Yesterday The Sun Stopped By To Play

"Hello my friend!" it called to me! Nothing was going to stop me from enjoying the morning....not even the 36F temperature. It felt so much warmer to my sun starved spirit. So, I headed out there to do what gardeners do on warm days...
Get their hands good and dirty.


Visiting the shed, I noticed a box of bulbs that didn't get planted last fall when my hand couldn't lift anything. Crocus, tulips and alliums~and not your inexpensive big box ones, either! Some of the bulbs had developed sprouts and wonderful roots. The alliums were smelling very oniony~but, into the garden they went; planted at the feet of the monarda. A former gardenblogger told me that they produce sulphur that keep monardas from mildewing~it's worth the try!


Chances are the newly planted bulbs won't bloom this spring and there's an even bigger chance they won't ever bloom! It doesn't matter, digging in the garden soil, more then makes up for any lack of flower.


I did take the camera, but managed just a few shots...I couldn't make myself leave digging and expanding the Susans' bed to run to The Garden of Benign Neglect where I left it sitting on the patio table. The smell and feel of the earth was wonderful, a tonic for any gardener. I was careful to dig with my left hand and gently planted the tulips, creating a little stream along the edge. In my imagination, they are in full bloom. If they don't flower, that's exactly where I'll plant them next fall.



It was delicious out there.


The birds serenaded me as I went about my day.

They are always in the garden, but they begin to sing louder as the days get longer and warmer. Yesterday, they were celebrating in every corner and what a joyous symphony of sounds.



My spirits were lifted.



Then the sun set in that marvelous way it has in the winter, lighting the trees to a golden reddish hue, as it sank behind the hills that surround my little part of the garden.

Did I mention that it was delicious out there?

I hope it was for you, too!

Gail

Of Course Your Mind's On Your Garden!

'Diane' Hamamelis x intermedia
March 2, 2010

So is mine ... I've adopted a wait and see plan of action. I'm curious to see the effects of extreme weather on the garden. We've had a surprisingly long and cold winter. Our gardens don't have a warm blanket of snow to protect the plants from the winds and roller coaster temperature extremes that a Middle South garden experiences. They are mulched with a thick covering of leaves but, I expect some loss and damage from the recent arctic blasts that have made this the coldest winter in thirty years.

We had snow, but it doesn't last long

Add to that, record breaking rains last fall and you have a look into the whys and where fores of my "wait and see plan of action."

The Garden of Benign Neglect is looking very brown,
even the evergreens are looking beaten up!

Our usual sunny and mild October weather was rocked by torrential rains that went on and on!

Heterotheca Villosa 'Ruth Baumgardner'
a gift from Frances, of Fairegarden

I am prone to hyperbole, but torrential is the right word. We had 18 inches of rain in three weeks. The pounding rain mushed many of the fall blooms, washed off the pollen and nectar that late visiting pollinators need and compacted the already challenged clay soil. The native x-asters rebounded nicely but, a few of the stalwarts of fall were done for. The best news is that Tennessee and all of the Southeastern US is no longer in a drought.***


Thank goodness for an indomitable gardening spirit~Although, I don't think I've been my usual optimistic, glass is half full person of late. I apologize for that~it's a simple case of Garden Deprivation Syndrome. Please, a cue to the violinist to start playing something sad and mournful... It's been over 5 months since I've been able to dig in the dirt. Hand, rain, snow and cold have conspired to keep me out of the garden for this long! Usually, we have milder winters and there are many opportunities to get your hands dirty planting a few perennials and bulbs. But, not this winter. Cue to end the music.

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

I'm especially curious to see how the xeric plants made it through the fall rains and wet winter. In the best of C&L circumstances they had a 50/50 chance to survive our wet winters. No matter how often the soil is amended~ drainage continues to be an issue in this heavy clay soil. There are beautiful plants that can take these conditions...native cedar glade plants love it. Surprisingly, non native species tulips come back year after year. Both, love the dry summers and can survive the winter rains.

T. turkestanica

But, xeric plants, not so much!


Salvias, agastaches and even gaura exerted their powerful siren call and seemed a good plan for our hot and dry summers. After a trip to Chicago for Spring Fling and a tour of the Lurie Garden, I was hooked on another 'Please don't let my feet stay wet' plant. So I bought 5 small plants.

Geum triflorum/Prairie Smoke
Lurie Gardens June 2009

Now tell me the truth! Could you resist that pretty face?

In the meantime, it's wait and see if they made it through the weather and then, we'll wait and see what 2010 throws at us. Predictions are that our summers will be hotter and dryer and our winters wetter.* Looks like even more cedar glade natives will be moving in the garden~

Gail




* Tennessee Assessing The Cost Of Climate Change
***Much of the world is still experiencing drought

March Muse Day

Crows
Mary Oliver

From a single grain they have multiplied.
When you look in the eyes of one
you have seen them all.

At the edges of highways
they pick up limp things.
They are anything but refined.

Or they fly out over the the corn
like pellets of black fire,
like overloads.

Crow is crow, you say.
What else is there to say?
Drive down any road,

take a train or an airplane
across the world, leave
your old life behind,

die and be born again--
wherever you arrive
they'll be there first,

glossy and rowdy
and indistinguishable.
The deep muscle of the world.

Please join host Carolyn Gail, An artist and garden designer who dishes the dirt on gardening in the Windy City at her blog Sweet Home and Garden Chicago for other Muse Day offerings.

I hope that you all had a sweet weekend.

Gail