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.