Summer Tulips

Several days in a row with temperatures in the 80s. Tulips and spring ephemerals don't know what to make of it.


- iPhone uPdate

Invisible work done

I spent a lot of time this weekend, but mist of what I did is not highly visible. I was weeding and trimming, and things look much more neat now. But to the untrained eye, there is not much change.

I cleaned up my grass slope along the street. I cut back what is now straw from last years grasses. I pulled old grass and leaves out by hand. I weeded around the young trees at the edge of the slope.

Between the front and the side, I filled four compost bags.

Weather was hot and sunny, but very humid so the very back never dried out. Passing thunderstorm added more dampness.

Most of the tree leaves have emerged but are not yet full size. I like the laciness and fresh colors.


- iPhone uPdate

Vignettes

I got a new long lens for my good camera, and used it to isolate specific vignettes last weekend. Here's a clue about the state of a garden: if all you see are plant portraits and tightly cropped vignettes, there's a reason. Don't expect me to zoom out and show the wide angles any time soon - too much running amok throughout the garden.

Shagbark hickory leaves emerge like flower blossoms from buds.

Virginia bluebells really like my yard, especially in such a wet spring. Ants have carried these all over the front.

Celadine poppies

Spring beauties are spreading nicely. I got some seeds from down by the creek a few years ago.

White oak isn't as dramatic as the leaves unfurl, but it is bright red right now.

My two apple trees are incredibly laden with blossoms.

Yellow foliage to go with the yellow flowers in my yellow bed.

Cleaning Up the Slope

I got some work done today, almost by accident. I went out to putter for a few minutes, and ended up spending the better part of three hours on just one small corner of the yard. It's an area I haven't touched in at least two years, maybe more: the edge of my yard along the front street, where it touches my neighbor's yard.  This is one of the places I first planted, back in the last century. But across the property line, my neighbor has ivy, myrtle, japanese honeysuckle, forsythia, and other bad things. It has encroached, and I started down at the street and ripped and ripped.

I just leave the leaves on the slope, so there was a thick blanket of only partly rotted oak leaves, and the roots were not deep in the ground but rather buried in the leaves. I also trimmed back his dogwood, abelia, and forsythia, so there was space to walk up the stones set in the slope to be steps.  Under the leaves and between the vines I was ripping out were several good things. I hope I've given them all room to breathe.

I'll have to look for pictures of what it looked like when I started. I archived those pictures off this computer but they should be stashed on one or more of my backup disks.

Weird Volatile Spring Weather

I don't want to complain about the rain. We really need it this time of year. But I am very keyed to the light, and dark days make me move slowly. I wish the rain would manage to all come at night, and the sun to emerge with a high pressure blue sky every day.

But what tremendous volatility we've had this week!  Wednesday was in the 80's. Yesterday didn't make it to 45 degrees. And Tuesday is supposed to be back in the 80's, or nearly so.  It feels like we've had a lot of rain overall, so I took the time to examine the facts.

So yes, we've had somewhat more rain than usual. But it's clear that the next month we need it to keep coming. It's really May and June that determine how it'll turn out for the growing season. Last year, the rains came in July and August, and that was too late for many of the herbaceous perennials and annuals - though it definitely provided relief to the trees.

It's still coming down here on Saturday morning, so no digging today. But tomorrow will be dryer and warmer, so I should line up what I want to get done.

Catching up on work

I got all my Lowe's plants from two weeks ago in the ground, along the front. It rained big time this week, especially yesterday. That made weeding especially easy today. I got the rock garden cleaned out. The weed of the year (or at least of the season) is some little cress. It was so thick in the rock garden it looked like a planned ground cover. To my regret, it went to seed before I got it pulled. I figure it's an annual so hardly worth pulling, except to give breathing room to the stuff I really want.

I need to study up on my weeds. I'm not sure what everything is as it emerges. Last year I had a lot of volunteer black eyed Susans and I think I recognize the foliage again but I'm not certain. Also, my asters have seeded about. I'm doing a lot of pinching off things too. Trying to keep things from sprawling out of control.



I've been coasting for a couple of years and I need lots more time to whip things into shape.

Got lots of pictures this morning. I'll have to get some uploaded soon. It's the prettiest time of year in the neighborhood.




- iPhone uPdate

Bunnies

It's approaching Easter, I think, based on the chocolate bunnies in the stores. But all the thirteen years I've lived here, I've never seen a rabbit. Until tonight, that is. At least, once there was a road kill rabbit a few blocks from here. But nothing alive.

Abbey and I were walking across the pedestrian cut through next to the park, and a bunny hopped away from us. It was only slightly bigger than a squirrel and with grey fur that could be the same. But it had a huge white cotton tail. It ran to the fence to get into the O'Brien's yard, and hopped right into the fence and fell down. But it made another two hops and then it was under the fence and off down the hill.

Many raccoons and millions of squirrels. I can recognize my individual squirrels some times. A couple of times turtles in the yard. This year, invisible deer have totally eaten the tulips.

But today was my first live rabbit.

- iPhone uPdate

Apple Blossoms

I'll never taste them because of the deer but I get a nice crop every year.



- iPhone uPdate

Redbud

- iPhone uPdate

Cleaning Up And Planting

I got a fair amount done yesterday. I focused first on the street corner. I pulled out a number of weeds- mostly dandelions. I planted a few things. Some moss phlox on the extreme narrow corner. At the edge of the wall by the rose trellis I put in some sea pinks (thrift) and a dianthus.

Clara and I got the lilies out of the broken pot and down into the ground. I'm drawing a line in the trellis space and switching from yellow to pink.

We also got things more cleaned up along the back fence in the dog's yard.


- iPhone uPdate

Springing Up and Out All Over

There are signs of spring throughout my yard. I got a new camera yesterday. Add these together and what do you get? An incredibly long post with many photos.  The camera is a Canon Powershot S95 - great review at the end of the year by David Pogue, been on my wish list for new pocket camera since then.

Daffodils are still everywhere. I like these "reverse" ones -with white in the center and yellow on the outside.

I am entranced with bud break and emerging foliage. I love looking for the details and imagining what will come next.

Oak leaf hydrangea - this shrub has interesting details every month of the year.

These are the tiny little leaves of my pagoda dogwood. This will have clusters of tiny white flowers and then black berries which are the absolutely most popular bird food ever. This dogwood was killed to the base two years ago (by deer) , but is again taller than me.

I love how the rose foliage is tinged with red. This is my yellow rose, which is only slightly red around the edges. It is almost entirely green when fully emerged.  Sadly, I did not get a good photo of the red one, which is really red. I'll try again.

The little leaves and shoots are also very very fun to look for. You have to pretty much stand right over them to find them.

I've shown these trout lilies before - the foliage is endlessly fascinating while visible. I've seen this down by Sligo Creek as well. It's ephemeral though, and will be gone by June, I think.

This is Golden Groundsel. Again, it occurs wild down by the creek. Likes moisture. It has really settled into the yard and spread quite a bit on the slope, where it is a nice ground cover 11 months of the year. For a month, it has these tall yellow flowers, which are kind of disreputable singly, but make a nice mass at their peak. I'll show it again then.

This is the foliage from Golden Alexander (Zizia aptera). I started this from seed about four or five years ago and it spreads slowly. It has yellow flowers later in the season, but I also like the foliage quite a bit. It likes shade, but this patch is in almost full sun and might go dormant in August.

This is a Home Depot iris from a few years ago picked up only for the foliage, though it blooms with nice enough blue flowers.

This is a wild indigo. I went nuts on indigos a couple of years ago and put them everywhere. Most of them are a lovely deep blue, but I'm pretty sure this one is yellow since its in the yellow bed. Looks like asparagus coming up, but member of the pea family. Native. Can tolerate shade and drought once established, because its got deep roots and cannot be moved once its big.

The emerging foliage of sedum 'Autumn Joy', with drops of water held in the foliage. This is one of the most popular perennials ever - this one probably comes from Lowes or Home Depot. I was able to split it up into pieces after a few years, and this patch in well drained soil with good sun does much better than my other parts of the same plant elsewhere in the yard.

I also took numerous daffodil portraits. I love my daffs, and I was trying out the camera. I got some extreme closeups, and I may have used the digital zoom accidently. I haven't found where to turn that function off yet. I was taught never ever to use it, because it basically is throwing away the outer edges of the photo without adding any additional detail. But I found I kind of liked doing in camera cropping, which is basically what the digital zoom does. I could focus and frame exactly what I wanted. The only issue is a false sense of how sharp the final image will be. No additional commentary necessary about the daffs but I am happy to share the pictures here.

Bloodroot

- iPhone uPdate