A Good Start

Despite trouble posting pictures, which as extinguished my interest in blogging temporarily, I've gotten a lot done in the garden.

Finally took out the Japanese honeysuckle, ready for a rose and a clematis
Refreshed the front of the side front garden, pulling out lots of day lilies and Goldsturm rudbeckia, adding soil conditioner and transplanting the Tomato Soup echinacea
Finally rooted out the last of the barberry
Moved the trellis from the side of the house to the mailbox, and planted morning glories and scarlet runner beans along one side; waiting to see if the cardinal climber vine from last summer starts to pop up in its former location
Best of all, and hardest of all, laid out the new sunny garden in front down from where the dogwood used to be and the butterfly bush is now

Here's a look before the plants went in:


It was incredibly hard to do this the hard way, which is what I chose. I edged the whole thing (8' x 8' plus the existing bed for the butterfly bush), then sliced it into sections and lifted up the sod with a straight-edged spade. When Adrian Higgins refers to "skimming off the sod," he is deluding you. It was backbreaking. Nevertheless...

This new bed is meant to be sunny, high, and wild, attracting butterflies and hummingbirds, and mostly made up of native plants. The color scheme is blue, pink and yellow with just a touch of white. Planted to date are:
Boltonia asteroides 'Snowbank'
Salvia gregii 'ultra violet'
Lavandula media 'grosso'
Helianthis 'Lemon Queen'
Aster laevis 'Blue Bird'
Agastache 'Blue Fortune'
Schizachyrium scoparium 'The blues'
Pennisetum alopecuroides (fountain grass)
Eupatorium purpureum subsp. Maculatum 'Gateway'
tulipa 'General de Wet'
Muscari

(The latter two, by the way, did indeed make a pretty pair, the orange softened by the blue and they bloomed at the same time by some miracle.)

Becky kindly picked up a lot of these at Colesville for me. I was worried about the Joe Pye weed, which was nothing but a dead stick, so I sank the pot into the ground in case I had to return it. But patience is rewarded - it's now got about an inch of new growth. Hard to believe it will grow to six feet, but stranger things have happened.

Onion Snow of 2011

A few years ago it was Mom who told me a late spring snow was known as an onion snow. This one arrived on March 28th. It was gorgeous in the morning and gone by noon. Here it is on the bleeding heart, forsythia, chionodoxa, species tulips, evergreens...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

First shoots

The winter aconite peaked while I was away. Early March brought the first of the miniature daffodils in the front garden,

 

the hellebores in all their glory,

 

 

and the first year of the chionodoxa under the oakleaf hydrangeas in the corner. I feared that the flooding that plagues that corner might have made the bulbs rot, but as usual I was simply too impatient. Not quite a sea of gentian blue, but over the years I hope it will have the same effect as Mom's sea of blue under the crabapple.

 

More emerging shoots:
oakleaf hydrangea

 

bluebells (mertensia) blue

 

and white

 

anemone blanda under the oak tree

 

sweet woodruff whorls

 

and the foliage of bleeding hears.

 

The week of the daffodils

This is the week the daffodils suddenly burst into bloom. The first was one of the miniatures I planted in the front garden, planning for more color and interest there in early spring.

 

Next up was a clump of these under the oak tree...

 

And now the King Alfreds (or Carltons?) in the cutting garden are starting to take off, too. Here they are plopped in a vase with some hellebores.

 

Seedlings

 

Unlovely, but full of hope: the two seed-starting trays. Contents include cleome, tithonia, two kinds of cosmos, bronze fennel, and cardinal climber vine. Need to get additional chains to bring the lights down close to the seedlings, but I have a few days to get that together.

I'm probably a bit late with this, since the extension agent said in the paper that our average last frost is April 20-30, not May 10th as I had remembered. (And fyi, the first frost is October 19-29 by his reckoning).

For some reason this process makes me very nervous - I guess because the chance of killing off the babies is so high - but onward!

Signs of spring

Even while the snow was falling, the birds were singing madly. They were certainly ready for spring, as was the maple tree. Here are the red buds showing through the snowfall.

 

Two weeks after the last storm, the snow is gradually melting. Yesterday was the first day the ground reappeared. And what should be growing, but snowdrops! I even found some aconite leaves. Here is the evidence: aconite, hellebore unfurling, first crocus of 2010:

 

 

 

You might need to click on the photos to see what I'm talking about. Hope!

The Wild Hunt

For years and years, a visit to Ladew Topiary Gardens north of Baltimore had been on my someday list, and I finally got there last month when Alison and I took our annual Garden Week trip. The tour of the historic house included a lovely oval library, named one of the 100 most beautiful rooms in America, and displayed the belongings of a wealthy man who loved foxhunting, traveling (he consulted T.E. Lawrence before a jaunt to the Middle East) and, of course, gardening.
 

Topiary is not my favorite art form, but in this setting - the soft, rolling hills of the Maryland hunt country - and on this scale, it's charming. Most famous is the portrayal of the fox hunt, complete with two portly hunters.
 

Among the many gardens are the sculpture garden
 

and the topiary gardens by the house. Here's a view looking back across the "Bowl," where they hold outdoor concerts on summer Sundays.
 

Equally famous are the garden windows - this one looking out onto the misty colors of flowering trees in the distance - and the swans swimming along the border of the Bowl.

 
 
 

Pretty tulip beds - the white ones must be species, but which ones?
  

The yellow, orange and apricot tulips in the yellow garden framed by golden evergreens were very effective.
 

And the Adam and Eve statues are famously seen looking back from the keyhole garden. In a week or two the azaleas surrounding the statues would be in bloom.
  

Now that I've finally been there, I don't need to return, but I would recommend a visit if you're in the neighborhood.

The miracle of Ferry Farm

The bloodroot lives! No matter that it is tiny and seems to have moved around a bit...it's alive!!

Easter

Today is a Sunapee day, bright blue sky and a brisk breeze. Here is the Easter table, set with blue and white mertensia and bleeding heart,

 

and here is the birthday cake for LMP, which sneaks in here because of the violets on top.

 

Everything looks beautiful on a day like this: the newly painted walkway garden bright with narcissus from Van Bourgondien,

 

the daffodils from Brodie Castle smuggled in the luggage and safely planted last fall,

 

and the always satisfying oak tree garden. Today in bloom are mertensia blue and white, bleeding heart red and pink, dogtooth violets almost gone by, hellebore, Sun Disc narcissus ditto, yellow epimedium and grape hyacinths. Still to bloom are tulips and English bluebells.