What's Blooming

Catching up on the explosion of blooms!

Blue woodland phlox

Azalea by front door. This one's a keeper.

Yellow rose has started early. Had to give it support.

Another trillium.

A few columbines

This is unexpected - along the back fence.
Thought it was dead.

Uvularia. Think it's from long ago.

This cheerful plant is on the steep bank by the street, spreading nicely and retarding erosion.

The spring beauties really took off!

Anenomes, also known as
"obscure white spring ephemerals".

Not actually a flower, but hung out in the yard for a couple of days at least. Welcome, old guy!

More plants

Here is what I bought and planted last fall.

From Prairie Nursery:

(5) American Alum Root (3" Pots)  (5) Maple Leaved Alum Root (3" Pots)  (5) Cardinal Flower (3" Pots)  (5) Woodland Sunflower (3" Pots)  (6) White Turtlehead (3" Pots)  (6) Tall Bellflower (3" Pots)
Solomon's Seal (Polygonatum biflorum) Item #: 37210-04 Plant Format: 4" Pots

And then, from White Flower Farm, I got ferns, and scattered them around. Frankly, while I'm sure I planted all of the Prairie Nursery plants, I don't know where I put them. The heucheras are all along the fence by the south end, but I'm not sure about the others. 

Of the plants bought last weekend, yesterday I planted the clematis (along the front walk fence) and made myself a little blueberry patch. (The daylilies went in along the front walk right after I got them.)

My little blueberry patch. Note red subsoil and black topsoil.

Most of the work I've done lately is weeding. There is a lot of weeding to do! I'm pulling out the senecio in batches, to make room for other things that are already there. I pulled it out from around the lilies (by the front walk) and from behind the silverbell. The senecio will need to be deadheaded soon, the stuff I don't pull out. There is an awful lot of it! Yesterday, I did a first cleaning of the back bed where I'll do vegetables. I also cleaned up the ground around the pagoda dogwood and yellow rose, which was covered in dandelions and lyre-leafed sage. I think  phlox may go there.

Last fall, I spent a day or so digging up Joe Pye weed by the roots. I left one patch, which I think I regret now. There are spotty ones coming up in the vicinity of where I dug them out, either strays or from seed. I need to decide on a policy for it going forward - pull out on sight? Allow some to grow? Yesterday, I nipped them all down to just a couple of inches above the ground, but didn't pull them out. There is something coming up along the front walk fence, inside the fence, that looks similar but not the same. Perhaps New York ironweed? I left them, again, for now.

Yesterday was the No Va native plant sale. Because its raining right now, I'm not going to list them (I can't do it from memory.) None are in the ground yet. It was not an enormous buy.

I set the hibiscus outside just now. I think its warm enough for it, but I'm keeping my Cousin It palms inside for a couple more weeks at least.

Need More plants

It's a fun puzzle, watching carefully to see where things I want will come up. Between the tree crushing things and pulling up soil all over from its enormous root system and changing light-and-shade patterns, to fence building, to dumping excess sub-soil from excavations, to simply big boots tromping through the garden, I really have no idea what has survived and what couldn't make it through. I bought and planted some stuff that I'm not clear about what went where. There are new, fenced in areas that were covered in ivy and weeds before that now are bare dirt with a thin layer of mulch, ripe fields for opportunistic weeds.

So I've been buying stuff. I have a long history of over-buying for the garden, and letting things die in their pots. I'm really struggling to avoid that - at least, things should die in the ground, not in their pots! I got an email that the absolute best nursery around, Behnkes, is closing after the spring season. So this weekend, I hit Behnkes, Lowes and Home Depot all. Here is what I got:

I find that if I want common things, and especially if I want lots of them, Lowes or Home Depot may work out fine. The trick is to stop in often, because it's best to buy things right off the truck from the nursery that grew them. The big box stores are very bad at taking care of them once they arrive. So I lucked into $4 daylilies, the exact variety I was looking for, to plant in a specific spot. It's fairly rare at the box stores to find exactly what I want. I got some stuff to make a pretty yellow pot, and a tropical vine that needs to wait on the covered porch for a while, but that I hope will be able to climb my new fence.

I got blueberries at Home Depot, three varieties, to cluster along the fence in the back. The fence on that side is at the top of a steep dropoff, and I need to plant things with good roots to make sure everything stays in place.

At Behnke's, I went specifically for a lilac, and then to see what was there. I have wanted a lilac planted outside my bedroom window forever - I want to smell it at night. So there I was, bending over the pots sniffing vigorously. The one I got smells good - hopefully it'll be strong enough to come in on its own.

I got a palm tree at Home Depot. I'll put it in a pot and bring it in for the winter, probably. I have a couple of other palms, but I'm anxious to branch out (he-he).

Next weekend is the big native plant sale. I'll need to set a budget. This weekend was about $250 in plants (not counting the tools and supplies). Last plant sale was $100 - and all of those are nicely in the ground already. I keep eyeing my catalogues, with some good ideas, but I think I'll hold off until after next Saturday and see what I was able to get locally.

Part of this is rationing for the work required to plant, to make sure the plants have a chance. I put in a couple of hours outside today (yesterday was sailing), got just four of the new plants in the ground. But, I also dug up and moved a couple of scrawny sprigs that want to be bushes, and pulled up a lot of weeds. Two hours was about all I had time for. Some of the new plants have to hang on the porch until the weather will stay reliably warm, another couple of weeks or a month. I knew when I delayed my retirement date that I would miss most of prime planting season.

Forty-eight days to go.

Nothing Equals Washington in April

Unless it's Washington in May - I'll let you know in about a month.

We've hit the point where it's impossible for me to catch everything that is blooming in my yard, so this is only a sample.

Redbuds are fabulous

Grape hyacinth from at least 12 years ago

Virginia bluebells - you will find huge patches of these
on the floodplains along the Potomac and other waterways.
The foliage disappears by midsummer, and the ants move and
plant the seeds so I never know where they will pop up.

Golden Groundsel
Makes a neat groundcover when not blooming.

There are three different tulip varieties here, and my white rhododendron.

I didn't realize my mix of yellow tulips included
a double. I generally avoid these freaks.

Woodland phlox.

Trillium. Rare, hard to grow and slow to spread.

Spring beauties. They grow wild along the creek.

The hellebores are still going
but fading in color.

Apple blossoms. This tree is probably too close to the house, sadly.

One Warm Day

That's all we had, just Saturday was very warm. But all it took to really hurry the garden along was that one warm day.

Blood root - I planted some 20 years ago,
and the ants spread the seeds around.
I've seen them in the wild within a couple hundred yards
of my garden, but I'm pretty sure mine are descended
from my plantings because how far do ants travel?

The National Arboretum had their native plant sale on Saturday and I hustled down. I gave myself a $200 budget but only spent half of it. I didn't go with a specific list, only a general one. They only had two vendors, but each had a very big spread.

So I bought eight plants for my $100. I got one each of blue indigo and carolina lupine. They are both pea family, and the flowers are similar in shape though different in color. I planted them along the fence at the south end, where they may be too shaded by the pine and the fringe tree. The indigo, at least, will not be able to be transplanted so let's hope it gets enough sun.

I'm afraid "hope it gets enough sun" will be a recurring theme. I realized as I tried to site the plants around the garden inside the fence that I don't have a clear picture in my mind of the sun and shade patterns currently in the yard. The Big Spruce fell March 2 last year, but last summer I didn't get a good idea of how the light has changed, other than in general there is more. It'll keep changing, but losing such a big tree is a step change, not gradual as from yearly new growth.

I also bought three yellow wood poppies and three "blue ice" blue stars. I am on a quest for the threadleaf bluestars (Amsonia ciliata) of which I have one beautiful, distinctive, clump I'd like to replicate. It's at the point of my corner, hard on the street. It has nice enough light blue flowers in spring, but becomes an amazing yellow-orange cloud of foliage in the fall. But this one, Amsonia taebermontanae, has more vivid blue flowers, and may also have orange foliage, though not a cloud due to the larger leaves. I scattered the poppies around, and the ants should also seed them about over time. I put the three bluestars together in a clump, along the street fence, near the southern red oak.

I have a history of over-buying plants, and then not planting them right away, and some die. My new plan is to try to buy in small enough chunks I can plant them right away, which worked this weekend.  That actually will not be totally possible, as there is benefit in ordering volumes from the mail order places to save on shipping. And the next plant sale on my calendar will be a huge one.

I may also decide not to buy very much this spring, and study the garden instead. Last year was very hard on it, with first the Big Spruce falling on it, and the workmen removing it tramping everywhere. Then the fence construction and the workmen tramping everywhere, and dumping subsoil on top of good soil, helpfully disposing of excess soil to even out low spots I had created for plants that like damp places, putting raw woodchip mulch over everything even though I asked for well-rotted leaf humus, and on top of all, unrelenting rain in the wettest year on record.  Something to recommend this plan: I can sit in the garden unmoving, and yet I'll be studying it ("see how the shadow has moved in the last hour!") and thus will be productive. Something else to recommend this plan:  it's way more cost-effective. What's not to like?