Iberis

Good Morning, sweet Iberis.

You are the whitest flower I know of!

If I ever start a new garden

you are coming with me.

Daylily Affliction

Not a pretty picture, but neither was my last one of an old sock I found while turning the compost. Last year a few of my daylilies looked like this in May. A garden center was able to diagnosis it as Spring Sickness, which affects the daylily and is usually not fatal. The leaves may appear ragged, discolored, with holes. Some fans will have distorted leaves turning inward. Unaffected fans should do well. A cause has not yet been determined, but extensive research is beginning to point to a mite- not good news. See http://web.ncf.ca/ah748/sstf.html. It is discouraging to find this again this year, but I still hope to post a pretty picture of the daylily bed when it is in bloom. Without a definite assignable cause, there is no cure, so I'll just hope. My blog's intention is to share the challenges as well as the joys. I'm not Debbie Downer, so look for prettier pictures in coming posts. Oh, let me leave on a happy note. I saw a little tiny fern frond emerging, which is the Japanese Fern I feared I had lost (blog entry "Taking Attendance.")

Note to Hank

Hank, I know you are loathe to throw out old clothes, but you can't compost your old socks.

Saving the Heuchera

Last year I planted a Plum Pudding Heuchera. Each time I stepped off the back porch the first thing I could see was the singed leaves of this plant. Disturbing. I suspected it needed more shade, but I gave it a year to slough off the "transplant trauma" excuse. Yesterday I determined that it truly needed a more sheltered spot. I divided the plant into five smaller ones and scattered them about to more promising locations. What you see above is one fifth of that heuchera, complete with singed leaf. This one I placed near my Helleborus Royal Strains. The combination is easy on my eyes. I hope the Heuchera grows quickly to fill in its new space. Immaturity is a recurring theme in this young garden, but I can be patient. The Helleborus is the first of my perennials to bloom each year. I first discovered it 12 years ago when I spent a week-end with Emily for "Mom's Week-end" at St. Mary's in South Bend. And so I have two reasons to love it, don't I?

Taking Attendance

Even before the snow has completely receded from the garden I start my ritual of "taking attendance." Each day in April I take my pencil and clipboard with garden maps outside to see what perennials survived the winter conditions to greet me in the Spring. I try not to be too aggressive, but in my enthusiasm I poke down a bit with my weeder to find the tiniest bit of green to proclaim SURVIVAL. If I see no sign of life, a tiny question mark is entered at that spot on the map, in hopes that I'll be able to erase it in another few days. Thanks to excellent snow cover, this year has had the fewest losses ever. So few that I can itemize them here. Pictured is Flax Linum. The picture should show a bare spot. Had two, lost two. Not surprising. They are fragile little things who sometimes imagines themselves to be annuals. Easy to replace with a $4.39 pot, and I will. I put in a Mertensia (Virginia Bluebell) last year and it caved in to whatever condition I failed to provide. I won't replace that until I can figure out how to right the wrong. One Platycodon made it, the other didn't. But my most sorrowful loss was a Japanese Painted Fern given to me by a dear friend who moved to Tucson and asked me to be the guardian of this plant from her garden. I haven't given up. It was on the cold North side near the last of the snow. Tomorrow will find me out there again, poking with my weeder for a sign of its life. I hope I can erase that little question mark.......and tell my friend her gift is safe with me.

First Nursery Trip 2011

Winter evenings by the fire are made for dreaming about the next year's garden. Rainy spring afternoons are for gathering winter's notes and making a "shopping list" of plants that need to be tried, tucked in, or replaced. Early Spring days are for top-dressing with organic material, fertilizing perennials, shrubs and small trees. Finally comes the reward of all of these efforts - that glorious first trip to a nursery; the garden is ready to receive some special choices. Today was the day! I shouldn't have announced last Fall that I did so many divisions that I really wouldn't have many things to buy this Spring. Because the inevitable happens - gardening magazines, lectures, tips from friends, and the fever starts. But I will say that in this third year of my upstate NY garden, the list is smaller, more selective. Nurseries are less likely to have what I'm looking for and the "hunt" becomes more challenging, yet more fun. I set out with a list of four or five special plants to look for. Geranium "Splish-Splash," Astilbe "Milk n' Honey, Euphorbia First Blush, and Campanula "Blue Waterfalls." The nursery I chose had none of the above. I know, I'm jumping on the season a bit early. But I did find two replacements that did not winter over for me. I also found a Ruby Star Echinacea that was on my mental list. And I caved in to the geum which was on no list at all.