"When swallows fly low, rain is on the way."

--anonymous

The garden is burned to a crisp.

We have had temperatures over 100 for the last four weeks and no rain...until the night before last, just as we were going to bed, the it finally finally came. Not just a sprinkle, not a little drizzle, but a beautiful downpour that lasted several hours. As I moved into another room to sleep (husband snores) I stood by the front window for a moment to watch it come down. It may have rained again last night, not as heavily, but things still look wet.

So I have definitely lost some plants -- a hellebore, curly willow, some irises -- I am trying to take it all in stride, remember that part of the beauty of gardening is the process. And who knows what will come up next year?

I toiled so hard this spring, and now that it's midsummer, it's all just maintenance, filling some pots, taking stock of what needs to happen in the fall and spring.

I plan on planting more in the fall (as opposed to mostly in the spring), to give the plants a season or two to settle, as I have found that things I planted last spring for the most part didn't come up until this spring, a year later.

After all my careful watching early in the season, some things did finally emerge, despite the blistering heat -- pastel glads, hollyhocks, cannas, callas, caladium -- and some things definitely did not. Am still waiting to hear back from the company I ordered them from, to get replacements. I am collecting a large number of succulents these days.

Successes: have been pleasantly surprised at the caladiums -- I planted a few bulbs in early May and a ton of red and green plants have emerged all over the area I put them in. More callas have come up than I remembered planting (only one has bloomed so far) -- have them in seven different places! The hydrangeas all over the yard have put on quite a show, I have about 10 different blooms/colors, will continue to add more each year. I have had yarrow grow really well, as never before (but no blooms). The japonica that I transplanted in several places has really taken off. Have added a few new beds that I am excited to add to.

A benefit of the heat: "distressed plant" sales at local greenhouses! Have picked up several lantana, mandevilla, geraniums, etc. that I am usually able to bring back to life.

MORE ON ROSES

"If I keep a green bough in my heart, the singing bird will come."

Chinese proverb

My roses have exploded! I can't believe that almost all the colors are blooming at once. This is one instance where I can stand back and smile and be proud of all the work I've done. I would go hug them for being such dutiful individuals but I'd get pricked. This is one of those areas that was all brambles, especially blackberries and honeysuckle, 20 feet in the air only 2 years ago. About half the roses that are here came from other places on our property that I discovered under the weeds.

The first few photos are of a rose I uncovered last spring, now also going crazy. I've had to put up metal structures to keep it tamed! The last two photos are the rose area at the beginning of spring and a look at them now.

I have been away from the computer for a few weeks -- I've been working in the garden! The yard has exploded with color, and the many empty spots I've been trying to fill in during the last few years are green and lush. I actually think 3 little areas are done, as far as adding plants. Of course, next week I will see something I HAVE to have and decide the only place it can go is into one of these "finished" areas. I've been rabid these last months and attending all sorts of plant places -- Maymont's Herbs Galore, Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden, including their plant sale, Sandy's Plants, etc. My friend Anne, who owns Little Red Truck Landscaping, has the same feeling of being on crack these days as I do. I've given her several things in my yard that I've divided, and last week she invited me to come and "clean up" her yard. She has a ton of perennials that I don't have, or at least different varieties than those I have: pink lilies of the valley, columbine, love in a mist, lots of dianthus, yellow, white, purple irises, callas, evening primrose, hosta...I probably brought home about 20 different kinds of things that I immediately put in the ground. A friend who was with us and not such a gardener watched us with fascination as we reeled off names, planting conditions, bloom times. She looked at us like we were specimens she was studying.

My mother in law has also given me some things from her garden. This is one of several columbines I got. I have to admit I don't love columbine, but it does add nice color and has interesting looking flowers.

"Personally, I follow this simple rule of green thumb: Unless you're living off the land or the land is your living, the best time to do gardening chores is whenever you're in the mood. You'll win some, you'll lose some, and some will get rained out, but at least you'll enjoy your garden."

--Diane Ackerman, Cultivating Delight

The last of my tulips have faded. A dozen of these beauties came up in the back of the house near the vegetable garden. We are hoping to rework the area they are planted in, so I have dug them all up and moved them. Tulips are not known to have particularly long lives but I hope to see them flower again next spring. More waiting. As I dug them up, digging way deep to find the bulbs, I began to realize how my obstetrician must have felt when he checked on my boys in utero -- I learned to feel my way, in the earth, until my hand landed on a large bulb.

My first poppy has also bloomed. I really really hope these spread like crazy. Poppies are one of those plants that are supposedly so easy that they are ideal for a childrens' garden. Yet I have little luck with this group: poppies, carrots, hollyhocks, sunflowers. But I keep trying. Poppies are better off if you plant them in the fall and let them sit in the earth for a few months. But you can't find poppy seeds in the fall. I always think I will buy extra ones in the spring and save them until fall, but never remember to do so. Once I found some seeds that were embedded in clay balls and you could just put the balls in the ground, and these worked very well. I had lots and lots of beautiful orangey red poppies for several springs, their petals like tissue paper. But alas, we moved, and now I'm back to square one.

"I feel awed by the sense-tingling beauty of such life-forms so different from us. Simply beholding them treats our senses, and I am grateful. I don't expect understanding or response from the plants. I offer them my goodwill anyway, and the simple intransitive gratitude of "Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful."

--Diane Ackerman, Cultivating Delight

My Bleeding Heart has finished blooming. Whenever I mention this plant I feel like I should say it with a Cockney accent. To watch this flower grow and bloom is crazy, it is such a beautiful and delicate little treat. Not too showy, usually in the shade, you have to search a little, but what treasure is to be found! I planted a white one, a bulb I think, but I see no evidence of it. Maybe it has to rest for a year and will then show its stuff next spring. The one here I had transferred from another sunnier location last spring, I'm so pleased it took root!

Tear Down This Wall!

"When other people see that our hands are busy, they often give us a few moments' peace before making their next request. What they don't know (and we shall never reveal) is that when our hands are busy our minds can rest."

--Sarah Ban Breathnach

So much of our yard was covered in weeds, brambles twenty feet or so high clinging to trees, that we have been slowly, slowly clearing them away. We were careful to get the roots and the time we have taken is starting to pay off. No Roundup as we have lots of rabbits and birds we'd like to keep as friends. We now have some large spaces that are cleared and I'm planning whole new garden areas! I have cleared the land and fence between our house and our neighbors next door and now we can actually see one another through the fence. I feel a little like Ronald Reagan when he stood by the Berlin Wall, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!"

Here are a few of the cleared areas, lots of potential here!

"At last the truth dawns on us: autumn is stealing into town....Soon the leaves will start cringing and roll up in clenched fists before they actually fall off....But first there will be weeks of hypnotic colors so sensuous, shrieking, and confetti-like that people will travel for many miles just to stare at them -- a whole season of jeweled leaves."

--Diane Ackerman, Cultivating Delight

What's The Story, Morning Glory?

"My garden...was of precisely the right extent. An hour or two of morning labor was all that it required. But I used to visit and revisit it a dozen times a day."

--Nathaniel Hawthorne

The weather has been so glorious that I have been spending at least 2 hours in the yard per day (what was I doing with that time before??); it's so nice going to bed being really physically tired, muscles aching -- and sleeping like a champ. The last week or so most of my time has been spent doing a few chores, exercises in tedium, but great thinking time.

First, I tended the strawberry patch. I had read that you should clip all the little stems that connect one clump to another, that each clump should only have about five stems growing from it. This strawberry patch was already here when we moved in, and I assure you that this exercise has never been done. So I painstakingly clipped all the extra tiny stems and made sure each clump was independent of its neighbor. We usually get about 6 - 8 pints of berries from this patch; I'm curious to see how different the crop is this year.

Secondly, the large area that we have spent 2 years clearing of blackberries (with thorns by the way), and honeysuckle is now quickly growing weeds. I figure we got rid of Layer 1: I have only had to pull up 1 or 2 blackberry vines this year. Layer 2 has appeared: Morning Glory vine, possibly some wildflowers, and a large weed that looks like something we used to call "skunk cabbage" when I was growing up, but it doesn't smell bad. It is growing out of a tuber and the stem is pretty fragile so I didn't get to the root of much of these. However, the good news is that Layer 3 is beginning to appear: grass.

In the meantime, the tulips and daffodils are done and I have finished tying up all the daffodils. There was a big variety this year, more flowers keep popping up in areas that I've cleaned up. Some of these guys are pictured up top. The tulips are such a lesson in symmetry. These blooms would slowly open up during the day, close at night like little origami boxes.

Solomon's Seal

"One way I cultivate delight is to abandon myself to individual sensations, savoring them until they vanish. A garden pleases all the senses, including the kinesthetic sense of moving through space. For example, smelling a peony's blossoms until the nose quits from the sheer abundance of scent. In that moment, the universe -- from the dirt below one's feet clear out to the farthest stars, and beyond that in time back to the Big Bang -- all of it vanishes. Nothing exists but the citrusy smell of one peony. How long can I hold the sensation in my mind before it evaporates? I don't care. I cultivate delight."

--Diane Ackerman, Cultivating Delight

The Solomon's Seal is up. I had never seen this versatile plant until I moved here, now I see it at nurseries occasionally, surprisingly more expensive than I'd imagine. But worth it I suppose. Fortunately for me, it was already here, in 3 places and 2 varieties. I've been moving it to other places too. It transfers so easily, comes early and stays green for months, and looks great cut in vases. Interesting how it starts out as a little red bud peeking through the earth, like a peony. Each year, I think, What is that? Then I see it everywhere and remember. I have it in shady areas and sunny areas, it seems generally agreeable with anything. One version I have is tall, about 1 1/2" - 2', so it's a nice plant to put in the back or against a fence. Delicate little white pods appear, not quite little flowers, and also last a few weeks.

I am always amazed that you can take one little plant, and how quickly it multiplies itself over and over again. I have given away so much Solomon's Seal, but you'd never know it, it's so prolific. One of the lilies I planted last year has become 6 this year, what gifts nature gives us!

Here is the Solomon's Seal as it began to emerge, and after it's up.

More March Madness

"miracles are to come."

--e.e. cummings

It's incredible how fast things grow now. I see something start to appear one day, it rains, and the next day the plant is two inches higher. My little Japanese irises are preparing to explode, and a yellow and red primrose is blooming, I don't remember planting. The dainty yellow march (marsh?) marigold has been in bloom for about a month. I got a little bit from my mother a few years ago, similarly this euphorbia/spurge. I pulled up a bit with some roots, put it in the ground and now it's going crazy. I am starting to see euphorbia at a lot of nurseries and I don't remember seeing it before, but maybe it just wasn't on my radar. The color is so nice -- the top becomes a beautiful chartreuse. I have 3 kinds now, each a little bigger than the next. It stays green all season and is a great filler plant. I have actually transferred it to several places in the yard, have to be careful to not let it take over.

"What would become of the garden

if the gardener treated all the weeds

and slugs and birds and trespassers

as he would like to be treated,

if he were in their place?"

--T.H. Huxley

My gardening this year actually began before March 1st. We had three major snowstorms this winter, very unusual for Richmond. I love the four seasons, love the snow, and try to enjoy each time period for what it offers. That being said, there was something sneaky and extravagant about watching the blizzard outside and being inside looking to spring. With each snowstorm I ordered more plants. I loved dreaming about all of the little gifts I had coming in, little pops of color and fragrance, while the outside remained cold and dreary.

Before spring arrives and the garden starts to wake up a little, a lot of restraint has to be shown, in case any warm days are just a fluke. One of the first things I knew I could safely do was to cut back all of my roses. We installed Knock Outs in the front of the house two falls ago and I have slowly been adding roses here and there to make a rose garden up front. I have ordered a few, bought a few, and transferred a few from other places in the yard. I think there are about 11 now. It reminds me of my grandmother, ZouZou, who had a large rose garden outside her kitchen. She would wrap newspapers around them and add lots of food bits to fertilize them. Mine, I gave them some rose food, will add some epsom salts (makes their leaves shiny), and eggshells from time to time.

I cut the roses way back and was briefly worried about what I had done, but now, a few weeks later, they are sprouting all kinds of leaves and new growth. A friend told me years ago that most gardeners keep up with the names of their roses, so I am trying to figure out a way to put their names by them permanently. I tried writing with a sharpie on old pottery shards but over time, it washed off. I have ordered my few roses here and there included with my other orders from Dutch Gardens, but I think the premiere place to order roses is David Austin. There are so many varieties offered, how do you choose -- by the color of the rose or its name? Some of mine include "Maria Stern", "Arctic Flame", and "Apricot Princess". I love these other names: "Stars and Stripes", "Wild Blue Yonder", "Happy Happy", "Welcome Home" and "Dream Come True". Below is one of my roses, the way it looks now and what it looked like shortly after pruning.

Here Come The Peonies!

"People pull up in cars, get out, stand and stare. Nothing need be said. We all understand the visual nourishment we share.

--Diane Ackerman, Cultivating Delight

I'm in a frenzy nowadays. Everything is popping, blooming, exploding in color. Daffodils going crazy, redbuds laden with pink buds (did you know you can eat them?), tulip magnolias unbelievable -- I have to order one --, tulips of all colors opening up, forsythia, japonica, azaleas -- Mother Nature sounded the horn and the world is waking up! I have been fortunate to be home for the last two days and do little else than work in the garden (while 4 boys were having a playdate all over the back yard). I have planted (2 nursery trips in the last 2 days...), transferred, divided, planned, cleared, inspected new things coming up. Here come the peonies!

If you haven't read any Diane Ackerman (see quote above) then rush theeself to find something of hers. She is an anthropologist, sociologist, poet. She has the most beautiful way of expressing words I've ever known. She wrote a great book, Cultivating Delight, that is sort of my gardening Bible. She describes her garden and the different critters in it, in detail, over the course of a year. I have read it several times and leave it near a reading chair, where I pick it up when I have a few minutes to indulge myself. She's written a lot of other great books also.

"But by early June the southwest monsoon breaks and there are three months of wind and water with short spells of sharp, glittering sunshine that thrilled children snatch to play with. The countryside turns an immodest green. Boundaries blue as tapioca fences take root and bloom. Brick walls turn moss green. Pepper vines snake up electric poles. Wild creepers burst through laterite banks and spill across flooded roads..."

--Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things

A huge storm last night with enough thunder to keep the dog up all night. Getting up this morning, more reminders of our low water table, with areas all around the yard flooded, under water. Luckily we didn't put the vegetable seeds in yet. We have just finished clearing two fairly large new areas under some large trees. We hung a hammock there last year, it's nice and shady, and yesterday I transferred a bunch of hostas to under the trees. When we moved here there was a long border of hostas planted in full sun, that by mid-summer look burned and half dead. I have slowly moved them to areas they will be happier, shady areas, and have two large clumps left to move. I don't absolutely love hostas, but they are sure handy to fill in shady open areas, spread quickly, and you can practically throw them on the ground and they will take off.

With the rain still coming down, no gardening outside today -- will tend to the seeds my 4 year old and I planted inside a few weeks ago. He picked them out according to the picture on the packet, most of them annuals. I also planted some lupine, zinnias, pastel daisies, black eyed Susan vine. Plants do really well on the east facing radiator in our bedroom, we have great light, but I've noticed the ones in the south facing window look even better.

A friend came by yesterday and asked for a "tour" of the garden, and as we walked around, there is evidence of a lot, but I realize I have a much clearer view of what different areas will look like, at least in my mind. It might take another 10 years to get things where I want them; have been thinking of doing some paintings to show what the areas already look like IN MY HEAD.

The photos here are of one of these newly cleared areas, a blank canvas.

"Her dad taught her about hands. About a dog's paws. Whenever her father was alone with a dog in a house he would lean over and smell the skin at the base of its paw. This, he would say, as if coming away from a brandy snifter, is the greatest smell in the world! A bouquet! Great rumours of travel! She would pretend disgust, but the dog's paw was a wonder! The smell of it never suggested dirt. It's a cathedral! her father had said, so-and-so's garden, a field of grasses, a walk through cyclamen -- a concentration of points of all the paths the animal had taken during the day."

--Michael Ondaatje, The English Patient

We have an area near the back of the yard that is a fenced in compost area, the fence starting to fall down. We want to redo it and put this area to better use, storage. Before we do that I want to transfer all of the flowers that lie in a bed next to it. Last fall I took out a bunch of irises, the tubers so huge and old that they were all above ground. This spring I have been working on the daffodils and tulips, moving them to various areas around the garden. I know tulips don't bloom for too many years but I am taking my chances. Some of the bulbs were a full 2 feet underground, but I am determined to get them all. There was also a beautiful japonica/flowering quince along this fence. John dug and dug last spring and the roots were so far underground that we eventually broke off what we had and called it a day. I love cutting branches of japonica to bring indoors in the spring, but the shrub isn't anything special after it blooms (like forsythia), so I decided to put it in the ground near the back of our lot. I didn't have much hope after I feel like we butchered it getting it out of the ground, but sure enough, it's healthy and growing and blooming this year! One other sprig of the three pieces I planted made it also. What a great surprise to walk to the back of the yard and see this bright spot of red!

Signs of Spring

"The birds brought seeds & flowers & bits of brightly colored string & places them in her hair while she slept so that she would remember the wild joy of spring when she finally awoke." --Brian Andreas

The first spring we were in the house I waited patiently to see what plants would come up, when they would bloom, and where the arrivals would be. Last spring, however, I went nuts.

I ordered and planted over 250 bulbs, and transferred others. I like to use mail order sources because 1) they often offer deals, 2) they usually guarantee the plants, and 3) I can find more unusual species of plants that are usually offered around here. That is not to say that I don't shop locally a lot -- I just don't want the usual azalea/crepe myrtle/lariope/yellow daylilies/purple coneflower, etc. I also get a lot from other peoples' gardens when it is offered, and I certainly give away plenty from here.

A lot of the bulbs I planted last spring made little or no appearance last year. I am hoping that they just needed a year to settle in and this year I will be overcome with flowers. So far, I am seeing some things but certainly not all. I have contacted the various companies that I ordered from and am waiting a few more weeks before I announce defeat. My favorite mail order companies are Michigan Bulb, Spring Hill Gardens, and Dutch Gardens.

The Creeping Jenny has really taken off. It's amazing how it can stay out all winter and suddenly spring back to life -- I love the chartreuse green. I have it in several places already and have just added little sprigs to my front window boxes and several flower beds. It roots so easily and quickly and spreads like mad.

Starting From Scratch

"We must cultivate our garden." -- Voltaire

On March 1, I firmly declared that my time in the garden was officially beginning again, and luckily, Mother Nature has complied. I have kept careful notes, sketches, wish lists of my yard and its contents and I am thankful to look back as this season starts so I can know what to expect as the rebirth begins.

I live in a 100 year old house (with a 100 year old garden) on half an acre in the middle of the city in Richmond, Virginia. My husband, two sons, and I have lived here for 2 1/2 years and have been digging out ever since. The yard wasn't totally neglected by any means, but parts of it were (still are) overgrown, held the wrong plants, and has a long history that I have been eager to uncover.

Most dramatic was the first spring we were here and we concentrated on getting rid of the 20 feet high formations of raspberries, honeysuckle, "junk trees", and weeds that bordered 3 sides of the property. We cleared a large area in the back for our vegetable garden, and as we pulled roots, raked, and tilled, we were rewarded with a base of very rich soil ready to be nurtured. Amazingly, as soon as the ground was bare, up popped tulips, daffodils, irises -- and about 6 old rose bushes. I felt like my pirate playing sons uncovering buried treasure.