The Perfectly Imperfect Woodland Garden

Post 73

I can imagine the perfectly imperfect woodland garden in spring.

For an understory it would have bluebells and forget-me-nots, daffs and species tulips, hellebores, trilliums, woodland poppies, primroses, may apples, wild ginger, ferns, barrenworts, money plants and plants I do not yet know the names of.

The midstory would be azaleas, rhodos, fothergillas, dogwoods, serviceberries and magnolias.

All this would be under ancient trees, with an modest farmhouse and a few well-used outbuildings sharing the plot.

And, of course, this bucolic kingdom (too small, comfortable and unpolished to be an estate,) would be somewhere near a convenient village center, but hidden away, maybe reached by a dirt road winding off a rarely-used street.

Could such a place exist? Yes. of course it could. In fact it does, tended by a retired geneticist who still comes out and digs up a primrose here and there to gift a worthy up-coming plant sale. May we all have her vigor, intelligence, generosity, humor, busy life and green thumb at 92! Hmmm, and would we had and have such virtues at an younger age too.

While few of us live in such natural splendor, many of us garden yards that are at least partially shaded by big trees. This expanse of spring loveliness is an inspiration of what can be done under such conditions.

All these plants spread on their own and grow well between tree roots.

Do you need some of the plants listed and pictured above?  if so, you are in luck. It is almost time for the Ned Wolf Park plant sale.

"Ned Wolf Park is located at the corner of Ellet St. and McCallum St. in the beautiful Mt. Airy section of Philadelphia.  This year we've scheduled our annual sale of perennials, shrubs, annuals & miscellaneous garden stuff for Saturday, May 11th from 10 am to 1 pm. "
http://nedwolfpark.blogspot.com/

Is Riz

Post 70
Spring came with Easter this year, as if the daffs were waiting for their cue of "He is Risen."

Cleanup has ended and I am even getting mulch down at about the right time. Which is early for me. I have usually mulched late (or--garden scandal--not at all, relying on close planting instead,) because I have wanted all my seeds to get a good start. I need the seeds to get a good start, both the self-seeders and the ones I plant in late March.

For me, it is essential that the seedlings prosper. As I have explained in an earlier post, which includes all the how-to info,  Lead with Seed to a Flowery Mead-- the look I enjoy in the garden is partially created by the dashed-around appeal of haphazardly strewn, old-fashioned annuals. It gives the garden an unpredictability factor that keeps it new for me, and I hope others as well.

Also--I do not spend a lot of money on annuals, which are only a short-term investment at best. Seeds are cheap, and if done right, more effective. So this year's experiment will teach me something I cannot learn from books.

Sometimes it is only as you garden that you understand what the questions are that you need answered. And that only you can answer some of them. Books help, but at a certain point, your own style will take you past books into uncharted territory. If you're doing it right.

One of my favorite unintended consequences this spring is that I seem to have made a panorama of New York State in the rock garden.

I swear, I did not put that stick there, but am still amused by how well it mimics the New York State Thruway.

Well--that's about all going on in the garden right now. And so it is time to ...

for now.

Spring with Antifreeze

 Post 68


So how can things bloom one day, be frosted with snow the next, and then bloom the day after?

That is the question I have been asking myself as I have watched snowdrops, croci, Lenten Rose and squill thrive in our changeble climate.




Somehow, there is an antifreeze protein in some plants that keeps ice from forming within plant cells. It's not the ice on plants that kills them, it's the ice inside. So some plants stave off inner cell freeze by expelling water, while others form ice on the outside of the plant to protect the inside. I think. It is all pretty complicated. Complicated enough for the government to be doing a study on plant anti-freeze that includes Lenten roses and vinca.

 
This year I took the old leaves off my Lenten roses early. These plants have been snowed on at least three times, and have endured many nights of freeze. Yet they thrive. So the advice in books is true, you can cut the old leaves off in winter without damaging the spring buds.

And though it has been a cold spring so far, it is almost daff time, which is the unofficial start of spring for me. They are already in bloom a half zone away--which is how I think of the heatsink of Center City. But the ones in my yard are almost poppin.

 

One of the more interesting changes this cold spring has brought has been on the colors of this evergreen foliage.

I'm not sure what this evergreen is-- it is small, greyish and bought from a box store. This time of year though it shows a subtle psychedelia of color.

I can find tones of green, lavender, mauve and brown in what is considered a common, boring grey-green plant.

Which is partly why I have so missed the garden this winter. I miss the constant small surprises and delight that working in the garden brings.

 

Resurrection: Night and Day

Post 33

Resurrection: An easy, yet not easy concept to grasp.

What would it be like to be resurrected into a new life where everything was the same, but different. Different in a fully-embodied, liberated, amazing way, better than your best dream, on the edge of unimaginable.

What would the moment before resurrection be like?

What would death be like?

We do not, cannot know.

But life we can somewhat know.  And new life we can guess at, imagine, perhaps even experience for blessed instances within our present mortality. Instances that are an earnest of a greater, deeper reality from which we have come, and to which we go. Ancient poets have written of the tears in things, but sometimes I feel as if there is a greater happiness just beating within all things, just waiting for the joy that is theirs, and ours, truest inheritance of all.

HAPPY EASTER!

The Lenten Rose, or Slowly Lengthening into Spring

Post 27

Lent

Slowly lengthening into spring,

Warm-up days, cooled by night,

Dream for me that everything's

Just waiting now for new delight--

(what never was before its since,)

Hence here a brace of bawdy hints.

For what if all did best resolve,

Even past just human hope,

Could any really hope to cope

With the life they would evolve,

And bring a faith to resurrection

Beyond both fear and false projection?

 

Merry truth must think it strange

How easily perceptions change,

So as this Lent brings us the sun,

--Let's look to see how we have done.

               Flowers only thrive where Nature

         With the Gardener does concur,

When life bestirs us, Spirit proves us,

As we chose a better view.

Newly brought into the light...

Dearly bought, and eagerly sought,

Longingly and lovingly wrought,

Now here in time, by time begot.

---------------------------------------------------------------

How to Hellebore: The top two pictures are of Lenten rose, or Helleborus orientalis or hybrids of. The top picture is in my neighbor's yard, the second in my own. This plant, which eats semi-shade for breakfast and, once established, may be able to compete with your tree roots for water, comes in shades of red, burgundy, pink, white, greenishy-yellowey and a subtly spectacular greyed lavender slate.  It blooms, in a typical year, in March (and because the flowers are really septals, can persist through June.)  The old fashioned ones have hanging heads and therefore look good planted on a rise so you can look up towards them. These also reseed readily. Newer hybrids can be more upfacing. 

They need only some shade, decent soil of a moderate pH, and some water. The only care they need is to have a haircut in late winter-spring, when their evergreen leaves turn tawdry. Leave the flowers on the plant and watch the seed pods swell into summer. Soon you will have babies. This is a plant that can be expensive to buy but is so worth it. It is a doer that will not let you down.