Remembering

Funny how having an old e-mail provider let you know theyre taking down the site, so all the important info that's in there is going to be lost forever in a couple of weeks forces one to go through inbox and sent and figure out what to print or copy-save.  AND, how many e-mail links there are--like Amazon and others.  A couple of hours have evaporated and there's still much to do.

Oh, and the long set of e-mails about my mother's death...

Here are the three, 2-gallon Karl Foerster Reed grasses I bought.

Here is one of the grasses after the root ball was cut in half.

And, finally, the six new grasses after they've been re-potted. This was taken just after they were divided, but it's a week later and they're still doing fine.

This is a nice quart-size hens and chicks (Sempervivum) from Glover Perennials which I want to divide to get a lot of smaller plants. I've taken it out of the pot (one little plant broke off in the process so it has already been planted.Here is a close-up of the root ball--this is an excellent early-season pot, with a rich dark, fairly loose organic growing medium and roots showing to the bottom, but not root-bound. Basically, you tease this apart and the little hens and chicks can be snapped off and replanted. If you find one that doesn't yet have roots, leave it attached (the attachment is about pencil-lead think, usually about an inch long, and is tough enough if you're gentle) to one that does have roots (usually a larger one). I fill the pot about half full and hold it at an angle so the soil surface is diagonal to the top of the pot. I then lay the little plant on the slanted surface, holding the plant slightly above the dirt, and add dirt to the pot, turning it upright and shaking gently as I do so. This results in roots facing down and the plant nicely settled in the pot.

Once the pots are done (I use recycled Proven Winner pots and trays a lot because they're light-weight, handy and I get them free from work when we plant up our flower boxes). You'll note there are several pots with two "hens" (one hen and one chick?) and I replanted a cluster of about five back in the pot they came in. This I'll use as a "mother" plant, meaning, as it sends out more small plants, I'll re-pot those to add to the garden. I never divide and plant directly in the garden as it is a stressful operation and I can monitor growth, watering and exposure to sunlight much easier with a tray of plants than in the garden itself. Oh, and, yes, I labeled them after I took the above shot!

I also divided some nice #2 size Karl Foerster Reed Grasses and hope to get those pictures up this weekend.

THe warm weather also caused my three little plots of marsh marigold to appear. I bought one 1 gallon pot and divided it into four plantings, one oc which was pulled up and destroyed--I think by deer. The other three look like this.

One problem we're having already this year is a lack of rain. I was hoping we'd get some last night and today but it looks like very little will actually fall. Can't believe I might have to water in March!

Last fall I planted some trout lilies (dogtooth violets) in the oak/blueberry woods towards the swamp and they're starting to come up!

I planted 28 Black Mondo Grass seeds and ended up with...28 seedlings! When I potted them up I decided to double up most of them, since I'm not even sure what I'll do with 14+ pots, let alone 28. Anyway, it's fun to have something germinate so well--a lot of my experiments don't work out. I don't know if it matters, but the seeds weren't collected until some time in December, so they had a month or more of freezing nights, though the weather this year has been particularly mild.

The weihenstephaner gold sedum grew quickly last year and overwintered well so I picked a few 1.5 to 2-inch long stems and simply inserted the cut end into potting soil. I probably should have used some rooting hormone but sedum doesn't seem to need it. We'll see how they do, but I expect near-100% rooting.

The really odd thing about the willows, though, was that our cat loved drinking the water from the bowl of water they were in. I can't help but wonder if the salicylic acid leaching from the willow had some sort of effect on the cat!

These pussy willow branches were trimmed from a shrub last fall. I put the stems in a bucket of water over the winter, wondering what would hapen. Well, as you can see, they rooted nicely.

I planted 4 twigs about a week ago and they're already rooted in well. This is a good, fast-growing native plant for use in wet areas, of which I have a lot.

This one shows the new leaf growth coming on.

The weather channel says it is 63 degrees outside and I can attest to the warmth (though I don't have a working thermometer on-site).

The three Arnold Promise witch hazel I planted in fall, 2010 are starting to come into their own, after one full growing season. The bright flowers (photo taken today 3/8/12) are a real delight for the spring gardener and, much to my surprise, there was a honeybee hovering at one of the shrubs! I'll check in a bit to see if it recruited others.

Arnold Promise witch hazel is also very fragrant (though last year I noticed the fragrance didn't start as soon as the flowers opened but seemed to strengthen over a week or so), and I planted these where the breeeze should waft (gotta' love the word waft) the fragrance into the driveway, so we can smell it when we arrive home from work.

I'm using little test cups to see if seeds I collected last fall are viable.
1. Garlic chives
2. Gailardia
3. Amsonia
4. Helenium
5. Carolina Allspice
6. Ligularia
7. Veronicastrum
8. Coreopsis
9. Maltese Cross
10. Hibiscus
11. Obedient plant
12. Not sure

I have lots more seeds but this way I figure if something isn't viable, I won't waste a bunch of space and pots.

A few of the black mondo grass seedlings coming up in the shallow dirt with shredded paper mulch tray. I'll have to put them in individual pots shortly.

Little black mondo grass shoots coming up through the shredded paper mulch in a seedling tray. First signs of spring gardening at this house.

The May apples are going to bloom this year! And the jack-in-the-pulpits I wasn't sure were going to come up, have, once again reminding me that micromanaging windflowers is a losers game (still gonna' do it though).

Many plants coming up well--goat's beard looks good and my little elder which had died (I thought) turned out to be only dead to the ground and is sending up new shoots. I also have one in a pot that looked like garbage last fallat the nursery so Linda said take it and see what happens and it is growing like crazy. The rainbow leucothoe that was int he same condition is now pre-compost, however...

Looking forward to Monday and Tuesday to get some stuff planted and maybe work on finishing the patio wall. I still need to figure out how to cut the bluestone that is going to top the front edge of the fire pit.

Starting to take shape

The wildflowers have finally mostly made it up--one trillium actually has come up on the sloped site where I had basically given up. And the "junk" sod left over at the garden center last fall is doing great behind the patio wall--which is getting closer to being done. Today is starting cool but is supposed to be sunn as is tomorrow, which is good news.

Patience

It's 30 degrees this morning, once again reminding me of why Rhode Island plants wake up slowly. I've been waiting to see how the trillium I lanted last year would do and yesterday finally saw six shoots coming up so figure they're going to be okay. Nothing from the hillside--they're all in the wildflower garden area, but that's okay, the hillside ones must just be a little slower. Oh, and something ate the base right off my oak leaf hydrangea. I think it may have been voles or mice, as it seems to have happened when there were mounds of snow all over that area. Anyway, I can't even find a base, so they may have eaten the roots too! No oak leaf hydrangea this year, it seems...

Gardens of the Blue Ridge

Always a sure sign of spring when my order arrives from Gardens of the Blue Ridge. Some more jack-in-the-pulpit and native ginger, as well as trilliums and some other native plants. This year I'll be reinforcing some patches with additional plants and also working, finally, on a real garden for the front, where grass doesn't really grow in sand... Have this week off to finish the patio wall--it has been cold this morning so got the new plants out of their plastic pbags and into pots and can now get outside to get started on the patio. The goal is to have it so done by the end of the week that any additional work won't disrupt using the patio for its primary purpose--relaxing!

Nothing but snow outside and water inside...

Read Douglas Tallamy's "Bringing Nature Home" while in Florida and it is well worth reading. He points out in great detail that insects, and hence birds and other small vertebrates (which eat lots of insects) cannot adapt to non-native plants, so, while the plants look attractive, they're dead zones to the native ecosystem. As we remove native plants and add non-natives, we reduce food for our wildlife, resulting in dramatically lower numbers of all kinds of birds.

What I liked was his incremental approach--no one needs to completely change their garden in one year, but consider using native plants the next time you add something to the garden.

Also, don't worry if it is a true native or a cultivar. There is little evidence that improved cultivars are significantly worse for the insects that feed on the plant, and if it is a more-attractive plant for the homeowner, then so much the better.

Back from North Carolina

We're home from North Carolina which was very fun. Actually, we've been back for a few days, which is good because we completely missed the rain and have only have a little bit up here (maybe an inch today--though one more band possibly coming through according to weather.com).

I have a lot of pictures which probably appeal mostly to me but i did think it was fun to find what i'm pretty sure was a coral bell in the Great Smokys that looks almost exactly like the Dolce Mocha Mint coral bell being sold by Proven Winners.

This is the plant I found...

and this is the Mocha Mint--not identical but still kind of fun to see how the variations come about.

every other Huechera I saw was plain green. Of course, i may be wrong about what they are--there weren't any flowers, but i think they were Coral Bells...

More to come

It is hard to believe how long it has been since I've posted. it isn't as if nothing has happened, but nothing has happened as far as the garden. I did plant two Witherod Viburnums and I know I should take pictures, but I haven't. Work for the landscape architect as well as Wildwood has taken my time. Even next week I was hoping for two days to work on my patio but I'm not sure if I'll have them.

So much of life is lived with the idea of some sort of payoff tomorrow. My Dad died instantaneously in a car crash (he was driving) in Arizona. Was he thinking of today or tomorrow?

At least the Phillies were in first when he died. To put this into persective, when the Phillies won the World Series in '80, Tug McGraw's feet had not yet touched the earth again, when the phone rang and it was my Dad saying "They won!"

Which is a part of the only song I ever wrote, a part of which is

"He gave me a quiet place
Where I could always go
Not always seeing eye to eye
Still always sitting side by side,
Listening to a ballgame
on the radio."

It was the Phillies.

I work tomorrow. That is our mantra.