The Front Yard Garden in Spring

Last night, Steve and I went for a nice 10-mile bike ride through the Metroparks after I finished working at the garden center. This evening, I went searching for a couple of my old blog posts on trilliums and angelicas, both of which I pointed out along the trail, so I could send him the links. As I nosed around my archives, I was surprised to see that we're in the FIFTH month of the year already, and yet I have just FOUR blog posts published in 2009. Yikes!

It's not for lack of things to talk about, either. Spring has definitely sprung here in Northeast Ohio, as you can see in these pictures of the front yard garden:


The photo above shows you what I see when I walk out my front door. Here's a closer view of the bright color in the middle of the bed, where the golden marjoram is starting to emerge in all its chartreuse glory after a close spring cropping:


The golden marjoram makes for a very pretty groundcover, and when the dog is out front and gets excited about seeing a visitor (either 2- or 4-legged, or even winged) it smells lemony good while she stomps around on it, as I had hoped.

The groundcover to the left of it in that same bed is a sedum album, which fills in nicely without being a thug. However, this section of bed looks sparse since I cut back my sages and grasses so severely in April:


Luckily those beautiful species tulips (plus a handful of 'Prinses Irene,' my all-time favorite tulips, are massing and multiplying well enough to distract from any bare spots.

Some of the shorn plants look very interesting as they grow in... this carex buchanii (leatherleaf sedge) looks like a caramel-colored cousin of the lavender plant behind it, until its blades get taller and start to gently curl over:


Some of my purple lyreleaf sage are emerging, along with returning Mexican feather grass, baby sea kale (seriously, I cut all of those bloom stalks back last summer--how is it still having babies?!) and a steady creep of the aforementioned sedum album:


The lyreleaf sedge has some nice backlighting effects... but it is nothing compared to the fire of the unnamed (inherited with the house) heuchera when the western sun sets it aglow. Especially when highlighted with the equally en fuego tones of 'Princes Irene' tulip flowers:


Two side notes, quickly: 1) Am I the only person who thinks of Dan Patrick and the old Sportscenter every time I hear the phrase "en fuego?" And 2) I know that sometimes gardeners get big surprises in the spring, but... I REALLY don't remember planting this next fuzzy, affectionate thing in my garden last year! *grin*


Beyond the catmint in which Mr. Kitty was indulging himself before he came over for a petting is my 'Solar Flare' bergenia. Right now it's obnoxiously bright, as it is both blooming in bright pink and flaring with acid yellow variegation on its new leaves. Later in the season, this plant will revert to all green... and in the fall, its leaves will turn a lovely burgundy color. I would probably hate it if it were so bright year-round, but as it is, I am completely smitten:


Oh, speaking of smitten, here's another shot of a single 'Prinses Irene,' with golden marjoram in the background--and little tufts of allium schubertii leaves poking up all around it:


I can't wait for the allium to return--more than a few people have told me that they dont have luck getting those particular alliums to perennialize. I hope that my well-drained soil gives me a little bit of an advantage there, but we'll see.

Based on last year's posts, 'Prinses Irene' and a few of the other tulips are a week to ten days ahead of last year's pace. That 80-degree weekend really gave things a kick start around here... even my Japanese maple is leafing out, in spite of the fact that I haven't given it an annual pruning/shaping just yet:


I guess I'll be foregoing the Japanese maple's haircut this year, at this point--Ma Nature seems to have her own agenda where that is concerned!

Speaking of going with the flow, I think that may be what 2009 is going to be all about for me. At this time last year, I never thought this spring would find me where I am right now, in so many ways... but it's a pretty good place, all considered. And I am determined to enjoy it, and appreciate it, and take notice of all of the little pockets of color and fragrance and... life.


Happy Spring!

Garden Bloggers Bloom Day - April 2009

You know it's been too long between posts when last month's Bloom Day pictures (which were never published anyway) look like this...


... and this month's Bloom Day pics look like they were taken in a whole new garden! Here's a green-flowered hellebore, underplanted with silver lamium:


And a burgundy-flowering hellebore, shown against the "Coffee" brown fence:


Two 'Ivory Prince' hellebores, which sweetly show their faces to the sun, in comparison to the graceful drooping you see on the hellebore flowers above:


A detail of an 'Ivory Prince' flower, wet with rain on Wednesday--I just can't stop gushing about how beautiful this hellebore is:


But it's not all hellebores. I have some smaller spring bulbs in bloom right now, too. The little frittilary that springs up through my 'Chubby Fingers' sedum and bergenia:


And here's the brightest of my species tulips:


... along with two views a softer species tulip, whose petals are streaked with a peachy gold:


You also know that it's been too long since you've posted when your Mom tells you that your father has resorted to reading some of your old blog posts... which of course makes me wonder whether I shared a little too much information in any of them. :)

No time to worry about that right now, though. It's 60 and sunny with bluebird skies, and as you can tell from the photos above I still have some grasses to cut down, leaves to rake out, and mulching to get done. I also need to run to the bike shop to get some oil in anticipation of the first bike ride of the year (tomorrow) and swing by the paint store for another 5gallon bucket of "Coffee" opaque stain. The neighbors have volunteered to spray/paint their side of the fence, so I'm a little excited about crossing that chore off of my list... I need to go buy them the stain before they change their minds!

I also should be getting back to blogging more regularly now, and look forward to catching up with all of my favorite garden blogs. Happy spring!

We are What We Eat?

Among my email subscriptions is a little newsletter from Kitchen Gardeners International, which is a 501c3 organization based in Maine. Through programs like their ambitious Eat the View campaign, they advocate growing and eating your own food. (I am obviously a big proponent of this as well, as you might be able to tell by this first photo of garlic shoots coming up in my garden this week.)


What I like about KGI--and their newsletter--is that it's a nice combination of idealism and practicality. On their site, they include thoughtful moral arguments for eating locally alongside forum posts about how to construct raised beds, which tomato varieties are best, the basics of seed saving, etc. I think that they would approve of edibles used in the garden in an ornamental way, like my black elderberry underplanted with silver sage, as well:


On the practical side, last week's main newsletter article (from a forum post by Roger Doiron) about the Economics of Home Gardening really got me thinking. Here's an excerpt:

"Has anyone ever kept track of what their garden produced in a given year and the calculated the economic value of their harvest? My wife and I did this year and calculated that the net economic value (not the health, environmental, gastronomic, psychological, or social value) was roughly $2150. Here's the data:"

(Note: I took the liberty of shortening this little spreadsheet for purposes of posting it here... hence the fade-to-white area where I cut out the middle. You can see the whole thing on the original post if you'd like.)

Realistically speaking, there is really NO WAY that I would ever be able to come up with a spreadsheet like the one Roger and his wife Jacqueline did. For one thing, I'm simply not disciplined enough... I never managed to maintain a proper garden journal before I started the blog, for example. (For another example of my lack of discipline, look behind the rosette of new foliage on my 'Hab Gray' sedum, below... that's a cabbage AND a kohlrabi that I never cleaned up in the fall. Sheesh!)


For another thing, the thought of having to weigh and catalog every little thing that my garden produces kind of chafes at my inner hedonist. It just seems wrong to have to bring a handful of blackberries inside to weigh and record them before I can eat them. Seems that time would be better spent enjoying the way each sun-warmed berry kind of burst into flavor on my tongue as I wander around the yard... especially since the blackberry is in the far corner of the yard, next to the 'Bing' cherry and new grape arbor:


Also, I know that Roger included some caveats about what he was not measuring with his spreadsheet, but my concerns go beyond that. I really would struggle with the scientific-ness (is that even a word?! lol) of comparing the "value" of my garden tomatoes to those you can buy at the store. I'm not talking about the difference in quality, taste and selection, either... I'm talking about the fact that I simply would NOT buy watery, flavorless grocery store tomatoes at all, so it seems unfair to compare what I spent on my tomato seeds to the cost of something I wouldn't even purchase.

But... I really like that Roger did the number crunching, and that it's getting people talking! So next time, can we see a newsletter about growing edibles and ornamentals together? I mean... I can't be the only crazy girl who is growing her garlic under a generous dressing of compost, birdseed (oops--the feeder is above) and red sedum, can I?


And if other people knew that a veggie garden could be this decorative, maybe they would plant a few more rows... A girl can hope, right?! :)

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.