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Garden journal

May 05, 2008. After the rock garden fixer-upper (see last month's entry), of course I had to stock the new boulderfield with some spiffy plants. One of the new entries was Lewisia cotyledon, a plant we'd grown before but lost. We're glad to have it back! It's already cheering up the top tier of the rock garden with its bright flowers, and the tight buds held closer to its succulent leaves hold promise for more to come.

April 23, 2008. The great spring rush is in full swing - I'm running out of space to put potted plants for the sale, and the new seedlings are begging to be planted in real soil, away from their miserable sixpacks and small pots. Meanwhile, the perennial garden areas are still very much in startup mode, with lots of bare ground still showing. The real stars of the garden right now are the flowering trees - the star magnolia did its thing a few weeks ago, followed by the apricot and peach trees. Right now, the later magnolias (such as 'Elizabeth' shown here), the apples, crab apples, redbuds, and kwanzan cherries are at center stage. Every once in a while I manage to look up from my frenzied activities to enjoy them.

April 13, 2008. Going three for three on recent weekends, with a major reorganization each week. This time it was the side garden's turn. The first part of the garden that was reclaimed from the lawn, more than ten years ago, its original design worked just fine for the bare space. Several paths wound themselves through the fairly narrow garden area, defining circular and oblong areas for planting. One circle got a weeping cherry, another (after a few other things died) finally wound up with a crab apple. Both have grown up, and claimed much more space than we anticipated as novice gardeners. So yesterday, in a long overdue operation, I pulled up all of the paths in the front half of the garden, and remade them - a bit further away from the trees. Also, one path is now clearly the main drag (a bit wider and more direct), while others are for casual perambulation of the garden. Of course I took the opportunity to reorganize the plantings as well - many tired old specimens and spreading thugs didn't make the cut, leaving lots of room for new plants. Which is fine by me - I've got a basement full of seedlings! We also made a spring trek to Point Philip Perennials yesterday, and returned with a carfull of goodies. If only I could maintain this early-spring energy throughout the season...

April 05, 2008. Another weekend, another project. Today it was the rock garden's turn to be overhauled. Once again, all plants were carefully removed (some of them, I haven't yet figured out what they are!), the area somewhat expanded, lots of new soil (amended with sand and grit) added, along with new rocks I picked up at a farm field's discard pile. I had hoped to achieve something that was a bit more convincing as a natural outcropping, but I'm afraid I failed in that respect - the result looks more like a wedding cake than anything natural. I could blame the rocks, but it's probably more my lack of eye for placement. But even so, the new arrangement, having much more variation in the vertical dimension, as well as more isolated pockets, will offer a good home to rock garden plants of many types - a necessity, now that I've joined the North American Rock Garden Society and am growing many plants from its seed exchange! I'm also on their "opens garden to other members" list, although I'm not sure they'd be inspired by my culinary concoction...

March 30, 2008. The gardening season has begun in earnest: I've got my first big project of the year under my belt! For years, the front perennial border had been looking a bit dilapidated. It was the first area of the garden cultivated twelve years ago (even before the lawn went in), and although many plants had come and gone since then, it had not undergone a real overhaul, and was clearly in need of one. The soil had not been deeply improved ever. I was a beginning gardener at the time, and thought a few bags of store-bought organic humus should suffice to turn the native clay into decent soil. Even with all the compost top-dressings over the years, a few inches down the soil left much to be desired. So the first order of the day, yesterday, was to collect a pickup-load of mushroom soil from my steadfast source. Next job was to dig up all of the plants (some just barely showing signs of life), toss them aside, and mix plenty of wheelbarrows of the fragrant black stuff in with the crumbly clay. Next, install some new path lights (the ancient plastic Malibu's were looking pretty awful, and the solar replacements never worked so well), and allow Amy to direct where the perennials should be replanted. Fewer than half were allowed back in, so I spent the final part of the weekend potting up lots of plants for my sale in May.
And that, dear friends, was the end of smooth, blemish-free hands - at least until the dog days of summer.

March 23, 2008. Spring is officially here - and even though we had a cold night, the garden is definitely showing its promise. Not very openly, just yet - you have to get close to the ground to see the signs of new growth pushing up, but getting close to the ground is only natural for a gardener. So today, finally, I decided that the rest of the standing top growth from last year would have to go - even the grasses that still decorated the garden views with a firmly upright architecture. And even the weeping sedge, which whose great green mound was still verdant after the punishment of winter, but whose leaf tips showed some scorching. I've no doubt it will jump back into prominence soon after this morning's haircut.

March 16, 2008. A mild weekend, with early-spring weather: a few peeks at the sun, a few bouts of rain, and mostly just impressively or drearily cloudy skies. Perfect for some pre-season puttering - straightening out the arbor that our new New Dawn rose is supposed to conquer this year, pulling a few dandelions, collecting blown-in trash, and looking for signs of new growth. And then, suddenly, out of the corner of my eye: ducks! Our big pond attracts its share of birds, but it's a bit small for waterfowl. Not that we'd want them to take up residence - their habits upset the nutrient balance we're trying to establish with our biological filtration system (see the algae in the picture? Too many nutrients already!)
But it was nice to have them explore our little waterscape for a bit - half an hour later, they were gone - off in search of more expansive nesting grounds, no doubt.

March 12, 2008. I knew that last posting would incent the crocuses to show their faces! A few days later, there they were, poking up their heads in places normally occupied by other plants - such as here, in the rock garden, the Kamtschat sedum. Now spring doesn't seem so far away...

March 06, 2008. My parents in the Netherlands have been sending triumphant photos of what's blooming in their garden for a month now - but none of our crocus, daffodils, or even snowdrops are close to blooming yet. For now, we make do with our Darley heath, which reliably blooms through most of winter every year. It's probably at its best right now - the flowers still look fresh, the needly leaves are dark and glossy. I've always found it hard to photograph, so it made a natural subject to try my new camera on. Still not perfect, but there you go...

March 02, 2008. It's a different one every year - but there's always a winner of the first-seedling-to-bloom contest that displays its inaugural bloom while still under the basement growlights. This year, the honor goes to Rosa rehderiana, a shrub rose. The gardener who sent me this seed in a trade had suggested it was very early to bloom - I hereby proclaim her to be extremely correct. Hopefully they'll prove to be equally floriferous once established in our outside garden!

March 01, 2008. I'm frustrated! After years of wielding a point-and-shoot digital camera (and taking some pretty nifty pictures, I think) I finally broke down and sprang for a digital SLR. My brand new Olympus E-volt 510 comes with so many buttons and settings, I don't know if I'll ever master 'm all. A decent zoom lens too, so that I may finally capture some birds in action. The problem is - there's not much out in the garden to capture on bit-film. So this is what you get from me today - a photo of the colorfully burnished leaves and petioles of one of our hellebores. Not too long from now, it will send up fresh new leaves, with luscious purple flowers...

Composition in evergreen
February 23, 2008. A few years ago, when I first started to throw myself at this website, I started a page called Evergreen, aiming to explore how various woody plants, perennials, and even annuals bring foliage color to the winter garden. Unfortunately I never followed through, so the page is still rather inconclusive. But my quest to explore the topic continues, as the photo here shows. I was struck by the contrast between the small-leaved Stewartsonian azalea and the boldly variegated Sasaella masamuneana f. albostriata bamboo. The wandering ways of the latter have me somewhat concerned, but they sure do add a blast of brightness to the winter garden!

just a few of the many that have germinated thus far
February 16, 2008. As usual this time of year, all gardening action is taking place in the basement. So far, seven shoplights have been put into service for the annual seed-starting operation. Early February was crazy - the exchange shipments from both the Hardy Plant Society (a tradition for me) and the North American Rock Garden Society (NARGS - new for me, I joined just a few months ago) arrived, with a total of 60 extra varieties to start! Many have already germinated; in fact, I have so many types of seedlings this year, that I'm resorting to growing more of them on a 3½" square pots instead of cellpacks. As always, it's an experiment - my methods are ever evolving!

January 27, 2008. I spend a good amount of time trying to find information about plants on the web. The internet has completely surpassed my trusty hard- and soft-bound references when it comes to figuring out what a plant looks like, whether it is hardy in my climate, and what conditions it appreciates in the garden. But it's not always easy to find the best references from a Google search - search for common plants and you'll find mostly links to commercial seed and nursery catalogs, many of which don't specialize in providing useful information (although some do!). On the other hand, search for a more obscure plant by its botanical name, and most results are references to scientific articles and studies of little interest to the gardener. As an experiment, I set up a Google Custom Search engine. This allows me to define websites from which to preferentially display results, as well as websites to omit from the results. So far, I've listed 39 sites - mostly purely informational, a few particularly good nursery sites, and a handful of "do not list" sites. I'm fairly pleased with the results already, but I'm sure it will improve further as I tweak the lists. I put a search box for this custom search on my plants page, and for convenience I'm putting one here as well. Let me know how it works for you!

Google Custom Search

Cyclamen hederifolium - an evergreen surprise today
January 12, 2008. A mild winter weekend day - perfect for engaging in some garden cleanup activities. I leave most of the dead stalks from perennials standing in fall, preferring the nature at rest look over that of clean-shaven beds. But by this time, many of the once stately stalks are toppling over, while remains of large-leaved lower-growing perennials (hostas are a good example) look like a mushy mess. And who wants to spend early spring, when you can be taking care of live plants, dealing with dead remains? So me and my trusty (and rusty) pruners made the rounds today. It struck me - this is not a young garden any more. At nearly 12 years, it not only sports lush growth in summer (which can be achieved within a year or two), but its shrubs and trees, the real bones of the garden, have come to define the space. Walking around in winter is a good time for contemplating the year ahead. So many areas of the garden need work! Some, like the side garden, are in dire need of an upgrade - a wholesale restructuring. Others, like the areas around our big pond, are still coming together. And I recently joined the North American Rock Garden Society, which means I'm newly energized to do something about our rock garden areas. And of course Lily wants a garden of her own, now that she's almost five years old! Plenty to look forward to...