Retrain Cascade rose over toward door canopy. Tie it to roof somehow?
Dig up thyme edges from around birdbath and spread, add to the front portal corner
Prune privets
Cut back and clean up sunflowers by garage
✓ Fertilized the blueberry with acid tone on 4/12
✓ Fertilized all pots and spring bloomers (clematis, columbines, irises) on 4/14
April 28
Bare Naked
The new ironwood, planted at the end of last summer, has yet to leaf out. Almost everything else has opened up or is starting to, and the mature ironwood by the guest room window is fully leafed out. But this prettily shaped tree is still bare.
And yet I do see leaf buds.
It's still only April and it's been mostly cold. And very cold at night, just above freezing or in the low 40s. So this immature tree will take its time. I can't wait to see it fully clothed. Soon, I hope.
April 27
Stone Family
Cold today and dreary. Yesterday I planted out the two red lambsears in the dining room window garden, next to two white Icicle veronicas that are still alive there. When done, there was still a big open space in the middle of the garden.
I moved the stone family over, plus another round white rock and plopped them all together in the open spot. Voila.
I turned the two smaller owl faces around since they both have lost a black button eye and look funny. Only the big owl has both eyes still. And behind them I added that round white rock to the grouping.
It's too difficult to keep plants going in this garden where cottonwood roots choke things out. And it's furthest from the hose, so a plant in pot is tedious to keep watered.
The stones are the perfect answer. Even though I am trying to stay away from too many cutesy decor items strewn about, this works.
With the stone family removed from the driveway strip, I need something with a little presence to replace where the stones were.
The yarrow right in the middle is big and bushy and will bloom nicely. There is a deep purple sage under the house number sign, but it hasn't shown up yet.
What to put there?
The sweet little ground cover veronicas have draped over the metal edge just as I wanted and they are blooming fully now.
The red Little Lanterns columbine is in bloom. This one clump under the Japanese maple is the biggest and showiest, although it's little and you have to be up close to see it.
There are several other clumps, even ones that spread themselves about, but they are all very tiny, impopssible to see.
The yellow Swallowtail columbines are just opening up.
The Japanese maple has leafed out in bright yellowy green foliage. And the tiny aronia under it and the one in the birdbath garden are just opening their delicate white flowers.
April 26
Look What We Came Back To
We returned from 8 days away in California to find the viburnum and the little redbud looking glorious.
Everything else looked fine, fuller and emerging more and more as we get into late April. I watered all the pots, returned them to their locations, and watered all the gardens thoroughly.
But . . . I did lose very single leaf on the hollyhocks by the rain barrel.
They had come up early and full before we left. I had marveled at how lush they were looking!
Every one is gone now, with stems sheared on the diagonal, which is evidence of rabbits. Dang.
Nothing else was touched.
The hollyhocks still have roots and bits of greenery below the soil level. They may regrow.
April 18
First Hummingbird Sighting
The morning we left for California we saw the first hummingbird. They've probably been around earlier than this, it's the 18th of April already. But it was the first time we saw one at the feeder, just before we left.
April 16
Eight Days Away
🌸 Just as the viburnum and the tulips and the crabapple are opening blooms, we are off to California for 8 days! I hope there are still blooms to be seen and others, when we return.
Fragrant! And the whole shrub is covered
💦 Irrigation is not on yet, but days are warm and sunny, dry and occasionally windy. It's a challenge to keep everything watered going into the growing season. A dry spring (in this case a completely rainless April) makes things look so stunted all summer, even once the irrigation and rains start.
🚰 So I hooked up the sprinkler system in the birdbath garden and the kitchen courtyard, and moved pots to be watered there. My roller plant stands help a lot getting the big pots over to the watering area.
🕙 It's a pain to get the system calibrated -- the timers are obtuse to set and the spray is fiddly to set for coverage of the right areas.
It's so much work -- can't I just go away for 8 days and let plants do their thing? Advice is to "water once a week" and it's still early in the season, some things are not even up yet. And yet . . . I have found that once a week is wholly inadequate here.
Within half a day of deep watering, the mulch dries out in the sun, and within two days there is no moisture left in the soil at all in the sunny gardens and where tree roots compete. None. Watering once a week means growing plants in 4 or 5 days of sun baked powder dry dirt.
So I set up awkward watering spots for my pots and for the sunnier gardens while away.
The afternoon before leaving I spent a couple hours -- it takes so long -- hand watering and soaking everything that isn't in the sprinkler spot to keep things moist at least the first few days we're gone, and then the soil will be dry for just half the time until our return.
For such a simple, tiny little courtyard garden and yard I have an awful lot of things to water in a lot of different places. It's too much, too diffuse, too fiddly and many plants are too small. Sheeeesh.
April 13
New Developments
Spring is full of surprises and new things.
The crabapple suddenly has tons of pink buds. It has completely leafed out and I thought there would be no flowers at all this year.
Another spring development:
The Sapphire Indigo bush clematis is growing like crazy in the turquoise pot in the corner of the patio.
It needs other plants around and under it to support its flopping bushy habit.
I finally decided to plant one of the little Texas betony plants that I've been growing in a pot (I just got two others from High Country Gardens that will go in the ground in the dining room window garden.)
It gets full and bushy, but may not grow as big in the pot (on the other hand, my plants do better in containers than they ever do in the ground.) Will it have enough room to do anything?
The nasturtiums are 'Glorious Gleam' heirloom and are red, apricot, yellow and salmon. Hmmm.
If all goes well, this will be a vivid and colorful accent in the corner of the patio. Mostly deep blue and red, but with some subtle pops of yellow and orange if the nasturtiums come up..
Will it be too crowded? I see containers all the time planted up densely and have always had trouble getting that look.
This will be an experiment.
I originally wanted a globe gomphrena in the pot with the sapphire clematis and I have one coming from Whiteflower Farm.
But instead of the turquoise pot with the clematis, I'll plant it out in the birdbath garden, next to or a little behind the bench.
And I ordered some 12 inch rolling dolly stands from Amazon, to put under the turquoise pot and the blueberry cement pot so I can more easily (I hope) roll them over toward my watering station when we go away.
The big pots are too heavy to lift.
April 12
Blue Fescues in Red Pots
I really liked the way the three blue grasses looked in red pots last year. I had them tucked in around the dining room window garden and I had them arranged for a while behind the red geraniums by the front door.
But they got too big for the pots by the end of the season.
I had fertilized them a lot and that made them showy all summer, but this spring they are root bound and congested haystack buns. They'll green up -- I am seeing a few green shoots and it's still way early -- but I decided to ditch them and start over with fresh plants.
I ordered three festuca 'Cool As Ice' from Bluestone Perennials. They are described as about the same size as my current 'Siskiyou Blue' so the look in the red pots will be similar.
April 11
This Didn't Quite Work
This plan really didn't work.
I ran into thick aspen roots inches below the soil and the main irrigation lines, too big to disrupt. So I did what I could, set them a few inches down, and piled up cedar mulch around them.
They aren't hidden in any way. Half the height of the pot sides show, even with a lot of mulch piled up as high as I could.
I am hoping as they fill out the fountainy fronds will sweep over the edges of the pots.
The one in the ground in the center is doing well, spreading and draping. But these two wouldn't grow, so they'll stay in pots.
I moved a couple Pow Wow white coneflowers, and I was able to finagle emitters into each pot.
Love the look, but not the edges of the pots showing. Let's hope they grow to flow over.
Eventually the nearby red twig dogwoods should fill the spaces where these pots are. Then I'll move them somewhere else and just have the one main clump with the dogwood shrubs flanking it.
April 9
Coates Treatment
Coates came today, after I e-mailed to ask about scheduling. But they did get here and fertilized everything. It makes a difference.
The technician was very nice, but I couldn't look as he trampled all my little emerging things. I know where they all are, but it isn't evident to anyone else and he clomped on them. They'll be fine.
Now, with this out of the way I can spread the rest of the mulch and set things up for spring the way I want.
April 5
Upright Juniper
It didn't last -- the weather today is warm enough, in the 50s, but very windy and overcast. Rain, some snow and colder temps are forecast over the weekend.
Lowe's has 5 gallon Gold Cone junipers that look great for $40. I already ordered a 5 gallon Blue Arrow Rocky Mountain juniper from Forestfarm to replace the more open and thready looking Skyrocket one that isn't doing it for me.
I was tempted -- Gold Cone would truly fit in this tight spot, at only 1 to 2 feet wide. But it's actually too densely stiff. I don't want the open look of what's there now, but I do want something more narrow yet fuller.
I think Blue Arrow is a more relaxed form. Greg's was nice and certainly denser than Skyrocket, but not so stiff as Gold Cone.
April 4
Lovely Weather
It won't last -- cold and dreary days are still ahead, but we've had some nice, almost summery sunny weather in the 60s. Hot even, while I was working outside.
I keep saying how slow I am and how little gets done. Recovery is non-existent, I stay tired and don't regenerate any energy after a little exertion in the garden.
And yet!
On these nice days I spread 7 bags of cedar mulch, 3 bags of compost / garden soil, dug up the 3 columbines from the potting bench curve and put them in the dining room garden, dug up the chamomile and put it in a pot in the brown urn, and generally schlepped and toted things around.
Whew.
March 31
Easter Weekend
Finally some nice warm weather, not too windy, sunny, got up to the mid 60s. I don't do much or do it very fast any more, and there is a lot of sitting and resting, but here's what got done:
- Cut back grasses (messy job but dry and clean, not too bad if no wind)
- Cut back the clematis (Sweet Summer Love was hard to disentangle from the Slinky)
- Cleaned up the lambsears
- Spread one full bag of mushroom compost in the potting bench curve
- Got 10 bags of dark cedar mulch from Payne's. Newman's was out of the small bark I've been using and doesn't expect any for weeks.
- Moved the brown rock from the center of the kitchen courtyard to the driveway corner & replaced with a low turquoise bowl (will put crocosmias in it)
- Pulled up anemone runners -- they are spreading everywhere!
- Watered a lot -- about 150 gallons. Not everything, but soaked the dining room window garden, kitchen garden , birdbath garden and under the aspens. Light rain expected at the end of the weekend, but little accumulation forecast.
March 29
Every Other Year
Does the Sugar Tyme crabapple truly bloom only every other year? Really? It did not have a single bud or bloom in 2022, then flowered spectacularly in 2023. This year in 2024 there is not a bud to be seen and the leaves are coming out.
The even years are non-flowering?
It's not that I need to wait a couple weeks to see flowers develop, it's obvious there are no buds on the branches, only leaves unfurling.
It's not cold temps or adverse conditions that are blighting the blossoms, there just aren't any buds at all.
I did research the first year this happened in 2022, and there is nothing to indicate this variety of crabapple blooms in alternate years. And the flowering was so heavy last year, it's clear there isn't a disease problem affecting its health.
It's just on its own weird schedule.
March 28
Plants Arrived
My High Country Gardens order arrived today, awfully early in the season. I need to wait another month or more before I do anything with them.
In prior years I ordered this plant and got tiny dormant plants that looked waterlogged. I babied them and saw some bits of life, eventually planted the tiny things out, and lost them all.
These look really robust and ready to be planted.
(The two blackfoot daisies gave up the ghost. They were very tiny and shriveled when they came, and then they died out within days. Fortunately mine out at the corner of the driveway are spreading.)
The Little Lemon dwarf goldenrod is the only plant in the order that is dormant and came with a tag "I'm sleeping". But there's greenery and it's coming up.
It only gets to 14 inches high, a very compact little plant, although the flowers look a little wild and rangy on it.
I have no idea where. It will be about a foot tall and wide and blooms in early summer.
Maybe it will live in a pot and be moved about the garden? Don't know yet.
I unboxed everything and set the 5 inch pots on the patio tables, but the day is windy and brightly sunny. Not cold, it's in the high 50s, but the wind makes it cool.
I should bring these little pots in overnight, even though it won't quite be below freezing.
March 25
This Felt Good
Jeronimo's crew came today and cleaned up all the leaves that had lingered on the ground all winter. It snowed the day he was supposed to come in early December, and then it snowed again when he was supposed to come earlier in March, but finally today it got done.
It feels so good to get the gardens all cleaned up. I still need to cut back the grasses, but will wait for warmer weather. It's been a cold and gray spring -- it snowed but didn't stick yesterday and today is all of 39 degrees for a high. The rain and snow bring good moisture for the soil, but it's a grim and chilly season so far.
And yet greenery is showing at ground level. Tulips are coming up. I was anxious to get the smothering leaves off of the emerging plants sooner rather than later, so that's done.
Now Coates has to come to fertilize -- still waiting on that. Last year they came March 14.
March 16
Rock Stream and Waterfall
Here's an idea: fill the downsloping gray gravel area between the mulched birdbath garden and the flagstone walkway with river rocks, ending in a little drop off that mimics a waterfall.
At the waterfall, arrange some boulders to contain the drop, and then position the rocks to look like a swirl. I love this idea.
Could I carry this off?
February 24
Creeping Thyme
The Pink Chintz thyme has spread under the birdbath and I can dig some of it up around the spreading edges and redistribute it to patchy areas. There's enough to transplant some to the corner of the front portal where the red rock edging doesn't meet the corner.
That spot has always been unresolved, and I had a brown pot there for a while. If I add a tiny curve from the edging to the corner it ties together. The pink flowers in spring will go with the vivid blue ajuga and perhaps might be in bloom still when the pink Dark Towers penstemons come out.
February 21
Impulse Buys
I want to edit down my gardens, and don't need new perennials anywhere. But I impulse bought a few from High Country Gardens.
The additional red flowered lambsears will be kept in pots. I only have one, possibly two of these pretty plants that are growing well. The others I tried all died as tiny transplants. I'll grow these on for a season or two and then see where to put them.
October Daphne sedum will replace the Neon sedum in the driveway strip. It will arch over the edge, and when I grew it in CT I liked it. It's not so garish bright as the sedum there now.
Electric Blue penstemon is tiny, very bright blue. Just an experiment. No idea whereto put it.
The dwarf goldenrod is similar to the little one at the front door. I'll put this one in the birdbath garden, maybe replace the Little Bunny grass that hasn't grown at all.
Or, plant it in the kitchen courtyard to replace the declining (short lived) chamomile?)
February 18
Skyrocket Juniper
I'm not happy with the skyrocket juniper by the fence. I thought Skyrocket was synonymous with Blue Arrow, and would be very blue and very narrow and densely upright.
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| ⌃ This is what I have vs. . . . . what I thought it would look like |
But I did note in my plant profile that the images I found were all over the place, and Skyrocket appeared wider and a different shape than Blue Arrow.
I like having something solid to look at out the bedroom slider door, and I like how a tree there complements the metal peacock and brown urn in a composed threesome framed by the slider.
It has a good tall leader and is gaining some height, but it is sparse and unbranched on the back side. I am tying some of the rear branches over to the vine on the fence
He took them out when they got too bushy and put in very narrow, tall Taylor junipers. (I think the skinny limbed-up dense juniper leaning by my garage door is a Taylor juniperus scopularum, by the way.)
In the years the Blue Arrow junipers were growing in his garden they looked nothing like my spindly, wide Skyrocket.
I only have seven feet from the fence to the deck to work with, and I still want to walk by between the deck and the tree.
The spot at my vine covered fence is a focal point from inside the bedroom and when you enter from the gate looking down the yard toward the deck.
It needs a stronger, more attractive accent there.
February 7
Plant Orders
I wanted to go to the gym or out for a walk today, I'm feeling so stiff and really need exercise.
I even got dressed to go to the gym, but then it snowed, sleeted a bit and on top of that my cough is lingering and annoying to anyone around me and exhausting physically.
Here's my Whiteflower Farm order, all annuals.
> A red gomphrena to go in the pot in the corner of the patio, with the Sapphire Indigo bush clematis.
That combination worked well last year, and the gomphrena is just a sturdy, eye catching plant.
> Three tobacco plants for the pot behind the deck, just as last year.
> A blue angelonia for a pot somewhere.
The angelonias I planted in ground near the white irises didn't do well at all last year, but one in a pot should be fine.
> And a white Tidal Wave petunia for the urn in front.
Supposed to be massive and cascading, which it won't be in my small pot inside the urn, but we'll see.
January 31
January Ends
The final few days of January have been cool, in the 50s, but with a warm sun and still air.
Perfect for finally cleaning up. I cut back perennials. although it was hard with all the uncleared leaves dumped all over them. We need to get those leaves blown and raked up early this spring.
I left the grasses, they look good, and I love seeing the 'Blonde Ambition' grass at the foot of the 'Sweet Summer Love' clematis on the iron shepherd's crook. It's nice seen from the kitchen window.
More cold is coming, it's still midwinter, but these last days of January have been lovely to be outside.
January 28
Warm Up
Finally! Some warmer afternoons, with the next four days forecast to be in the mid 50s. With some sun, that's nice. I want to get outside and cut back the raggedy perennials I did not get to last fall.
Today I did cut back the slender lavender stalks in the front triangle, and I cleaned up the goldenrod stalks that had laid down in a mess in the gravel by the front door. The stalks were largely frozen to the ground, but I managed to clean it up. It had looked so messy and ugly right at the front walk.
More to cut down in the back and on the side.
January 13
New Ironwood
Still very cold, unrelenting temps below freezing for the whole first part of January. A couple snowstorms left icy patches but it was pretty while it snowed.
I'm loving how the new little 'Vanessa' parrotia draws the eye and offers something elegant and bright to look at from inside the house on a cold day.
It is a lovely anchor offset in that small flat open area in front of the fence. I like seeing it from inside my bedroom sliders too. It brings the eye forward from the dense brown fence and punctuates the open square so nicely.
January 7
Cold Siege
The entire second week of January is forecast to be frigid -- no daytime high gets above freezing for the next 10 days.
I have yet to clean up and cut down the perennials and our landscaper Jeronimo never came to get the leaves up. Winter came too quickly. Everything is covered in a frigid blanket of wet leaves piled up all around.
The rain barrel never got emptied and is now a frozen block.
This is the effect of El Niño I think.