Losing your Mind While Gardening

 

Don't say I haven't been trying! It's Spring, the birds are singing, the sun is shining... and we've had nothing but incredibly strong, gusting wind for three straight days. If you dare to step outside, the wind knocks your hat off, takes your breadth away and destroys any impetus to do whatever it was that you went out to do.

 Like rake leaves? Ha! Three times I piled the leaves on my tarp and three times a bloody blast from Hell swept them up and sent them spilling all over the lawn. Reminds me of the stories of the Mistrals of France, where violent winds drive people crazy. I have an entire arms-length list of projects that are entirely on hold.

 And then the lawn men descended next door. These human locusts propel themselves back and forth over our neighbor's lawn creating a deafening roar. Only problem is that the lawn hasn't even begun to grow and what with that aforementioned wind there are clouds of dirt and dust. It now looks like a scene from The Grapes of Wrath out there.

 And to add the proverbial icing to the metaphorical cake, the air has been heavily scented with diesel fumes as one of the neighbor's kids is now driving an ancient diesel powered truck. He conscientiously allows it to warm up for fifteen or twenty minutes before driving off in a plume of acrid smoke. Typically, this coincides with my feeding my poor horses who are by now suffering from black lung, covered in dust and losing their minds due to that wind.

I'm staying inside until next month. Bye!!! (*1)

(*1) Yes! The tulips were all brought inside; they're supposed to be for Bob's birthday, but they were a bit early. Now they're exploding and shattering all over the house. We have multiple vases of them.

Already Waiting for Spring

 

I don't know about you, but I'm ready for spring.The days have been getting shorter and darker, I'm still in a state of continual re-adjustment to the time change and suddenly it's cold. But tell that to the above primroses. These flowers are usually a tell-tale sign that spring has arrived; these crazy plants seem to bloom all year long. It's November, it's 23 degrees over night and they're like, "Perfect weather!" The kicker is that they came from Stop and Shop or Shop Rite- yes, I guess the variety is Super Market Mix. I buy them (marked down, of course!) in February so as to have color in the house and then plant them outdoors when spring finally arrives. Originally I thought we'd get a season's flowers and then they'd die but boy did I get a tremendous surprise when they came back, year after year. Truly perennial! 

I've got quite a few of them now. Last year, they were blooming in the snow so go figure: they must be some new mutant variety dreamed up in some horticulturist's perverse lab. But they're pretty and cheap so you gotta love them!

Okay but the main reason for my post is that I finally planted all the bulbs I bought:

As I've said before, bulbs are great; if you plant them and if they don't come up, no big deal! No one knows you wasted your time and money on them... not like some fancy-pants, over-priced perennial that looks swell at the nursery but immediately withers and dies when installed in your garden. So I planned on obtaining some bulbs. I have a spot where I plant tulips every year and then yank them to plant annuals. (Most tulips being not-too-perennial but soooooo lovely!) While bob and I were in Vermont recently, switching out his remarkable sculptures, I requested that we visit the Bennington Home Depot to see if they had marked down bulbs. Yes they did! And good colors! So for 50% off, I got Pink Impression and a beautiful mix called "Pride" (purples and pinks and reds). Also a bag of deep blue hyacinths for the Blue Garden.

I didn't stop there, however. Enthused by my luck and lured by the sales from nurseries that filled up my email in-box, I ordered petite miniature daffodils (Jack Sprite and Tete-a-Tete) and aliums (Bulgaricum and Christophii) and more tulips! Just you wait 'til next spring! Our gardens are going to be jumping! (*1)

(*1) I was fortunate that I encountered several warm sunny days to stagger around our vast estate, pushing a wheel barrow full of assorted bulbs, looking for spots to tuck them all in. It wouldn't have been fun had it been as cold as it was this morning!

Cracks of Spring

 

I have been heartened recently by the sudden cracks of spring appearing in the world.  Yes, a new administration that doesn't embarrass us, a slowly returning sense of some decorum and peace but I mean this in a simpler way. The never-ending snows of February seem to be ending, we've experienced several 50 and 60 plus degree days and I even saw glimpses of lawn. Let's all utter a gigantic sigh of relief!

But wait; this morning on arising and letting little Robin the Good out the door, what did I spy!?!??! It's (gasp!) snowing again! Here, allow me to torture you with a picture:

Oh mercy! haven't we had enough?!?!? (I think you know my answer.) (Robin the Good was supposed to make a guest appearance but ran off way too quickly on some evil assignment of her own.)

I am being a tad melodramatic as it was a mere dusting and now what's falling from on high is simply a mix of rain and some freezing concoction, but can we just keep the sunny warm stuff going?

I was touring my Spring/Lilac/Daffodil Garden area yesterday and could feel the swellings of bulb noses waiting to erupt. And the lilacs definitely show burgeoning tips. They're ready too! The ground down there has warmed, the snow had (notice past tense) disappeared, and walking through this section of the yard was possible without sinking boot-high in crusty snow drifts. 

But I think I'll just keep looking at that hopeful begonia at the top of the page. It knows the light is changing. It's not quite ready to go outside and take it's chances but it senses better weather coming. Another sure sign that Spring is near is the horses beginning the months-long process of shedding their winter coats; my hand comes back from patting Neko coated in copper hairs. And the birds! the birds are singing a happier song!

Gardening Like There's No Tomorrow

So it's started: that mad scramble to buy, assemble and compose, feed, and plant. This part of Spring is so incredibly busy... that's MY excuse for not having posted sooner. I take my vocation as a "life style coach" VERY seriously and it's on me when I neglect my hungry followers. I apologize! But sometimes, living that heady, fast paced life style precludes the reporting on it.
So the picture at the top represents my initial foray into container planting. It's so much fun gathering all these colorful and seductive annuals and arranging for them to spend the summer together. Sometimes my head spins with the possibilities. Here's a shot of some of my raw material:

These are some of the plants I kept having to move out of my studio and back in every night when the weather was still chilly! It became quite the ordeal. Now I'm of the mindset that if we get a cold night- too bad! And that's only a fraction of what I've already planted.

Here's a shot of the amazing tulips that we obtained through our friend Hanneke who works at a tulip importer called ColorBlends. We can't say enough good things about their bulbs! Spectacular! So much better quality; the tulips and daffodils bloomed longer and were altogether bigger and more vibrant. Our Spring displays were amazing. Of course the irony is that few people got to see them as COVID 19 has put a cabosh on visitors!

Here's another tulip bed. These were inferior "Big Box" tulips and are already gone by. They also did not stand up well to the harsh weather and winds we experienced. I sound like an advertisement but boy there was a noticeable difference. I'm planting this bed in with cannas and zinnia linearis. That will be posted soon enough!

And Bob has been busy in the vegetable garden. We have been devouring salad after salad of wonderful delicate little greens.This is the same bed I featured in a previous posting. You can see how much these seedlings have grown. And take a look:

Bob meticulously transplants all those individual plants so they have room to grow. We eat the thinnings... I'm so lucky. Nothing I like better than tiny tender lettuce!
So forgive me if it's another few days before I post again; we're both busy in the great outdoors. We've also started grass seed in the horse field, mowed the lawn, Bob's planted his birthday present azalea (Delaware Valley White) and peonies (Festiva Maxima, Scarlett O'Hara and Do Tell) in a completely new display garden by the driveway. That way, when people pick up their metal plant supports (mostly peony rings!) they can see his work in action. It looks terrific! No wonder we're tired!

Earth Day!

(This post was going up yesterday but some ghost in the machine wouldn't let me add pictures!)

Happy Earth Day! I guess our present to the Earth has been diminished travel by airplane and car and decreased factory production leading to an all around cleaner environment. Something good had to come out of COVID 19! We're all breathing better if we've been fortunate enough to NOT contract Corona Virus.
But Earth Day dawned majorly cold and windy so quick strolls sufficed for any outdoor celebration. My one big effort yesterday was mixing organic Holly Tone with a wheelbarrow full of compost and applying this to the rhododendrons. I hope they enjoy as they're covered in buds and need nourishment! But I also had to yell (yes, YELL!!) at "the dog" (otherwise known as Robin the Good (ha!) who liked the smell of the Holly Tone and wanted to try and eat it. I hate to yell at (or otherwise reprimand Robin- who can generally do no wrong) but I was so afraid she'd get sick.
So here are pictures of all the lovely white daffodils, surrounded by vinca:

 

I couldn't be happier with my Spring Garden! The lilacs are all budded- even the small ones. Even in the midst of pandemics (you will notice that I haven't mentioned that mess) I am trying to be upbeat, happy and yes! "positive" in this time of plague and pestilence. Again, I stress how lucky Bob and I are that we have a yard and an outside to run around in.

Also, I continue to acknowledge how lucky we are that we both have studios. I've been creating up a storm... well, a few of my new works allude to  the COVID 19 pandemic and how fucked up things are in general...Here's a quick view of two pieces in progress in Atelier Rita:

This one is tacked/pinned together as I arrange the words and get the spacing right. I wanted the text to read as sort of Philip Guston-inspired*(1) lumpy, exhausted schlumpy words. Bob astutely noticed that some of the letters resembled poop emojis *(2). Hahahahaha! I like that as a reference! Remember when "Our Fair Leader" (otherwise known as "The Orange Menace") said that we'd be "so tired of winning"?  Well, somebody better tell him that I am!
And I'm also playing with this beauty:

Yes, "Thoughts and Prayers", another one of those ineffectual "sounds nice but does nothing" hollow sentiments that needs to be retired fast. I actually think they may have stopped intoning this after every mass shooting as that became insulting pretty fucking quickly! I'm working white on white because I felt that summed up the "hard to see how this makes a difference" theme visually. I'm going to be spending the next three weeks of my life embellishing this with equally white beads. Keeps me out of trouble! *(3) *(4)


*(1) A "typical Philip Guston looking Philip Guston.
 

  *(2) In case you missed poop emojis somewhere along the line.

 

*(3) Boy do I like foot-noting my blog posts!
*(4) And why did my formatting go hay wire?!??!

Not Ready For Cold Weather!!

Not very thrilling, huh? To you it may look simply like an empty plastic bucket, but to me it signals victory. I did it: I planted the three million daffodil and tulip bulbs I "accidentally" ordered!
The "accident" part is a somewhat amusing story of friends collaborating on an order and a few substitutions later, I wind up with a lot of bulbs. I had anticipated the spots I had marked in my Lilac Border would be sufficient for the thirty or so white daffodil bulbs I intended to plant. Believe me, I got varieties that I'm certain will be marvelous, but I had to dig quite a few more holes and prepare an entire new area. Suffice it to say that next year's garden is going to be spectacular. I am eagerly awaiting the vernal appearance of "Snowboard", "Frosty Snow", "Thalia", and "Starry Night"- and that's just the daffodils! (These, of course, are to compliment the "Ice Follies", "Mount Hood", "Thalia" and "Barrett Browning already in place!)
I was fortunate that despite a couple of rainy days (read downpours) that impeded my planting, (along with several art-related events that I was frantically preparing for) it was relatively mild and I was able to get everyone buried before the snows fly. Yes, it is expected to rain and then snow today, in direct contrast to yesterday's benevolent 60 degree weather. I'm for sure not prepared for that! It was nice to plant in reasonable temperatures; typically, I am a "cheap date" and I purchase my bulbs marked down at home improvement centers in late November and flirt with frostbite while planting in sleet and worse. The things we endure for next year's garden!
So here's a more fantastical scene:

That's my garden helper and all around shadow Robin the Good adorning our bedazzled stairway. She looked so sweet when I took the picture, but the carpet looked so dingy that I had to improve on it. Robin thoroughly enjoys helping in the garden and keeps me in good spirits when my energy flags. (Believe me, removing the sod from another area was not what I originally anticipated!) Robin is sneaky, though, and steals gloves, empty plastic perennial pots and generally anything not weighted down in the wheelbarrow. Some help!
Anyway, everybody's planted and I'm ready for some serious indoor activity. (My mosaic project is regrettably on hold until next spring as cement isn't happy in cold weather.) My studio awaits!

Good Fences and Neighbors- Again!

I was so excited to get this project underway that I plum forgot to take pictures or document it until too late! But see all that nice new fencing? Five whole panels (at 8 feet a panel that's an additional 40 feet of coverage!) that weren't there yesterday morning...
Last week, I announced to Bob that I was considering hiring our good friend Joe to assist me in erecting more fencing. Bob eagerly seconded my idea as he has been super busy with metalwork orders and he knew how anxious I was to get this fence section completed. It is right next to my famous Lilac and Shrub Departments... new additions as of the last couple of years, and in need of a bit of privacy. I felt exposed and self-conscious while gardening down there; sometimes I'm covered from head to toe in mud (or worse!) and wearing my gardening clothes- short hand for my weirdest and most expendable outfits... ripped, torn, and filthy. So I was sparing our neighbors (very nice people) from the cringe worthy spectacle of the soiled, cursing crazy lady lurching around and stumbling over half unearthed tree stumps and poison ivy brambles.*

Even my daffodils look happier now that they are a bit more protected!
So Joe cheerfully agreed to meet me for for a day of digging, nailing, hauling and hoisting fun. He arrived at 9:00 and we lugged drill, extension cords, shovels, crow bars, electric chain saw, fence sections and saw horses into place only to realize there was a bit more "clearing" that needed doing before we set up any fence. It took us a good hour to chop, saw and haul trees, wild rose bushes, barberry and scrubby choke cherry growth away. And then we were ready to start the actual joy of post hole digging. Our soil is reliably rocky...
At some point early in our efforts, we required a ladder so that Joe- despite being heroically taller than myself- could pound the posts in. (In a moment of engineering brilliance, he thought to sharpen the ends of the posts so that they would drive in more easily) I went to Bob's studio and requested a ladder and Bob helpfully asked "how many sections we had gotten up". Hahaha! He was surprised- and concerned- when I said, "None!" I think he thought we'd never get on with the job.
But we did! By coffee time (typically about 3:00 or 3:30) we were well on our way and had completed the job by 5:00. It looks great! Even our neighbor next door suggested that we needn't have put the "good side" of the fence towards them; I'm sure they're glad to be spared my weird hijinks and wardrobe crimes AND they get the "good side" of the fence! Deal! Good neighbors!

*Additionally, we no longer have to stare at their dozen or so parked cars and snow mobiles.

World's Tallest Amaryllis!

Just when I had despaired that our purchased amaryllis bulb had decided not to bloom (and we were stuck with figuring out what to do with a couple of strappy leaves and no flower) our friend Bob (one of many Bobs) gave us another bulb. This one was already promising to flower...
It's really out done itself. As you can see in the picture, it's a full 36" tall (that's a yard stick next to it) and has four large siren-like blossoms. AND it had another bud stalk rising form the pot!

It has made me so happy to see color and leaves as outside remains grey/tan/brown and bleak. It is a bit warmer (not over night!) and things are beginning to grow (not fast enough for me!). I guess Spring will officially arrive. I'm so eager to see how all those tulip and daffodil bulbs did.* And the lilacs! My infatuation with lilacs continues: I already have a short list of ones I need to find this year, like "Monge" and Charles Joly" and "Katherine Havermeyer". I guess this keeps me going when it still seems like warmth and flowers are so far away.

* I am a bit concerned as it's been so damned wet, and then we had a sheet of ice with water sort of trapped underneath. I'm afraid some of the bulbs may have rotted as they prefer a drier situation.

Our Own Little Botanical Garden

Hahahahaha! See? We've got dandelions! We didn't see too many of these at the New York Botanical Garden, but they probably were there as they seem to have loads of everything that grows. And it was humbling: coming back from touring over 400 acres (or some such hard to comprehend number), and seeing the modest patch of ground that you spent all summer digging wild roses, assorted brambles, rocks and small trees out of (not to mention battling seriously entrenched poison ivy) to plant a modest batch of daffodils and vinca...
But I don't have a staff of a hundred. There's just me and the dog (Hi Lil' Robin!) and occasionally Bob (when a rock or tree is just too much!). And I am thrilled with my efforts to produce a spring garden. The lilacs- although young- are in bud and the predominately white daffodils are in full bloom thanks to the rain and warm weather.

That's Mount Hood- spectacular when full out as they just get whiter and whiter and more imposing...

No wonder this variety has been in cultivation since the 1920's!
And here's "Barrett Browning", which has a nifty orange center but is a creamy white:

 

And then there's "Ice Follies", which is especially cheerful...

And "Geranium" is starting to come out and looks sort of cosmic and cluster-y (these are all new and exciting to me as I had never planted daffodils! I think you can tell...) and "Misty Glen" and "Thalia" are later still so I still have plenty of spring flowers to enjoy. Hey! I waited all winter for this extravaganza to erupt!
The only perplexing aspect to all this loveliness is that the daffodils- to a one- insist on facing toward the sun and you have to walk on the lower path to enjoy them; from the upper side, they've all turned their backs on you. I never considered this when planting. Oh well...

*And there is some foolishness going on with the blogger site! For four days, I couldn't even access my blog account and then I was entirely unable to upload any more pictures. Probably those pesky Russians or the evil rethuglicans!

Spring Break!

Bob and I took a short but well deserved trip to the New York Botanical Garden today. We went to deliver more of Bob's fabulous metal work to the garden shop there, but they give us passes so we spend the day wandering around in a state of horticultural bliss. The weather cooperated handsomely and we got thoroughly oxygenated and made new friends. That's me with a new friend in the picture above. I have always had a soft spot for those tall narrow conifers...

Another fine fellow with a curious question mark of a top.

Look at that one! Bob spotted this charmer off in the distance. You have to laugh at some of these specimens. Here's another one:

Sort of a scrappy fellow! But it's surrounded- and honestly upstaged- by the lovely daffodils blooming behind it. There are daffodils everywhere. And entire hillside blanketed by what must really be a million blooming all at once. It smells intoxicating, too.

Here's a variety I particularly liked. It's apparently a very old type called "Seagull" (I guess you could have just read the tag...) that I'll be looking to add to my lilac/daffodil collection this fall. I did develop a real hankering for those white narcissus...
And look at this:

There are these amazing, magnificent blooming cherry trees all over the Botanical Garden. Huge old specimens with gnarly trunks and weeping over rocks; it's quite breath taking.
We had a fun and relaxing day and managed to get only minorly lost on our way home.

There's a Garden Under There Somewhere!

I started cleaning up the garden this afternoon. So late in the season! Sometimes, by the very beginning of March, all the beds are raked and expectant. However, this winter will not leave and it's late. I got two beds cleaned; perennials and tall grasses cut down, leaves removed... just a rough, first clean up. It was overcast and not especially warm, but I needed to be outside.

Here's the initial tarp filling up. That's the hard part, dragging it all away into the woods. Somethings can be composted, but this debris is full of sticks and grasses and tough oak leaves. they take a while to break down. It's better to just dispose of them in the woods.

Maggie looked unimpressed but Robin was eager to jump into the middle of my leaf piles and chew on twigs. Very helpful! It's hard to believe that we have had Robin the Good in our lives for a little over two years. She's still really hard to photograph; as I lift the camera thinking she looks particularly cute, she immediately moves her head...

And what's that white stuff? I am ignoring the right hand side of the garden. The glacier is receding  but there's still too much snow for my liking. I'm ignoring it! But wait! There's more!

It's going to be a while before I get to clean up the Long Border. It's still buried. But I have plenty to do on the left side of the yard. And there are tulips emerging! And daffodils! There will be a garden after all!.

End of Season and Looking to Spring

One of the last flowers of the season! And although we haven't had a hard frost and we haven't been able to officially celebrate our non-anniversary, the few flowers that remain are getting weaker and paler... except for these crazy morning glories! They seem to be in their element. The color is spectacular and they're dribbling and sprawling all over the vegetable garden gates.

And while Bob has reminded me that I said I was "done planting" (whatever that means!) I did manage to score a couple more types of white daffodils and narcissus for that newly planted spring blooming area. I have already planted "Barrett Browning", "Misty Glen", "Thalia" and "Ice Follies", I was eager to snatch up "Mount Hood " and "Poeticus" on sale at an Agway. That new area is going to really be a treat in the spring, as I have lamented the lack of much of anything going on early in the season at The BauHaus Chicken Coop. Next year should bring a lovely explosion of white daffodils, assorted lilacs and an under planting of vinca. I gives me something to look forward to, even if "they" are predicting a relatively mild winter.

Surprise!

Bob received an early birthday gift from me. For the past three years, I've been meaning to get a Star Magnolia for Bob as he'd expressed his admiration for these trees every spring. But come his actual birthday, the trees were past bloom so when I'd confront them at garden centers, they'd be played out grey sticks- none too impressive as a present! This year, we encountered a magnolia in full bloom near a store and I ran out the next day to a nursery and bought the little tree above. We know exactly where it's going to go.

And that leads to the thanks that are overdue to our friend Tina who last year divided some of her daffodils and delivered a 5 gallon container full of bulbs to yours truly. Tina has been collecting and planting daffodils for years and has an amazing display on their back hillside- every color and petal arrangement and sepal to corona ratio is represented. It's really exceptional at this time of year. So I dutifully planted all the bulbs given... not easy as our soil is like rock and gravel until dug up and amended. But they're coming up! I'm certain that with passing years, they'll thicken up (I planted them in clusters of 5 or 6) and will only get better. But it's a start on springtime magnificence!

And that reminds me that I totally forgot (a lot on my mind and very short of time!) to mention one possible reason my delphinium seedlings did so well... could have been the generous doses of raw manure! I purchased a few delphinium for Balleck's Nursery in East Haddam last year. They do have pretty fabulous Delphinium; bigger and more bumptious than most nurseries. Anita Balleck, the probably 90 year old proprietor started talking Delphinium with me. She told me a story about seeing tremendous delphinium at some famous garden in England. Like acres of seven foot tall blue monsters. The next time she was there, the Delphinium were past, and there were two men with a tractor and a trailer full of raw pig shit. They were shoveling and pouring this hot, stinking mess right around all those Delphinium, which were wallowing in it and eating it all up. So she maintained that's where good Delphinium start: a whole lot of shit. Bob ladled the horse manure on last fall ( I guess we have Crisco the Stallion to thank for that!) and looks like a big success this spring. (Bottles courtesy of our white wine drinking friends, with whom we trade manure for rocks).