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.