Spring, Seeds, and Squirrels

Petals of the Bradford Pear trees are falling like snowflakes and spring’s baton has been passed on to the tulips, phlox, and dogwoods. Nearly all trees and shrubs have started leafing out. Two of my favorite perennials have started coming up and I patiently wait for their flowers, the peony (Paeonia) and wild indigo (Baptisia).

Peonies can easily be weighed down by their gigantic blooms, and I had decided to stake mine this year to be as efficient as possible with planting bed space. But before I could buy a support, I found something around the house I could use. An old iron plant stand with a scroll work top works perfectly!

There is still no sign of germination in my carrots, lettuce, or Swiss Chard. With good weather predicted, I hope to be spending lots of time in the garden this weekend. I’ll be planting more seeds: Sugar Snap Peas, bush beans, and the first rounds of parsley and chives. As well as more weeding and bed prep for future veggie planting.

Working in the narrow planting bed between my driveway and the property line fence, I noticed that my mint has become out of control. If anyone would like some mint of their own, please let me know! I have more than enough to share, but I would recommend planting it in a pot of otherwise contained area as it is AGGRESSIVE.

A new garden challenge of sorts arose last week; squirrels have figured out how to access the bird feeder. While squirrels don’t bother me that much, I would prefer they leave the bird’s food alone. So I’ve devised a plan, I’m going to add red pepper flakes to the bird food. This should discourage the squirrels without harming the birds.

Happy gardening everyone!

*The above image is the front of the Sugar Snap Pea seed packet from Botanical Interests. They are a great source for all things seed and have a wide selection of organic seed too. Lucky for me, I have found their seeds at my favorite local garden shop, Moore & Moore.

Ants and things

Things are growing great in the garden. I spent some time last weekend weeding several beds and trying to ‘thin the heard’ of mint, creeping jenny, and sedum. Would anyone like to come over and take home a sampling of these voracious ground covers?! I also mulched a little and amended the soil for the Hollyhocks which I will be planting this week!

The Hellebores are still blooming. The Rosemary is blooming now, pretty little blue flowers. The Peonies, Baptisia, and Iris will all be blooming soon. My Epimediums are now blooming in my side shade garden (picture). That’s a really neat perennial for the shade garden. They are also commonly referred to as Barrenwort and Bishop’s hat.

Epimediums are grown as much for their flowers as they are for their heart-shaped foliage which can take on beautiful fall coloring. Their tiny flowers are suspended ever so gracefully on their arching flower stalks. Epimediums make great accent plants and groundcovers, although they die back almost completely in our zone. I like to pair my yellow blooming Epimediums with purple-leaved plants like Ajuga and Heuchera.

I recently discovered ants on some of my Rose of Sharon. I fear the ants are ‘milking’ aphids which in turn are feasting on the new foliage. This morning I sprayed the bugs off with water, let’s hope that keeps them away. My next approach may be to use a soap spray. I generally try to avoid using any chemicals in the garden, but especially now that I’m growing edible plants, that would be my last resort.

There are ants on my Peonies as well, which are across the driveway. I have come to expect this every year on the Peonies. [Although at first it was alarming and I admit I sprayed my Peonies with ant killer chemicals that first year] A very knowledgeable gardener explained to me that ants help the Peony buds ‘open up’. So now I ignore the ants, and my peonies have never suffered because of them.

longer days, more gardening adventures

Last Saturday I worked in the garden until after sunset, which now is almost 7:00! Thanks, Daylight Savings Time. I weeded, planted, divided, relocated, mulched, and watered. I worked mainly in the planting bed on the west side of my house (picture). With almost due west exposure, this bed gets the most sun of any of my planting beds and eventually this bed will be home to my future tomato plants.

An early goal of mine was to screen the a/c unit on the left and for that, I choose Euonymus 'Green Spire'. [Normally, I am NOT a proponent of Euonymus in general, but these plants look pretty good all year, are very cheap, and as far as I know will not become invasive.] The Euonymus hedge has been planted for a few years now with an initial investment of less than $50.

In front of the Euonymus hedge are ornamental grasses (still dormant), and a new patch of sedum that replaces the Black-eyed Susan’s (Rudbeckia) that I just relocated to elsewhere in the bed. The large shrub, butterfly bush (Buddleia davidii), which now reaches the top of the brick wall, is a personal favorite. In fact I plan to do another blog post specifically about this plant.

In front of the butterfly bush is Lambs Ear (Stachys byzantina). I believe I have the variety called ‘Big Ears’. This is a neat perennial with silver-green foliage and I can’t help but feel the soft leaves every time I’m nearby, they really do feel like lambs ears. In between the butterfly bush and lambs ear are my beloved peonies (which are just now starting to poke through the soil).

You can barely see the corkscrew willow (Salix matsudana) under the electric meter. This is a very cool, graceful plant with an extremely fine textured, medium-green leaf and yellow bark. Between it and the butterfly bush is my recently planted climbing rose (no clue what variety). There is a small trellis for the rose now, but I will probably run some wire for it to climb on this summer. The climbing rose takes the place of another butterfly bush, which I cut back and relocated to the planting bed across the driveway.

Near the middle of the bed, there’s a medium green groundcover that has basically taken over this portion of the planting bed. As of yet, this Sedum has remained unidentifiable. I have probably 10 different sedums growing throughout my various planting beds; they’re great low-maintenance perennials that come in a variety of foliage and flower colors (I’m a huge fan). But this one grows faster than any I’ve ever encountered. I’ll probably remove portions of this to make room for my tomatoes!

The blue pot will eventually be planted with herbs and/or seasonal color, and probably won’t remain in the bed. Behind the pot, against the house are a row of tiger lilies (Hemerocallis fulva), which will bloom creamsicle-orange. This plant is also fondly called ‘ditch lily’, and is a fine example of what I call a ‘native invasive’.

In the right corner of this bed is a newly planted upright rosemary, although the variety name escapes me now. I’m so excited about this rosemary and once it fills out (about 4’ tall) I think it will really help to anchor the space. My kitchen door is right around the corner, and I’m looking forward to using this herb while cooking!

Behind the rosemary is a patch of Pachysandra terminalis ‘Green sheen’. It’s an amazingly care-free evergreen groundcover, probably deserving of its very own blog post. Pachysandra has beautiful shiny dark green leaves of a medium texture. While no one buys this plant for the bloom alone, the dainty clusters of white flowers are quite nice; mine are in bloom right now!

This is my favorite planting bed because of the variety of foliage and bloom colors that all work so well together. I’m also really pleased with the year round presence the pachysandra, euonymus, butterfly bush, lambs ear, sedum, and now rosemary will provide. But in the summer, this bed literally comes alive with all of the warm flower colors of plants that haven’t even come up yet.

Throughout the bed are Black-eyed Susan’s (Rudbeckia), Tennessee Coneflower (Echinacea tennesseensis), other sedums, and various daylilies (from my uncle). I’ll take pictures along the way to document the bloom/growth progress. Bottom line, the garden doesn't look like much now, but i promise, an amazing transformation is in the works!

in the beginning

During and after college I lived in 5 different apartments. Apartment living is great, except when you love and collect plants. For years, I schlepped far too many pots from one apartment to the next, always hoping for more sunlight and porch space than I was afforded. It didn’t help that I minored in horticulture and was able to amass quite a collection of free plants through my friends and classes, as any former roommate of mine will tell you. So, when I started looking for a house, gardening space was high on my priority list; if for no other reason than to finally get some of these long-suffering plants into the ground!

When I moved into my house in August of ‘07, 2 ½ years ago, all of the planting beds were full of annuals and a few dying conifers. Each planting bed had a thin layer of black hardwood mulch on top of black ‘landscape’ fabric. These are two of my most hated landscape materials. [Hardwood mulch leaches nitrogen from the soil and is not the most aesthetically pleasing. ‘Landscape’ fabric is a weed barrier which in turn becomes a barrier for light, air, water, and nutrients.] So the first order of business was to remove the fabric and top dress with fine-textured pine mulch (a.k.a. soil conditioner).

In the process, I removed all manner of weeds and various trash I found under the ‘landscape’ fabric. At this point in my horticultural knowledge, peonies were unknown to me. As I came across these bizarre looking bulbs, I threw them away! (This was particularly painful once I realized how expensive peonies are) Luckily a small grouping of them evaded me, and the next spring I was blown away by their beauty and fragrance. They’re not in the most ideal location in my garden from an aesthetic perspective, but so far I’ve been too apprehensive to move them. The peonies, a dwarf nandina hedge, a few perennials, and a pair of dwarf Alberta spruce are all that remains of the landscape I inherited.