How Does Your Garden Grow?

I spent three solid hours this afternoon cleaning up about 60% of the garden. There's a lot more to do before the rain comes tomorrow afternoon, but the bulk of it is done. It is over two weeks earlier than last year!

As much of I love my coreopsis, there is an awful lot of it to cut down in the Spring. Luckily the lack of any real precipitation in March and recent unseasonably warm temps has made everything nice and crunchy. I found an ant nest in the dead middle of one of my Karl Foerster grass mounds. I really need to divide those (and other) things.

All that cleanup revealed the things I hate about gardening-- Bouncing Bet, quack grass, sapling trees. After the cleanup, I'll probably make another futile attempt to get rid of some of it.

On the brighter side, lots of things are coming up-- pictures of those coming soon.

[update 4/2/10] It took another two hours this morning to finish. I bundled up the last of the debris just as the rain started.

The crocuses, squill and chionodoxa have been blooming for a week or so. I have high hopes that we'll finally see daffodils in this patch as well.


Two of the three hellebores I bought last Fall are flowering as well. I stepped on the emerging buds of the third plant during the Fall cleanup. Today, the first tulips showed their appreciation for the clear out by opening up. In addition to all the other tulips, the sedum, lady's mantel, euphorbia, irises, even the lilies and one of the clematis are starting to to make a showing.

Its the first day of Daylight Saving Time and Mother Nature celebrated with a (record?) high of 64 degrees! All the snow is gone from the yard. A month ago, it had completely covered the sedum in the main bed.

Inspired by my friend Caryn's kids, I, too, potted up some bulbs that really should have been planted in the Fall. (I can't pass up a good deal, even when I should know better.) The poor things spent the Winter months sleeping in the mini fridge. I did plant about 15 crocuses last Fall in a small pot. Their albino stems grew throughout the Winter in the chilly fridge. I moved them to the porch today. I'm not sure if they will regain their normal green color, let alone bloom. Unfortunately, three months was too long for about 25% of the tulips. I tossed the shriveled and moldy ones out in the yard-- a peace offering to the bunnies and squirrels. I filled another big pot with a variety of white daffodils (and a handful of crocuses) which seemed to survive the Winter of the Refrigerator better than the tulips. I covered both pots with wire grates to keep the plague of squirrels from undoing my hard work. There are still a few bags of bulbs left in the fridge. I'll find a place in the garden for them soon. Really.

Elsewhere in the garden, there are real signs of Spring. Luckier tulips planted Fall of 2008 are pushing their was back up through the warming ground. Soon enough the bunnies will notice them and the fight for the flowers will begin again.

I seem to have run out of room in the existing beds, so I decided this weekend that meant I needed to dig out a new bed! Day one entailed cutting the edge and removing the grass. Today I dug a trench and pinned the plastic edging down. This would have been a great job for my Dad and Sister! Too bad I didn't think of it while they were here. I am hoping this area will get enough sun with a couple of hours in the morning and again in the evening. This area already has a small patch of tulips. I will be adding more bulbs in the Fall, but mainly I'll add things salvaged from other areas of the garden. The Panicum amarum 'Dewey Blue' Switch Grass is the last remnant of three planted in the main bed three years ago. One-by-one they failed to return each year. This year only a few stems came up on this last one. I felt bad digging it out of the main bed to replace it with a different variety. So, it gets a second chance here. And the sad little Coneflowers were outside of the soaker hose area of the North bed. They, too, should find a happier future here.