White Iris

These white bearded iris are the first in the garden to bloom. They will be followed by some burgundy, purple, blue and yellow iris. By the end of the week I expect quite the show of flowers.

Mom and Dad came for a visit today and have brought me another bag of pachysandra. I plan to begin planting tomorrow. The last batch they gave me is doing well. At this point all the rest of the planting is done, or at least until fall when I will be putting some bulbs in for next spring. I have plans for more crocus, daffodils, tulips and some dwarf iris. Now will come the challenge of maintaining the garden. The maple trees are releasing their seeds; "helicopters" are twirling down to the ground. My chipmunks are gathering them in their over inflated cheeks but thousands will go uneaten and will germinate in the garden. Then I will spend hours on my hands and knees pulling the baby maples out of the ground. I chalk it up as good exercise.

Thanksgiving Dinner Anyone?

Earlier this year we were visited for the first time by a group of wild turkeys. One day we had 15 of them in the yard. There were three males all puffed up in their glory, strutting around with the "we bad" attitude. The females were ignoring them and fighting amongst themselves. They fed from the ground around the feeders, even though they could have easily reached up and eaten directly from the feeder itself. Once spring had really arrived and food sources were more plentiful, we no longer saw the turkeys until this week. We have had one perhaps two turkeys at a time visit the yard. I had the camera handy today and was able to catch this one in the act of eating dinner (she's under the feeder with her head down and the tail is behind the lilac bush that is just coming into bloom). All of a sudden I have a craving for stuffing and cranberry sauce.

Lilies of the Valley

These are the lilies of the valley that my parents gave me from their yard three years ago. They were planted at the foot of the back door steps, and had to be moved when Mom and Dad decided to add on a deck and I benefited with the gift of some plants. Each year they have multiplied and spread. I was out working by this patch of flowers today and could smell their scent. What a treat. The weather has been cooperative this week and I have been able to catch up on some of my gardening chores. I am finishing up planting my garden club sale purchases. I rinsed out the bird bath and refilled it with clean water, it was starting to look a little scummy. I moved one of my birdfeeders after finding it on the ground for the second time. I'm not sure what or who is managing to knock it out of the tree it is hanging in. Most likely the squirrels are to blame. The little darlings are getting rather fat on the bird seed, they have been making pigs of themselves.

The Annual Garden Club Sale

Every year on the third Saturday in May, the local garden club has its annual plant sale. Members donate perennials from their gardens, and this is a great way of knowing that these plants will survive in this area. Once again I awoke early Saturday morning to be there for 8:00am for the start of the sale. The church bells were just chiming the hour when I arrived and the place was already mobbed. Everyone knows to get the best stuff you have to get there early. I chose a few things to fill in the gaps in my garden.

Pictured here is a lupine that I bought 3 years ago. I brought it home and planted it and waited. The first year there were no blooms so I figured perhaps it didn't like being transplanted and waited patiently for the second year. Still no blooms, so I decided to move it, perhaps it simply needed a sunnier spot. Well, success! This year there are blossoms! I am thrilled. I have learned over the years not to give up on a plant but to try it somewhere else. Hopefully this year's purchases will also be happy here in my yard.

This morning I watched a Baltimore Oriole devouring caterpillars from a web cocoon. Great, eat them up before they eat the entire trees worth of leaves. The bird would eat and then sing, most likely celebrating his success in finding such a great hoard of tasty morning treats.

Bleeding Hearts

In spite of, or because of all the rain I am beginning to have a beautiful show of blossoms. With the sunshine finally here, the garden is taking off. I planted the pachysandra that my parents brought me from their yard (a large black garbage bag full). And according to my dad there's more where that came from, which is good since it hasn't covered the area that I wish to fill. One must be patient with ground covers, it takes a year or two for a good carpet of plants to form.

Bird sightings: the usual suspects plus a Northern "Yellow shafted" Flicker in the back yard and a Red Winged Blackbird. I have seen the blackbirds in the area but never in the yard. Most likely the pond that the beavers have formed in the woods behind the house has become more attractive to different species of birds.

Sunshine!!

We finally saw the sun late yesterday afternoon. This morning the sun rose and it was dry all day long. It may be a while before the ground is dry again. I worked today so it wasn't until after dinner that I was able to go out for a tour of inspection around the yard. I didn't plan on working but couldn't help pulling up some weeds with my bare hands (left the garden gloves in the shed). It felt good to have dirt under my fingernails again. On my rounds is saw the following: one of the rhododendrons is showing signs of getting ready to bloom, so are my white irises, the grass seed we planted has begun to sprout, and the honeysuckle bush by the woods is full of buds ready to burst.

The birds have also been busy! I refilled the feeders this evening. Over the course of the day I saw: a humming bird (the first of the season), blue jays, cardinals (male and female), chickadees, juncos, gold finches, sparrows, mourning doves, robins, nuthatch, titmouse, and for the first time I believe I saw a Rufous-side Towhee. The humming bird must have been desperate because it tried eating from the silk flowers on my front door wreath. It was funny to watch.

Will the Rain Ever Stop?

Here in Massachusetts, it has rained for 5-6 days now. We had a small break today, and I actually saw some blue sky. Unfortunately, the clouds swept in and we had another shower. The garden is looking okay, everything continues to grow. After all this rain and the fertilizer we put down on the lawn it will grow like gangbusters once we have sunshine again. The birds have been actively feeding, and I have been good about getting out to fill the feeders, that is in between sessions of pumping water out of the basement.

I finished up Down the Garden Path over the weekend. Even though I haven't been able to get out there and work I appreciated Nichols when he wrote, "A gardener is never shut out from his garden, wherever he may be. Its comfort never fails....he can still wander in his garden, does he but close his eyes (p.287)." What a comforting idea that is. He concludes his book with a note that he plans to continue to write books "under titles which will make you think that they have nothing to do with gardening at all. But they will have everything to do with gardening (p.290)." Thank goodness for public libraries, I have been able to request another of Nichols' books through the interlibrary loan service. I look forward to reading more about his adventures in the garden.

Down the Garden Path - Day 2

One good thing about cool, drizzly days is that you are more than content to stay indoors and read a good book. I'm half way through Down the Garden Path by Beverley Nichols and am thoroughly enjoying myself. It is a story about a garden, a gardener and all those who help him and those who hinder by giving their advice.
This was Nichols' first attempt at gardening and he was anxious to see results, I know that feeling. As a new homeowner (14 years ago), I wanted to get right out there into the garden and have something beautiful growing. "To dig one's own spade into one's own earth! Has life anything better to offer than this?" (p. 37). I whole heartedly agree with you Mr. Nichols. Later he writes, "The first real experiment was with mushrooms, and like all first experiments in gardening, it was a failure (p. 43)." I remember rushing out and buying a bunch of perennials in first bloom. Problem was that when summer arrived, all my spring blooming plants were worn out. It took time and a little research to plan a garden to bloom from spring to fall. I began achieving success after I stayed home with my children as a full time parent. Then I could really get to know my yard and the sun. What I thought were shady spots turned out to be sunnier and the sunny spots were full sun. I began to buy plants according to this new knowledge and started to have far more success. Of course, the summer that the shade garden in the back yard was at its peak we decided to sell the house. I took some of my favorite plants with me, the garden really needed thinning anyways.
I started with a fresh palette here at this new house as the previous owners were not into gardening. "And the extraordinary thing about it was that gradually my impatient desire for immediate results, which is the besetting sin of all beginners, died down. I began to take a joy in the work for its own sake (p.35)." Yes, it was like starting all over again. I put in my transplants and prayed they would come back up in the spring. I had to learn a new sun pattern and figure out the soil conditions. It has been five years and the garden is coming along nicely. I am trying to be patient as I wait for ground covering plants to cover the ground, for perennials to fill out, and for newly planted shrubs to grow in stature. No matter, I have found the "joy in the work for its own sake" and there is nothing better than to dig in one's own small piece of earth.

Down the Garden Path

Raining today, and it will for the rest of the week. Glad I got out in the garden yesterday morning to work before the wet weather arrived. As for today, I am inside working on a wedding present, a quilt whose pattern name is Gramma's (or is it Nana's) Garden. I have also started reading Beverley Nichols' Down the Garden Path. This book, written in 1932, is an account of the author's purchase and renovation of a thatched cottage and its surrounding gardens in Glatton, England. I've only gotten to the part where our hero (for what else can you call a guy who eagerly sets out to create a garden of his own), has purchased his cottage and drives down to take possession of it. It's a fantasy of mine to go live in a cottage in England, so I look forward to reading Nichols' adventures.

Got Honey?

Over the weekend working out in the garden next to the azalea bush, I snapped a couple of shots of some very busy bees. Somewhere there is a honey tree waiting for a Pooh Bear to come along hanging under a blue balloon humming a little tune to distract the bees. Always loved dear old Pooh. Actually, it was hard to get a good shot of the bees since there is such a time delay even with a digital camera. The darn things kept moving on me, not to mention I certainly didn't want to get too close and disturb them while they were at work. In fact one of them came buzzing at me, bees hate paparazzi. I managed to get a lot of work done in the yard, today I caught up on the indoor chores. Starting tomorrow, we will have rain. Rain's good. It's been way too dry this spring.

A Trip to Lull Farm

I went up to one of my favorite places today, Lull Farm in Hollis, NH. I go for their perennials and annuals and I always have good luck with the plants that I buy. The apple and peach orchards were in bloom. This photograph, which I took a couple of weeks ago, is of one of the apple trees in my front yard when it was first coming into bloom. Now the blooms have gone by and the leaves are out. The garden is doing well after having rain for the past couple of days. That was the main reason for going shopping today as we had sunny weather today and tomorrow is supposed to be the pick of the week. I promptly got most of my new plants into the ground and divided and moved a couple more of the established plants. My variegated Artemisia is going wild and so is the not so obedient "obedient" plant. Hopefully, the transplants will take off in the spots I have moved them to. All the other cuttings I have transplanted are looking good and healthy.

Stone Cache

I have begun work on a path in my shade garden and wanted to line it with stones. Today while bringing some weeds out to our compost pile in the woods, I discovered the previous owners pile of rocks under some leaves. I'm so excited. I have begun to excavate the area. I will need to cut back some wild raspberry to gain better access.
The feeders and bird bath were active areas today. At one point I had a male and female cardinal, male and female gold finch, chickadee, and a blue jay all in the garden eating and drinking.
I've done some more splitting and moving of the perennials. We are expected to get rain for the next two days so that helps the transplants get established. The 5 yards of bark mulch arrived today, so I have my work cut out for me. I will need to start giving all the beds a fresh edging.