March Emerging

Things are still a little crazy/busy in my life right now... but it's hard to believe that I have only managed ONE post for all of 2009. So I thought I'd take you for a quick walk through my garden today, since the warm temperatures and recent rains have melted even the most persistent patches of snow. There are quite a few small things to see--along with one big, potentially garden-altering development!

First, the small things. I discovered my first "spring" flower this week, a tiny snowdrop that is fighting to unfurl its petals against a backdrop of 'Chocolate Chip' ajuga, bleached miscanthus blades and seedheads, and other garden detrius:


All of the hellebores show buds barely poking out above the ground now, but the foliage on my beloved 'Ivory Prince' has held up the best through our rough winter:


Sometimes I think that my garden knows that autumn is my favorite season, because it keeps giving me fallish combinations to enjoy throughout the year. Here, a red sedum and caramel-colored beech leaves tumble over a black accent rock:


I know it's still late winter, not early spring, because orange pyracantha berries remain. Generally, the pyracantha is de-berried sometime in the spring by a hungry bird. Pyracantha berries must not be anyone's "food of choice" since they last so long in my yard, but I certainly enjoy the pop of orange they provide:

(By the way, observant readers might notice my garden gloves partially buried beneath the grey creeping germander. I had good intentions to use gloves at one point this summer, but quickly abandoned that idea and left them on the top of that retaining wall. I liked that the plant tried to take them over, so I left them there.)

One nice thing about winter is that I tend to pay more attention to the little details that would probably escape my notice at other times of the year. This picture below looks like just a mess of bleached stems and fallen leaves... but after I first noticed the ghostly grey cascades of oregano flower seedheads, I can't stop looking at their simple elegance as I walk up the steps:


Sometimes I have relied on serendipity to give me good color/combinations in the garden, but other "luck" has been quite deliberately cultivated. Here, I had actually thought about how nice the spotted leaves of these species tulips will look against a background of red sedum, when they finally emerge:


Growing tulips and other spring flowers through colorful groundcovers is definitely something I enjoy. It gives the groundcovers a chance to shine as part of a main attraction instead of just being a flat "ground" to rest the eye. Here you see more species tulips working their way through a spread of 'Chubby Fingers' sedum:

(Of course I couldn't resist pulling out my dirt thermometer after taking this photo--I left it in for scale. And for the record, it was 32 degrees in that patch of soil yesterday!)

Another succulent that has been catching my eye recently is one that lives inside for the winter. This vignette of cascading succulent, crown of thorns plant, and trashpicked old end table--with its fun rustic chipped-stain/paint finish and awesome metal pulls--makes me smile every time I reach the top of my main staircase:


Speaking of, I really need to go sweep those stairs, and get a few other things done today... but first, I need to share the big, potentially garden-altering news. After two years of emails and phone calls, the city has finally cut down the half-dead tree from my treelawn. Here's the view just after they took down the rest of the trunk--they'll be coming back shortly to grind out the stump:


I'm happy about this development, because it was a basswood tree and dropped branches like crazy, even before half of the tree started to die. (The slow death happened around the same time I started digging up the front yard for a garden... no coincidence, I'm sure!) But I'm also a little worried, because it did provide some shade for my West-facing, mostly xeric, front yard garden.

I'm pretty sure that this will be the death knell for the already-stressed doublefile viburnum that I love but don't really want to baby as much as I already do... it will need to be replaced with something much more tolerant of dry, hot exposures. The Spanish foxgloves, which have been low-maintenance in this garden so far, may also be a little stressed by the change... but hopefully all of the rest of the plants will be just fine. I'm not worried about things like pennisetum, miscanthus, caryopteris, sages, echinops and other plants with hardy constitutions.

We'll see how they all make it through this next year, and whether they finally get measurably larger here in year 3. If they perform as expected, I should be seeing much more of the kind of winter interest that I had planned to see in this front yard garden, in 2010!

But February Made Me Shiver...

Note: This is a fairly long (yes, even for me) rambling post, loosely tied together by a single song and its lyrics. It's been a while since I've posted--I guess that I've been storing a few things up--and it's a little more autobiographical than my usual posts. So I hope that anyone who reads my blog will indulge me, just this once. If you aren't feeling up to a long read, well... you've been forewarned. :)

A long, long time ago...

Assuming that I actually manage to finish this post before midnight, it will publish on February 3rd. 50 years ago on this date, a plane went down some 5 miles from an airport in Clear Lake, Iowa. The Big Bopper was 28, Buddy Holly just 22 and Ritchie Valens a mere 17 when they lost their lives in that plane crash. All three had so much individual potential; their collective loss was a huge blow to Rock 'n Roll--at least in retrospect. (Rock was too young, I think, for most people to realize what it meant at the time.)


Because I tend to ask lots of questions, and because my Mom has always been able to share all sorts of interesting answers (even before you could rely on Google for them) I learned early at a young age that this plane crash was the raison d'etre for Don McLean's song, "American Pie." Mom had that song on an LP, and it was one of the first songs that I remember making an effort to memorize when I was a kid.


I can still remember how that music... used to make me smile...

It sounds like a daunting task, but I had plenty of opportunities to hear and learn those lyrics. Dad would bowl on Friday nights, while Mom stayed home with us kids. We'd play board games, watch TV, or listen to music (from Le Chic to Bonnie Tyler to the Everly Brothers to Bread) and sing and dance around the living room. Mom didn't have a lot of records, so we listened to some on repeat... and, really, what mother wouldn't appreciate replaying a song as long as "American Pie" that could keep three children amused for almost 10 minutes at a time?!

(Random side note: When we "behaved all night," Dad would swing through McDonald's after bowling to pick up two large French fries--a rare treat--for us all to share. I'm very grateful that cell phones did not exist back then, because for some reason Dad always thought we were good. Even on days that we probably didn't deserve even a single french fry.)


Now do you believe in Rock 'n Roll? Can music... save your mortal soul...

I don't know about saving my mortal soul, but I definitely believe in the power of music. It has figured into my life a lot over the years, from exchanging mix tapes with my friend Jessica (and various boys)... to providing a little extra push for anything from exercise to moving out of the house I bought with my then-husband... to offering an escape through concerts and dance clubs.


And I knew if I had my chance... that I could make those people dance... and maybe they'd be happy for a while...

There are even certain songs that serve as my personal soundtrack, they feel so intertwined with specific parts of my life. Most of those "soundtrack songs" come and go, but "American Pie" has been something of a consistent thread. It pops up at odd times, and is pretty much always taken as a good omen when it does.

For example: On the way home from shopping in Cincinnati once, Mom and I were having a discussion about whether the wedding dress I fell in love with that day was "the one." As if on cue, the opening notes strummed across the radio, and we looked at each other and laughed. Don--and some DJ on WOFX 92.5--had settled that question.


(I maybe should've asked the "radio gods" instead if the guy was the right one... but hey, we had our chance. We danced at the wedding, and we were happy for a little while. And that's something, right?)

... And can you teach me how to dance, real slow?

I didn't make mention of this at the time, but Brian and I broke up in October. It was almost a year in the making, and I was completely at peace about it when the time came. (It wasn't a nasty breakup, and it definitely was best for both of us, I think.)

My work schedule is absolutely insane during the winter time, and so I definitely wasn't looking to date anyone for a while. And then, unexpectedly, a friend... turned out to be something more. Something very honest, open, real, and fun... something new and exciting, yet familiar and secure all at the same time. I often find myself trying to hide a silly grin when I think about him... and that's probably all that needs to be said about it, for now. :)


Oh and, while the king was looking down... the jester stole his thorny crown...

This winter, I have absolutely packed all kinds of plants into my dining room window. And my bedroom window. And the landing of the stairs below the south-facing window. And on the hearth for the fireplace that is no longer in the living room--because there are still tiles in the floor there, and it's easier to put pots on tile than worry about hardwood floors. And I have to admit that I'm running out of room... I am SO going to have to edit my plants before next winter!


And while Lennon read a book of Marx... the quartet practiced in the park... and we sang dirges in the dark...

Okay, so Tony Avent's catalogs are more funny a la Groucho, than political a la Karl. But I've been longing for more than just one full day off so I can really dig into the Plant Delights catalog. And there's a quartet of early seed purchases in my hand, at least: 2x 'Tropical Sunset' California poppies, Heirloom Pepperbox poppies, and Italian Silver Rib Chard. It's shaping up to be an interesting year in the garden--and in my life.

And with that, I'm going to go. Not quite to sing dirges in the dark, but to listen to some music on my new MP3 player (thanks Mom and Dad!) while I fall asleep. Maybe even a little Don McLean.

December Gardening Itch

What beautiful, warm days we've had this weekend! They've left me wishing that I could get out into the garden and do a little cleanup, get some dirt up under my fingernails for the last time in 2008, and generally sneak in a little garden therapy.

Today, I got home from work with a little bit of precious daylight left, so I put on my gloves (winter, not gardening!) and headed outside to finish up a few chores. First, I had some clearance bulbs to plant:


As I've mentioned, I like to take photos of the packages in situ as I'm planting my bulbs... so come spring I can look up last year's photos and know what to expect from the green tufts that emerge. I thought that I had finished up my planting very late last year... but looking back, I see that I beat this year's date by two weeks! YIKES am I late this year... :)

This blurry photo shows the Japanese gardening knife, or hori-hori, that I received at Christmas:


It has one smooth, sharp edge and one serrated edge, both tempered. It's great to use for inserting small bulbs of species tulips (above) and Dutch iris (below) into patches of small scale groundcovers.


(As you can see, anything brought into the garden must pass the strict sniff test of my Gardening Assistant. Once it is deemed to be not immediately edible--i.e., not a tomato, green bean, or strawberry--I am allowed to carry on with my business!)

I had a few other pressing jobs to do in the garden as well. While digging up a huge clump of deep-red-flowering gladiolus bulbs, I spied the little rosettes of new growth at the base of my 'Hab Gray' sedum:


I had neglected to keep my chocolate eupatorium deadheaded as well as I probably should have this fall... so I cut it back after documenting its beauty here:


I had plenty of free plants (thanks to my part-time job at a local garden center) to heel in also, including (3) 'Carolina Moonlight' baptisia, a few fancy heuchera and tiarella, some acanthus, 3 or 4 'Espresso' geraniums, many red sedums, and a couple of shrubs and climbers.

While walking back and forth to where they had been stashed for the past few weeks, I couldn't help but admire again the brigh orange pyracantha berries mixed in with Little Bluestem. I know that I've showed this before, that orange and pink (which I don't even like!) shouldn't mix, etc., but I just can't get enough of this little combination:


One other notable gardening thing: I am trying my best this year to make friends with daylilies. I still don't particularly want them in my garden, but I read something in one of the gardening magazines about unusual plants to force indoors, and daylilies were among them.

Frankly, anything is welcome in bloom indoors in the very early spring... even daylilies! So I picked up 'Bela Lugosi' (I would have bought him for his name only, but I also figured that he would have a lovely, dark coloring) as a freebie and have just now brought him inside to get him restarted. I'll let you know how my admittedly unscientific experiment with Bela goes as 2009 unfolds... Happy New Year, everyone!

Merry Christmas Hike

It's Christmas Day, and as usual my job has kept me from being able to go "home" for the holidays. Coco and I have instituted our own little Christmas traditions, including a hike in the Metroparks... so off to the Rocky River Reservation we went.


Just a day or so ago, the ground was dusted with snow... but today the dried, sun-bleached flower and seedheads were some of the lightest colors around. The Rocky River itself was swollen with snow melt, so much so that the water stretched uncharacteristically from bank to bank:


On warmer walks, the dog often gets to splash in the river to cool herself down, and amuses me by snapping at the top of the water to take drinks. (Yes, I've gone into the water with her a few times--and at least one time was NOT of my own volition! lol.) For example, Coco usually ambles down this old ford (I think that's what it is, anyway) where fisherman can often be found, to take a drink and get her feet wet...


... but not today! It was a brisk 25 degrees, and as you can see by the roiling on the downstream side of the ford, the flooded river was very fast:


Since water fun was not to be on this hike, we took the time to sniff every log, stump, and leaf... and catalog a few of the more interesting ones in photo form. We saw delicate little fungus sprinkled across the north side of this rotting sapling:


We admired pretty twists of tree roots, with the sandy ground around them washed away to reveal their form:


We cringed at obvious clues that some people who visit the metroparks have no respect for nature:


We were tempted to take our gloves off and touch a few of the bigger, more substantial shelf fungus, which look like they would feel soft and velvety:


And we wondered what would result from a few of the interesting seedpods that were scattered atop the quilt of maple, oak, and other leaves on the forest floor:


Deeper in the woods, where the rain and sun do not penetrate well--and where foot traffic had mashed down the snow--a pathway of ice marked the usual route. Between the slippery surface, the increasing amounts of brush, and a huge fallen tree that blocked the path ahead, we decided to take our cue and turn around:


We were only walking for about an hour altogether--my gloves were a little inadequate, and without the river to quench her thirst, I didn't want to keep the dog out too long. But it was nice to continue a Christmas tradition. (And it made me feel better about how much food I ate later, when I joined a good friend for her family get-together, too!)

Hope that you all had a wonderful, very Merry Christmas!
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Winter Sun-Standing (Solstice) 2008

There are two times each year that the earth "stands still" on its axis... but I have to confess that I barely notice the summer equinox. Late June days are spent in the garden--or playing volleyball in the sand, or listening to the crack of a turned length of maple or ash connecting with a leather-covered orb--and they seem to flow warmly into the heat of July without much notice.


The winter solstice, however, always catches my attention. It seems to be a time for introspection... for noticing the little details, whether they are of spiny desert plants tucked into a ledge, or the amount of care put into holiday treats, hospitality and decoration.


While we bundle up, Mother Nature lays bare her earth and takes down her leafy growing-season decor. In winter, we can often see patterns that we might otherwise miss, for the distraction of vibrantly blooming summer plants.


We think about the coming year, and mentally lay some new paths for ourselves, and vow again to keep things neat and orderly.


We sit for a while at the window and look out, and then turn our gaze inward again... and appreciate the rich textures, and colors, that the things and people with which we surround ourselves add to our experiences.


And we appreciate, too, even the smallest signs of fuzzy warmth... and the promise of new growth, and new opportunities to keep up our powers of observation in the rest of the new year. We vow not to let this next calendar flip so fast that it blurs the details of our life...


Happy winter solstice! And happy holidays--of all kinds and creeds--to all!

All photos in this post taken at the Cleveland Botanical Garden, December 2008.