Each Little World

More of the same

Yet another day of cloudy, cold and wet weather. Still can't play in the garden but oh, the greens are gorgeous!

New frits

Aren't these Fritillaria nigra dramatic? I wouldn't know. For the second year in a row the rabbits got to them before they ever had a chance to bloom. As soon as that happened I put wire cages around two groups of Fritillaries that were making an appearance in the garden this month.

I planted Fritillaria pallidiflora last fall for the first time. They feature large pale yellow bells, dangling from foot-tall stems above ribbed gray-green leaves. Odyssey Bulbs, where I got them, says they "provide one of the highlights of the April shade garden" and I have to agree. Supposedly they also self-sow which will be a lovely bonus and they're hardy to Zone 3 — another bonus. 

The number of flowers per stem ranged from one to four. They have marvelous pointed corners and a softly checkered interior which you can just glimpse on the exterior of the petals.

I planted Fritillaria thunbergii in the fall of 2015 but it did not make an appearance until this spring. It turns out to be well-worth waiting for with ivory-green checkered flowers that nod from 18-inch tall whorled-leaved stems. Odyssey Bulbs says this is one of the best Frits for naturalizing and I believe it looking at the clump that's come up. Zone 5.

These two Fritillaries are both lovely but their color is so similar that I think I may try to move them further away from each other or perhaps just add something else to provide a bit of contrast. Can't wait until they start to colonize. That would be a definite thrill!

Dividing the waterlilies and more

In theory our pond should get an annual cleaning to remove all the leaves and debris that fall into it throughout the year. Along with that task, we should also divide and repot the waterlilies as they are fast growers. But both are such big projects we tend to put them off.

This spring when Mark started the job we realized it had been at least two — and perhaps three — years since we'd last done it. And when I say we, I actually mean HE and usually he gets a pal to help out. (The pond is down the slope to the right of Mark).

Mark began by setting up a work station in the former moss garden which is only partly replanted. He then emptied the pond part way so he could find the containers of waterlilies. They are a heavy sodden mess to carry and to work with. 

He discard old tubers, extraneous roots and gunk. 

He made quite a pile of debris and all of it had to stay on one side of the pink tape which we'd put up to mark off where ferns and other things were planted and starting to appear. 

He filled a large tub with plants, covered them with water, put screening over it all and a few rocks to keep the critter from pulling the wire off. The lilies stayed this way for a week or so before Mark repotted them. We've never done that before so we are hoping it all works out.

The next chore was cleaning the pond itself and I was the "guy" who helped Mark with this task when his original helper got sick. Mark donned chest-high rubber waders and rubber gloves that came up his arms past his elbows. He filled those big white plastic buckets in the first picture with the pond sludge and then lined them up along the edge of the pond. I would grab a pair and haul them over to the marked area and dump them. Since we were both working on this project neither one of us thought to take photos of this stage of the process. 

As Mark got down to the bottom of the pond the debris was more concentrated and heavier and he had to fill the buckets according to my lifting abilities. This is where you really want a guy to help because I slowed the process down significantly. This shows the goop piled around Podophyllum 'Spotty Dotty.'

Buckets of discarded waterlilies, and darker pond goop piled up deeper and deeper as the days went on. 

A few days after these two projects were done Mark did have a hefty helper who raked this all up, put it into plastic bags and then Mark took it to the city's drop off site where they will turn it into compost. Now I'm raking up the last of the leaves and piling them on this spot to keep weeds from growing. Most of this debris dries to a thick almost impenetrable layer that nothing would grow through. We used to spread the thiner, slushier debris on the slope by the teahouse when it was under construction and nothing was planted there. After a number of years it created very nice soil.

Exactly how we will do this job in the future is unclear if I plant this area. The only way would be to clean the pond very late in the year or very early in the season before any plants are out of the ground. Either of those scenarios have Mark spending hours in very cold water which is not a great idea. We're hoping we'll come up with a solution before we have to do this chore again.

Pinks

To my eye Primroses are sweet flowers and never more so than when they are pink!

Toss in a Trout Lily (Erythronium albidum) and it almost makes my teeth hurt it's such a sugary scene.

 

First Peony blooms

Not long ago the Wisconsin Hardy Plant Society started a members' FB page where folks have been sharing photos of plants, asking questions and offering advice. The group also is offering informal workshops given by members on subjects like "Growing and Arranging Spring Cut Flowers" and "Expanding Your Shade Garden Palette." I thought it would be fun to do a workshop focusing on my early blooming woodland Peonies. However, our weather suggests they are going to bloom earlier than the date I picked for the event, May 11th! I came up with the date based on bloom times for the last nine years. We'll see how that works out.

Paeonia Mairei after it rained: Tuesday, April 11, 9:04 a.m.

The Peony pictured in this post is unlikely to have any flowers left by the time we meet. Since this is the first time it's bloomed for me, I have been taking pictures of its progress. I think I fell for these early peonies because there are so few shrubby plants with big flowers blooming this early in the season. They stand out in the garden in a way that more typical Memorial Day peonies do not.

Paeonia Mairei: Wednesday, April 18 at 8:58 a.m.

Peony Mairei is a Chinese peony discovered by Rene Maire in 1913. Hillside Nursery, where I bought it, said that it was the first to bloom in the spring. They were spot on. They also noted that the flowers start off dark pink and get lighter after opening. 

Paeonia Mairei: Wednesday, April 18 at 3:27 p.m.

In his book "The Gardener's Peony: Herbaceous and Tree Peonies," Martin Page says that in China they grow in deciduous broad-leaved forests to a height of 3.3 feet. Mine is growing under a 60+ years-old Austrian pine.  

Paeonia Mairei: Satursday, April 21 at 4:57 p.m.

The flowers close overnight and look like big soft raspberry marshmallows in the early morning.

Paeonia Mairei: Monday, April 24 at 8:43 a.m.

The leaves at this point are about 22 inches high with the tallest flower reaching 28 inches. The pictures below clearly show the flowers getting lighter as they open. 

Paeonia Mairei: Monday, April 24 at 11:58 a.m.

Hillside Nursery says they grow in part shade to shade and Martin Page says "protect from hot sunshine." The black walnut in my neighbor's garden that shaded my peony was cut down a couple of year's ago. Since this plant is now getting western sun, I bought a peony umbrella last year to protect it as need be. At the moment, however, the umbrella is rather jerry-rigged in order to get the proper angle to actually provide any shade. 

Paeonia Mairei: Tuesday, April 25 at 7:57 a.m.

The buds on Peonies japonica and obvata 'Alba' are just beginning to show a little color. Since rain is forecast beginning tomorrow through next Monday who knows when they may open.  

In a vase

Sunday morning a group of friends met to celebrate a milestone birthday for one of the members of our group. Then we went to Olbrich Botanical Gardens to enjoy a perfect spring morning. Brunch was fabulous and the gardens were looking gorgeous; in fact, they were thronged with families. I drove with the birthday girl and when she dropped me off at my house, I dug a clump of sessile Trilliums for her and gave her a bouquet of spring flowers from my garden that I'd picked earlier in the morning. I made one for myself when I made hers.

I decided all the yellow flowers in the garden deserved a yellow vase. I bought this little charmer back at Christmas at the Olbrich Growing Gifts Shop. I loved the idea of a different flower in each container. But I did not stop to think about the fact that they all needed to be filled separately. The other vases that I own that have multiple openings all share a large water reservoir. They are easy to fill and top up. I may need to get an eye-dropper to use to fill this new one!

But it was fun to use and it limited the amount of flowers I needed and the amount of work I had to do to create a display. The flowers include Epimedium versicolor 'Sulphureum' and E. pubigerum (white), Erythronium 'Pagoda', Helleborus x hybrida 'Sparkling Diamond', Hyacinthinus orientalis 'City of Haarlem', Narcissus 'Beersheba' and Primula veris. The leaves include Dicentra spectabilis 'Gold Heart', Epimedium, unknown Spirea and Euonymous.

Visit Cathy at Rambling in the Garden to see what others have put in their vase this morning! 

The parade begins

My first mail order plant — Eryngium giganteum 'Miss Wilmott's Ghost' (foreground below) — arrived yesterday afternoon even as I was getting an email that another order had just shipped. I hope last night's low temperature of 35 degrees F. ( -15 C. ) is the last one like that I'll see this Spring. I want to be able to plant things as they arrive without having to harden them off!

I don't expect 'Miss Wilmott' will do much this first year other than get settled into her home. But I hope that she looks as ghostly in my garden when she flowers the first time as she does in all her photographs. I guess time will tell. 

A present for the garden

Last week Mark spent a morning reducing the water level in the pond and pulling out containers of water lilies in preparation to repot them — something that we haven't done for a few years. At midday I suggested we go to Saigon Noodles for big bowls of Pho so Mark could warm up after his morning climbing in and out of the pond. After lunch he suggested we stop at Odana Antique Mall since we had to drive right by it on our way home. 

And look what we found! In one of the endless nooks and crannies we stumbled across this contemporary Chinese cement lantern. We snapped phone photos of it and took its measurements. Then we went home to decide if it would work in our garden. 

We made our decision using a technique that we've employed many times over the years. We made a model to size so we could see how it would look in place. Mark used the phone photo of the lantern to make a drawing of it on a piece of cardboard. He quickly sketched in the design details, cut it out and stapled it to a stake so we could stick it directly in the ground.  

Sometimes we walk around the garden sticking our cardboard model here and there until we find the perfect location. This time we liked the first spot we tried the cardboard lantern and so put the real thing quickly in its place. We wanted it visible from indoors and near the pond which is the traditional location for a lantern of this style.

This is a loose representation of a Yukimi or snow-viewing lantern. The roof on this kind of lantern is much broader than in other styles of Japanese lanterns. The term 'snow-viewing' refers to its resemblance to a bamboo hat with an accumulation of snow on the top. Though it's made of concrete, it is much darker and more subdued in tone than new lanterns. If we are lucky, lichens and moss will colonize it. Now I just need to clean up the dead garden debris that is detracting from the scene for it to be perfect.

 

Wednesday vignette

I've been growing this tiny Iris in my gardenfor ten years. Iris lacustris 'Alba' is a dwarf lake Iris native to the shores of Lakes Huron, Michigan and Superior and thus adapted to harsh and exposed growing condition. It typically grows in gravel — unlike its woodland relative I. cristata — and so that's where I planted mine. 

In the last few years moss has been spreading outward from the hard clay path into the Iris gravel. I may need to move the Iris as I don't think this much moist moss is going to be good for it. But I love the look!

In a vase on Monday: A day late

Note: I linked to Cathy at Rambling in the Garden but just discovered that I never actually posted my vase, so here it is!

. . .

I put this arrangement together earlier last week since it didn't look like there would be much in bloom for Easter. 

The small jug has Heuchera leaves that have spent the winter in vases on my kitchen windowsill along with a few stems of a dark Hibiscus. Rounding it out are cuttings from Spirea japonica 'Magic Carpet'.

The stems of Salix britznesis were another willow gift from the same gardening friend who gave me the pink Mt. Aso pussy willows. Both jugs are by local Wisconsin potter Mark Skudlarek.

At the opposite end of the room is a long table with traditional Easter decor.

On the top of an old card catalog from the public library is a grouping that has stayed in place for months. Periodically I add or remove something but mostly I leave it in place because it includes many favorite objects. 

The newest addition is this charming little bird vase by ceramicist Eric Bonnin. It was a gift for a recent milestone birthday from my best friend from college. It's holding an Erythronium leaf with two blooms from Pachysandra procumbens.

To see what other gardeners have put into vases today, visit Cathy at Rambling in the Garden who hosts this world-wide meme.