.  I had just dug them up and divided them and put them in the Birch Garden (you're supposed to divide in fall, oh well).  Now I dug the divisions up and moved them to the front walk.

They are so pretty, but I just can't figure out where to grow them.

Easter Sunday

Easter is very late this year and so is spring.  There really hasn't been a nice day all month... a few hours of pleasanter weather, but otherwise cold, chilly, windy and wet.

Deep thick fog today, Easter Sunday.  It rained all yesterday. 

Two days ago we had a frost and I had to cover the goatsbeard and gauras that I had just planted out.  Frost is always hardest at the dip where the dry creekbed is.

Stepping Stones

In the 40s today, off and on sunshine, and a blowy gusty fierce wind. 

It's still overly cool and that's a blessing when there is still so much digging and earth moving to do.  We finished shaping the new Secret Garden border, and I added stepping stones bisecting the area, which I really like:

The ones in the grass are set into the ground so Jim can mow over them.

Now, plant shopping.  

Finally, after so many weeks waiting for this 'Okame' cherry to bloom, here it is:

























Some other spring scenes this cool windy day:

From the front door.

Lynwood forsythias by the road are in bloom.

East side.  Redtwig dogwood branch leafing out.

Moving Day

Cold, wet, mid 40s, overcast and soggy.  Where is spring?  Despite the cherry in full flower now and the forsythias too, it was too gray today to take pictures.  Maybe tomorrow.

I used Holly Tone on the yellow looking meserve hollies on the berm, and on the yellow leaved dwarf buddleia 'Blue Chip" in the pot.

Today was moving day.  I moved a bunch of plants around:

The male kiwi vines 
The pots in front of the meters do not work there.  One pot was in standing water, like the rosemary was, and despite reaming out the drainage hole, it wouldn't drain.  The potting soil smelled rank.  The white plastic trellis, stuck in the two pots, just wobbled around disturbing any roots.  So I took them out, moved them to the far side of the patio wall, under the 'Bloodgood' maple, and we'll see if they scramble along the brick wall. I had to take out a big clump of Becky shasta daisies (I moved those to the back of the berm where they may peek up above the hollies.)

can I get the two vines to scramble on the wall, and up the deck posts?

These poor male vines have been abused and misplanted and replanted twice now, and badly handled since I put them in last year.  The female vines (to the left of this picture at the porch), look great.

The irises
I moved the bearded irises ('Beverly Sills' and 'Immortality') to the Birch Garden, and divided them into about a dozen plants.  Boy, did they multiply in one season.  I then moved some of the languishing Siberian irises out of the Birch Garden and into the wet Meadow's Edge.  I also divided these.  We'll see what they do, if anything.

The goatsbeard
When I planted the Aruncus dioicus last year it just about up and died in the hot spring and summer.  There was literally no above ground growth on it when I dug it up, potted it, and brought it in to the porch for winter.  It survived and is putting on growth in its pot.  I planted it out by the creek bed. 

(I didn't think it would recover, and ordered another one from mail order. I guess I'll put that one in the new garden on the east side where it will get afternoon shade.  Then I can see which does better.  They are slow to establish, I know that.)

Then I moved some cushion moss to make a little vignette in the birdbath that always rusted:

some vermiculite and mosses.

Snake Shapes

Pleasant, in the low 60s today.  Nice in the morning, overcast in the afternoon with a chill wind.  Another good cool day for hard work cutting gardens.

The 'Okame' cherry is thinking about blooming. . . .  thinking, considering, maybe, might do.  It still hasn't burst into full bloom yet, but some pretty pink blossoms have opened.  The 'Lynwood' forsythia out by the road has burst into bloom, though.

We got over two inches of rain yesterday.  The rosemary in the big bowl had several inches of standing water in it --- fatal for any plant, but particularly for rosemary, which wants dry soil.  The holes at the bottom had become completely blocked by thick roots.  I tipped the bowl, used sticks to ream out the holes, and drained the pot.  No easy task; that's a heavy bowl, especially with water in it.

We finished cutting the new garden on the west side, but the shape is a little too snake-like.   I want to widen the very left most side, to accommodate a largish Pagoda dogwood, and I want to make the curve curvier to the inside on the right.

More work to do.  Jim did a fantastic job adding soil from the Envirocycle pile to this garden.

Refilled the hummer feeders today.

Secret Garden

Very cold today, in the high 30s and low 40s, but chilly, damp and with a biting wind.

Flowering trees and leafing shrubs will not open; still nothing but tight buds on the 'Okame' cherry.

A good day, though, to cut the new sweep of garden that will link the west side walkway plants with the Birch Garden further out.

The idea was to make a Secret Garden, enclosing the space in a circle of overlapping half moon gardens with some openings out into the yard.

What we ended up with is a big sweeping S mirroring the curves of the border along the bluestone walkway to the back.

It still needs some shaping to get real curves in it and to finish the edges.  It doesn't form an interior circle, but with low and high plants it will offer a space with some privacy.  Much more to do to shape it pleasingly!

Jim worked like crazy on it, and together we got most of the space cut, if not the final edges and shape refinement.

It was so unbelievably cold that I did all this hard work digging and hauling and getting up and down, in my parka.  My ski parka!  I didn't even work up a good sweat.  But boy am I tired tonight.

Just as we finished it started to rain.

I'm thinking shrubs and an anchor tree, not a flower garden.  Let the Birch Garden be the flowery cottage garden, and let this area grow woody plants for a sense of enclosure.

Tax Day

Abundant sunshine, cool, in the 50s.

April 15, tax day: the Golden Peep forsythia has burst into bloom.  The Lynwood forsythias and the Okame cherry are still waiting but almost there.

This remaining single specimen looks much better than the low raggy line of dwarf forsythias.

4/15/11, with the tiny newly planted boxwood next to it

I took all the strawberries out of the crowded pots where they have never done well and transplanted them to the garden under the sweetbay magnolia by the hatchway.

Today I ripped out the vole damaged bun shaped false cypresses along the front walk.  They had no roots.  And I took out the new little iteas, which came right up, rootless.  I see no signs of tulips this year, but a few onion bulbs are coming up.  Now it looks like this, kind of barren:

4/15/2011

The two pots next to the center one have gaura that likes hot dry sandy soil.  I may plant them in the ground, they're really pretty all summer and might add nice movement and color to the front walk, against the brick wall.

A year ago this strip looked like this in spring:

4/13/2010

We brought the deck furniture up (after Jim sanded the deck) and had a glass of wine in the cool evening (no breeze), sitting out there.

More New Plants

Almost 70 today, sunny with a cool breeze.  Another good day to cut edges and dig holes.

I planted the Serbian spruce behind the hazels and 'Elizabeth' magnolia. 

Divided some of the 'Weihenstephaner Gold' sedums along the front edge of Meadow's Edge to make more (took out a few more liriope).

Planted the 'Blau Doneau' hydrangea along the east side (will have to cover it if we get more frosts).  Also planted the 'Winter Gem' boxwood on the east side.

Half of the Whiteflower Farm order arrived today.. awfully early for planting.

• 6 Karl Foerster grasses
• 6 Violas 'Rebecca' (where to plant these?)
• 3 Astilbe 'Bridal Veil"

Getting really busy now!