T HERE IS LITTLE CHANCE THAT ANYBODY on this dirt road is stealing my garden-design ideas; they don’t want to go stark raving and have to take care of all this stuff. But our doodling friend Andre’s right: Cookie-cutter gardens all in a row would be no fun, and the garden’s a place for each of us to express our individuality, not try to recreate someone else’s picture or point of view. Would that all of life were just like that: Do your own thing, no questions asked, no negative glances cast.
doodle by andre: do your own thing
April 30, 2009 at 4:19 am
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my may garden chores
April 30, 2009 at 1:04 am
Y OWZA. THAT’S THE BOTANICAL LATIN TERM for the state we gardeners find ourselves in right about now. May is when the signs of advanced mental illness strike even the strongest and most experienced among us, but a May that begins after nearly a week of record late-April heat: Yowza. I’ve mowed twice already (the first mowing is usually about May 5); the dandelions are everywhere, jumbo-sized, and in full bloom; cool-season crops like spinach and bok choy are operating under protest and will probably perish, and thousands of Narcissus want deadheading. So what to do? Well, maybe start here: [read more…]
high-speed, hit-and-run composting
April 29, 2009 at 8:59 am
FOR YEARS MY FRIEND ANDREW, a better gardener than I by far, has been telling me the secret, but I just wouldn’t listen. Like I do, Andrew creates a lot of debris from his giant garden and nursery. “Run it over,” he said, whenever I’d complain about the daunting size of my heap. “Just run it over with your mower to pre-shred the stuff.” Well, I finally did. [read more…]
too darn hot: hello, spring; goodbye, spring
April 27, 2009 at 10:29 am
H ELLO SPRING, AND GOODBYE SPRING, all in one sizzling weekend as fiery-hot as this overblown tulip. Freezing a week ago, now the garden and I are suffering from burnout. I feel a weather rant coming on: complaints to register, anybody? Or shall we look on the bright side: Yes, the magnolias will come and go in a total of 72 hours, but there’s asparagus for dinner. [read more…]
an update on underplanting trees and shrubs
April 26, 2009 at 10:09 am
WHAT A DIFFERENCE A YEAR MAKES. Inspired by the underplanting of hellebores and trillium and other earlybirds and ephemerals under the oldest of my old apple trees (above), a year ago I underplanted two more of the big, aging apples. On their first anniversary, the new areas are already shaping up… [read more…]
6 now-or-never late-april tasks
April 24, 2009 at 9:09 am
THE WEATHER HAS BEEN GIVING ME FITS, but finally spring seems to have mostly taken hold. Translation: TOTAL PANIC UNDER WAY. Garden tours start May 31, not leaving much time to get things in shape. Some tasks cannot wait—they are now or never, really—all awaiting me right under the ominous “X marks the spot” in the photo I took this morning (above). At the risk of instilling panic in you, too, I share them here…but not before saying happy six-month anniversary to our beloved Thursday columnist, doodler Andre Jordan, who joined us in mid-October. Enough pleasantries; now back to Red-Alert Mode: [read more…]
doodle by andre: hazardous to your health
April 23, 2009 at 6:42 am
THANK GOODNESS WE HAVE ANDRE JORDAN to warn us of the dangers all around us in this hazardous hobby of ours. I confess that even though I tried to exhibit restraint in this year’s seed orders, a few extra things have found their way into my stash. Oh, well, if you cannot resist, then get help…or just surrender to the magical power of seeds and cast your trouble (and seeds) to the wind, in acts of hope. Thank you, dear Andre, for a least trying to watch out for us.
my vanishing corydalis solida: simple division?
April 21, 2009 at 8:30 pm
W ILL WHOMEVER MOVED MY CORYDALIS SOLIDA please confess? This charming creature, the recent star of my spring-ephemerals slideshow, declined to show itself the last week or two, as if it had caught a case of stage fright. I knew where it lived: It had been there for years, a big, juicy clump. But then I saw something, or actually 17 somethings at last count, that look like the former beauty, but in miniature, strewn here and there across the yard. Who moved my Corydalis? Who? [read more…]
‘harvesting’ perennials, planting vegetables
April 19, 2009 at 12:01 pm
THE ANNUAL VEGETABLE-GARDEN ARCHAEOLOGICAL DIG yielded the usual suspects—perennials and small shrubs I plunge in there for wintertime storage, things I use in summer pots: huge hosta clumps (I do love hostas) and Hakonechloa and other random bits. In went 3 inches of compost, 10 pounds of lime per 100 square feet, an all-natural organic fertilizer made of meals and manures, seeds for short rows of various salad greens, and a few-dozen onion plants. Life is good, loaded with possibility. (Well, except that I could use some rain.) Unearthed anything good lately over there?
