Each Little World

No confusion here

I remember the very first time I was able to identify an emerging plant by its barely visible foliage. It was a big leap forward in my gardening confidence. These days I have a bad habit of moving plants around at the end of the summer.  I am glad, therefore, that some plants are so identifiable from the get-go that I don't have to waste any time or energy wondering what's what at this time of year.

. . .

Hepaticas tend to look like a pile of dryer lint caught in garden debris as they emerge. 

Every Primula has foliage that is distinct as it emerges. This is P. kisoana which functions as a ground cover in my garden. 

Primula japonica gets long leaves and pretty much works as a foliage plant most of the year for me. 

It was a thrill to find the Digitalis/foxgove seedlings that I transplanted last autumn.

First up and last down are the Geranium macrorrhizum. 

Dicentra cucullaria (Dutchman's breeches) looks delicate but is a tough plant that spreads where it wants to; as an ephemeral that's not really a problem. One plant, purchased 20 years ago, is all over my garden in sweet swaths. 

Iris cristata snakes around to create a problem-free ground cover. I love the way it looks now, giving no clue to its appearance at bloom time. 

Lilium martagon zooms up early and doesn't let cold or snow slow it down. 

Luckily this one still had its tag. I knew what I had planted here in 2018, even if I could not remember its name or recall seeing it come up in this dramatic fashion last spring. Euphorbia paulustris, a plant that can have its roots in water, which is exactly what this is doing adjacent to the upper pool.

Being able to go out in the garden to see what has appeared or changed overnight, makes it much easier to be excited about getting up in the morning these days.

IVOM: Snowdrops

For the first time, I've had a few actual groups of snowdrops; enough that one can see them without being nose to the ground. This is the wonderful G. 'Magnet.' The flower swings from the long pedicle in the breeze.

It turned out that I have enough varieties to put a different one in each little vase; though some are good sized clumps and others are only a few stems. 

G. nivalis 'Viridipice' has green tips while G. Dionysus is a double; it has fewer inner segments than others in the Greatorex series (info only snowdrop nerds care about).

A pair of G. 'Magnet' snowdrops about to take flight, with G. woronowii — with its big fat leaf — below. In the garden, even a small clump of this variety makes a statement because of the size of its glossy foliage.

G. 'Dionysus' (left) and G. nivalis 'Flore Pleno' are distinctly different double varieties, both in color and number of petals. 

Given all the bad news surrounding us, it is a treat to be able to find such small pleasures in the garden.

Bags and buds

I have been working in the garden on days when it has been warm enough to do it comfortably; that means anything above 39F°. Mostly I have been picking up the dread Honey Locust seed pods and cutting back Epimedium foliage. I've trimmed some of the Hellebore leaves, but they are easier to do anytime, compared to the Epimediums which need attention before those delicate flower stems emerge. 

Here's the same Epimedium bed as above but after cleanup below. I picked up all the pods as they decompose very slowly. I did, however, chop a lot of the Epimedium foliage off in ribbons to let it act as mulch. We no longer buy mulch because of the jumping worms. 

Here's a reminder of how dense the cover of Locust pods are in the spring if they don't get picked up in autumn. These are further along the path where it changes from the cut stone (above) to pine needles. 

This is the bed next to the path in the image above. At the moment it is hard to see the difference between the two areas. You need pretty strong plants to push through this mess.

We've given up composting except for household scraps, because we generate more than we are able to deal with in a reasonable amount of space. A number of times during the year, Mark loads his pickup truck with bags of yard debris. The bags on the right side are debris that never made it to the drop-off site last autumn due to our early snowfall. The bags on the left are pine needles raked up from friends' gardens that will be used to refresh the paths next month. 

I have filled about 8 big contractor bags with pods and general garden debris so far this spring. I tend to group them around the garden as I work; then ask Mark to move them for me. 

But this year our system is not going to work. The other day, I checked online to be sure the city was still operating the drop off sites due to the virus. It indicated they were open, so we were good to go. The next day — before we even had a chance to load the truck — they shut them down until further notice. So everywhere you look in the garden, there is debris.

And more debris. We are going to have to try to put it on the grassy edge of our front garden for the city to pick up and haul away. 

I went right out Monday morning and started moving most of this debris out to the curb when I saw the city crew pick up on the opposite of our street. Here is our first attempt to getting rid of garden waste this way. There are still a few bags from the fall left to deal with and I filled another bag with pods Monday after I got all this piled by the curb. But I felt good at getting this project started.

I will feel even better when the city takes it away. Maybe they will do it soon enough that the bulbs underneath it all will still manage to push out and bloom. 

Winter or spring, day or night

Mark captured the in-between seasons look of the garden on a walkabout Sunday afternoon. He's been doing a lot of black and white in recent months, including a class on B/W film developing and printing. 

A note of normalcy

At 5:43 p.m. Friday afternoon, our pair of Mallard ducks flew in. Fred and Ethel, as we call them, typically appear the minute our pond is iced out enough for them to land. This is the 22nd year they have visited our garden.

Given the typical life expectancy of ducks which are not in captivity, this is probably not our original pair. Since we did not "band" them, there is no way of knowing for sure. 

But we prefer to think that they are our first Fred and Ethel, behaving as though the world was its normal, old self.

The first day of the rest of our dramatically changed lives . . .

I have a friend whose birthday is on Friday, the 13th; it's always been an upbeat date for me as a result. Though last Friday was less so than usual.

For starters, we stayed home from UW Health/Sports Medicine/Fitness Center aka our gym. All classes were cancelled as of Friday and the gym suggested that anyone over 60 years of age (us!) should stay home. Given that it is a space filled with seniors, it is going to be very quiet for the foreseeable future. 

We spent the morning keeping up with the news and all the local cancellation notices. Then we went outdoors. Mark walked and took photos while I stayed in the garden, raking and doing initial cutting back as spring seems to be upon us. 

I took a stack of books off suspended holds at the library, so I will be set for reading material. Sent for an absentee ballot for the spring election and bought some flowers to raise our spirits. Yes, I did pick the flowers to go with Mark's 1982 painting of the corner of Park St. and West Wash. It's a big piece and has been languishing in the basement for enough years that it was time to let it shine again. 

Stay safe, stay healthy.

An entertaining garden

Winter in Wisconsin is glaringly bright and snowy or drearily brown. Thus I saved all my images from visits to local gardens last summer to share this winter. Members of the Wisconsin Hardy Plant Society open their gardens in the late afternoon and evening for members to stop by. Many of these are scheduled in advance with a number of gardens in near neighborhoods. Lately members are also sending out broadcast emails for impromptu tours.

These images are from a 2019 early season visit to an urban garden surrounding a beautiful older home on Madison's east side. You know you are in for a treat when the garage sports such a beautiful door — with a large piece of art above it!

Every inch of available space along the driveway was planted and there were containers of foliage and flowers all through the space.

A a woman who collects china and garden tools, I was smitten with all the displays on the back of the house and around the deck. Old brass hose nozzles had pride of place on this windowsill while a shelf was built especially to display these little china flower baskets. 

A vine-covered lattice wall decorated with plates screens the dining area from the neighboring house which is quite close by. You can see it is so early in the season that the vine is just starting to leaf out. 

 

The size of this tree trunk shouts that this is mostly a shade garden!

This view shows more pots and troughs on the deck as well as long curtains that screen out the neighbors. A lovely garden and a perfect spot for entertaining. 

June in the garden

Though it's June and tomorrow is GBBD, my garden is on the cusp of the next great flowering with foliage center stage at the moment. I walked around the garden last evening, enjoying the lushness the rainy spring has brought us, not missing the flowers at all. This is the backside of the slope that is crowned with the Tea House.  

A few steps to the right and you can see the Martagon lilies nearing their bloom time. 

Just past the Tea House is the upper pool with Tricyrtis hirta 'Lightning Strike'.

Adjacent to the Tricyrtis is Rosa glauca, Paeonia japonica and Thelypteris noveboracensis, the New York fern. 

Go past the Austrian pine tree and look back to the Tea House across the upper pool which is now hidden.

The first Thalictrum to bloom is 'Black Stockings'.

The opposite side of the pool from the Tricyrtis. 

This Rodgersia was planted in front of a huge rock which has shifted over the years. It is now half over the crown of the plant but it just curls out from under the rock into this huge specimen each spring.

This is the backside of the view in the fifth photo. 

This area is so full of mature plants, that this spring I put our big ceramic pot on the stump from a tree that came down in a winter storm a few years ago. It was slowly being buried in foliage. 

Aquilegia 'Black Barlow' is one of the few columbines I grow. I let it seed anywhere it wants, so it is always a surprise to me.

The last Peony to bloom is 'Soft Salmon Joy'.

Though we had our share of winter damage, you'd hardly know it looking at these images.

Still hanging around

Yesterday's high was 80°F (26.66 C.). Today it is only going to get up to 61°F. (16.11 C.). I am not complaining as it is raining and the garden looks lovely. This long cool spring has made ephemerals last and last. The big surprise has been Arum italicum 'Ghost'. This is a beautiful foliage plant with white patterns on long, arrowhead-shaped green leaves.

It arrives in my garden in late autumn when the weather cools down and lasts until it warms up in late spring. Our rainy and cool weather has kept it going and growing longer than usual.

Long enough, in fact, that it has sent up two hood-shaped spathes. In the center is a club-shaped spadix.

This rarely happens in my garden so it was a thrill to discover them as I strolled around the garden the other evening. They are reminiscent of Jack-in-the-Pulpit. They will get similar large reddish-orange seeds in the autumn.

Arum is a poisonous plant but I have not had any rashes or problems with it. Plus we don't have children or pets in the garden so that has not been an issue either. In the Pacific Northwest, Arum is apparently on their invasive plant list. In my garden it has been a very slow grower and has not spread.

The merry month of May

Despite what seemed like a lot of cool gray days and 6.21 inches of rain, the garden has been glorious for most of May. One last look before we turn the page to June. 

Paeonia 'Nosegay' is a beauty inside and out (above and below). Not much fragrance but she still makes me swoon.

Geranium macrorrhizum 'Spessart' just started to bloom.

The foliage of Clematis alpina 'Stolwijk Gold' is shockingly bright.

Its blue flowers with a creamy yellow center make for one of the more dramatic moments in the garden. 

I've taken clumps off the edges of this Trillium grandiflorum over the years and they all were star performers this spring. 

Our 'Tina' crabapple. After I took this photo, Mark came along and cleaned up and raked the gravel. 

Tiarella cordifolia 'Running Tapestry' has been in my garden since 1998. It is one of the few Tiarellas that is a running variety and will make significant patches of flowers without being invasive in any way. 

Primula japonica 'Apple Blossom'

Primula japonica 

I am trying to take more wide views of the garden beds as well as close-ups so I can remember if there are any holes or problems to remedy as the season progresses.

I always think I will remember where ephemerals are planted and it is not true! This is one corner of The Sacred Grove. 

Across the path is the other half of the Grove. The black hole is a new Cotinus with a dark ceramic pot sitting on a tree stump behind it. 

The photo below shows the view to the right of the Digitalis in the photo above.

The Wild Time Garden is a mass of Geranium macrorrhizum just beginning to bloom. I intended to call this area the "Wild Thyme Banke" in a nod to Shakespeare; but its name was changed when I realized people tended to throw their beer cans or McDonald's debris out their car windows into the Geraniums.