Spring is All About Change -Right?

Everywhere you look, everyday things are changing in the garden right now. Yesterday the the lilac bloomed - Syringa patula 'Miss Kim'. It is truly a love in the garden. It blooms later than other lilacs, extending their season. It's compact - 6-8 feet at maturity and easily trimmed to stay shorter, so you can use it as a foundation plant. We put it at the foot of the steps from our deck to the yard. The moment you step onto the deck - from the house or from the yard - you get the wonderful fragrance.


And, it's a beautiful color. The buds are pinker, but the flowers are more ice blue-violet. Oh, and it doesn't mind our climate. A winner all around! This is one of my "memory plants". I planted it in memory of a dear friend's mother.


Another beauty that came into full bloom this week is a weigela - Weigela florida 'Java Red'. It's a smaller variety - not really small enough to be considered a dwarf - but better for smaller spaces. This one is going to get a major pruning after it finishes blooming in the hope of improving its shape. The side that you cannot see is nearly flat because there was a huge clump of sea grass behind it until last fall. I finally decided that the sea grass was way too invasive and dug it up, but it had really hurt the shape of this shrub. I hope that by cutting it way back, it will grow out all the way around and even out in the next couple of years.

And, then if you truly want to see what an early spring we have had, here's my best proof.

A water lily bloomed this week! This is one that Mother gave me a couple of years ago. We didn't have room for it in the fish pond, so we got a small pond liner and created a lily (only) pond. I don't give it an annual cleaning (since fish are not dependent on it), so I don't cut back the plant in the fall, and the result is this! Turns out the frogs have the prettiest spot in the garden right now!

More Change in the Air.

In the spirit of spring, I have decided to make a change in my blogging, too. For about 18 months I have maintained two sites - this one which has been wholly about the garden and my first site - From the Garden Bench - which was planned to be insightful comments on my life and the world. I find that I have much more to say about the garden, and this topic is the one that draws me most of the time, but I still want to write about other things from time to time - without needing to maintain a presence at both locations. So, starting May 1st I shall combine the two blogs - but over at the other site. This one will remain up in case anyone is just dying to look up something in an old post - and so I can link back to it - but all the new stuff will be other "there". And, gardening will still be the main focus of what I write.

I will leave a link here, but hope you will come find me next month "on the bench" as well as "in the garden".

Too Early for Iris!

Iris bloom in May and June. Any gardener can tell you that. Apparently someone forgot to tell the iris that this year. This beauty opened this morning - at least two weeks early.

Mother gave me this one for Christmas about three years ago and I neglected to save its tag, so haven't a clue what it is... except huge. It's about eight inches "tall" and about four inches "across" the main part of the flower and a delicious pink. Fortunately, it is also pretty happy with its conditions. There were originally two rhizones, and now I have at least four fairly large clumps - enough that I gave some away last year.

At one time I had some plants that were descended from my grandmother's favorite iris. They were a small yellow flower that succumbed to an overly wet winter several years ago. While this one can't replace that family heirloom, it certainly has made a place for itself - both in my garden and in my heart.

Spring To Do List

There's always so much to do in the spring that it's easy to just move along doing "stuff" without setting any real goals. Two years ago when I was laid off, I learned that I needed to set real goals to keep moving forward and so that I could accomplish something - even if I did not have a real job. I found that I liked having the list and taking the opportunity each day to look at the list and decide what to work on next. At the end of the day it was lovely to cross something off the list. So here is the spring list for 2010:

1. Renovate the bed around the oak tree. Actually, there is no oak tree. It died last year and we cut it down. Sadly, we killed the oak when we moved into this house. They put the driveway right over half of its root area and therefore deprived it of water. It was fine for a couple of years, but over the past five years struggled and finally we had to have it taken down. Now, what used to be a shady area is a sunny area. It needs additional shrubs and a general re-working of the plants.

2. Remove the sweetspire and renovate that part of the back garden. Sweetspire is a lovely three season shrub that we had in a very shady spot at our "old" house. When we moved here I knew it needed more light, so put it in full sun where it went wild. It became aggressive and was taking over the hibiscus bed. Last fall we decided it had to go, so I used a generous amount of Round-up to start killing it. Now I need to clear out the space and find something to put there.

3. Fix up the entry to the garden shed. It's difficult to get the mover and other big tools out of the shed. I need to take out the grass and put in some kind of pavers to make it easier.

4. Revitalize the veggie garden. Mitchell built a wonderful pair of boxes for square-foot gardening two years ago. He really enjoyed them the first year, but lost interest last year. I really enjoyed the fresh food, so want to grow some more things this year, but it needs more soil and a plan.

In addition to the cleaning that still needs to be done, this list should keep me busy for a good while.

Phirst the Phlox!

Mother Nature has started her daily distribution new wonders - and how wonderful it is! In the past couple of days the creeping phlox [Phlox subulata 'Emerald Blue'] has started to bloom. At one time I had much more of it and in several colors, but this lovely purple has been the survivor. It probably needs more water over the summer - but, in my climate, what doesn't? It still makes a pretty bed, especially with the mini-daffodils peeking thru and around it. I'm going to add to the little bulbs as I can, probably with some wood hyacinths [Hyacinthoises hispanica], also known as English bells or Spanish hyacinths. I have lots - all over the yard - and they bloom much later than the daffodils, so I can extend the bloom in this bed with them.

The other big bloomer I have this week is Harry Lauder's Walking stick [Corylus avellana 'Contorta')]. It's a deciduous member of the hazelnut family and considered a dwarf tree. Mostly, it's an interesting addition to the garden in all seasons. Its blooms - called catkins [really!] - are just a cascade of little yellow flowers. They're called "insignificant" in the trade. En masse, however, it's quite pretty. It will be a full of lush green leaves all summer, but then it will leave me the most interesting architecture to observe all winter. Truly a year-round plant!

Tomorrow - forsythia and hyacinths!

It's Here - It's Finally Here!

Today I believe that Mother Nature is finally stirring! Last Thursday I saw the first tiny yellow daffodils starting to bloom, but it has rained four of the last five days and I could not get out to see them up close [and personal] until this afternoon. Even with the bright and rather warm sun, tho, it was difficult. With nearly three more inches of rain in those four days, the ground is saturated again and one has to pick carefully from high spot to high spot to walk into the yard. Fortunately these pretty little ones were in a bed next to the driveway, so I had asphalt for support.

You can't tell without something for perspective, but they are only five inches tall and the flowers are less that an inch in diameter. The original bulbs were a gift from Mitchell nearly fifteen years ago. When the local botanical garden opened, he bought me a membership for my birthday and it came with a bag of ten [I think] little mini-daffodil bulbs. I have moved these with us from the "old house" and as they multiply have started moving them around the yard. Someday they will be everywhere!

If you look carefully, tho, there are two more important things to see in that photo. The bit of lavender is creeping phlox that will be glorious in another week or so, and the yucca at the top is one of the red yuccas that bloomed for the first time last year. This is the smaller one that did not bloom, but I am hopeful. Will show you those in a few days.

I did a bit of weeding in this bed while I was there. Spring weeds are looking good and healthy, but they have not yet set any seeds so it's a great time to pull them out and avoid this year's growth and next year's new ones. Since they are small and the ground is - did I already mention this? - wet, they were easy to pull and the work went quickly. It is so much easier to do now. If one waits, then the ground will dry out and get hard, so that the roots break off more and leave little ones to come back next year. If one waits way too long, then they will set seeds and when you pull each one out the seeds will fly. It's a funny experience at the time, but disastrous for flower beds! [Can you tell that I have experience with that!]

The helebores are lovely. About ten days ago I waded in and cut back all the big, old leaf clusters around the plants, and got all the vegetation that had been crushed by the snow in January and February. With a few days of sun they have perked up and opened prolifically. If you look carefully in the photo above you will see a red flower peeking thru - right in the center. That is the camellia!

Normally it blooms in late November and on thru December. I have used blossoms on the Christmas table several years, but this year the cold hit us hard and early and I figured I wouldn't get anything. It has been covered with buds for months, but suddenly last week it, too, began to look promising. This is still a small shrub - only about three feet tall and less than three feet in diameter. It's nearly nine years old, but we started with a tiny little one.

Now you can see how lovely it is. This is the first year that we have had more than 10 - 12 blooms, and they are not as cold-damaged as I had feared. They are a truly double flower and dark red. So pretty that I cut some for the house. I guess they will be just as nice for St. Pat's Day as for Christmas!

Yes, indeed. Spring is finally coming to zone 7! Join me next week to see what else is waking up.

It's Time To...

Along with sunshine and a bit of warmth, spring brings a lot of responsibility for those of us who love the garden! In zone 7 the first of March means an end to sitting in the chair thinking about how much we hate winter. (If you are in a colder zone [2-6] , you will need to do these things, but later in the year. I think it's 2-4 weeks later per zone. If you live in zone 8, you should have already started in February, and if you live in zones 9-10, you never stopped working in your garden and you grow different plants!)

Zone 7 is the pink zone. I'm in the light pink part - 7a - so I am 5-10 degrees on average cooler than dark pink - 7b. The greens - zone 6 - are 10 -20 degrees cooler than the pinks, an so on. The other things one has to consider are type of soil and PH. Central Virginia is highly acid and has heavy clay soil. If you move to the coast of Virginia, where the soil is sandy and they have more ocean warming, you are in zone 8.

It's time to get moving and start doing! So, here's a short list of things you need to start working on this month:

• Cut back the liriope. Doesn't matter what variety of Monkey Grass you have, it needs to be cut back. The easiest way is to drag out your lawn mover, set it at three inches and just mow the liriope. The goal is to cut off the old growth to allow the new growth to come up and not be all choked in last year's leaves. It will start growing by the middle of the month, so you need to do this soon. If you wait until later, you may end up with the new grown all being cut straight across the ends. Not a tragedy, but it will look a little hinky.
  

• Finish your fall clean-up. You know you didn't finish! We got snow early and then rain, rain, rain, so everyone has more clean-up to do. I still need to cut back the dead growth from last summer on many perennials - some of the Shasta daisies, sedum, and asters for sure. And, some cleaning up in the xeri-garden.
  

• Plant cold weather veggies. Technically, around here one should plant the peas by George Washington's birthday - now nearly two weeks ago. I have dug the bed and bought the seeds, so today will plant them. The next step will be to put up something to support them as they grown up, and a fence to keep out the rabbits. Other cold weather veggies you might want to consider are spinach, any of the "kole" family - broccoli, Brussels sprouts - or other leafy greens.

• Prune your shrubs. Most of your deciduous shrubs will start leafing out by the end of the month, or by mid-April - so now is the time to do whatever light pruning you need to do. Never, never, never take off more than one-third of the plant! Never! But if you need to shape up plants it's easy to do now while you can see the structure. If you have branches that grow into the plant instead of outward, you want to remove them as close the the branch as possible. This will provide air and light into the center of the shrub and promote more growth and a healthier plant. For plants that grow from canes (Nandinas, for example) you want to keep them from looking too leggy, so cut one-third of the canes back to the ground, one-third about a foot shorter than you want the top of the plant to be and one-third in between these two. As the plant fills out this summer you will get growth at all three levels and end up with a fuller plant. Evergreen shrubs - boxwood or arborvitae - only need to be selectively trimmed for "wild hairs" or lightly sheared. Flowering shrubs should not be trimmed until after they have bloomed.
  

• Start planning your spring and summer projects. You have probably been doing some of this over the winter as you looked at catalogs. Your plans might change based on what winter damage you have gotten. At the moment, I don't have but one small project. Am really waiting to see how bad the damage is from the standing water. Be sure to make a list. You know it won't get done if you don't write it down.

The important thing about March is not to do too much. It's so easy to get wrapped up in the "need to do's" that we forget to really enjoy the first stirrings of life in the garden. March is the time to enjoy the rebirth that happens every day!

After weeks hidden under snow
and ice the hellebores have gone
crazy with blooms.