Shrub Border Part II

And to reinforce just how much work (and fun!) I experience when creating a new border, here's a partial pile of the rocks I unearthed! Single-handedly wrenched from this stony, unforgiving New England soil. (Stirring images of doughty pioneer women...And I did get just a touch of poison ivy.)

Here's the pile of brambles I chopped, yanked, pulled and sawed down. I think I really needed to see my hard work documented...
And while I was busy hauling and planting and watering, all this other stuff was erupting:
                                                                            

Tulips! That transformed from yellow to orange and were simply super. (Sorry my picture placement is all wonky. As usual- because of that blasted Mercury retrograde or a virus, our computer is behaving oddly. Actually, I think it's still something to do with that upgrade to Windows 10...)

That's not the greatest picture but it looks really super in person... less empty space!  Robin is skulking away in the back ground; she probably stole something from me, like a perennial pot or a glove. Very sneaky! Tonight while I was planting the pansies a friend gave us (thank you Bob!), Robin stole my watering bottle, three (empty) annual packs and tried to wrestle the hose to the ground as if it were a giant Anaconda- she's very helpful!
Additionally, the sand cherry is blooming like never before and the Magnolia is still in bloom. It's really been a pretty spring. I am just beginning to feel a bit swamped (Jeremy Swamped that is) because I need to get started planting seeds and there are already weeds. No rest for the wicked!

Shrub Border!

I should have taken a picture of this before I cleaned it up! It was a tangled mess of small saplings, rose brambles, barberry and just a general thicket of invasives and undesirables. There is probably a handsome case of "contact dermatitis" awaiting me, as I'm sure some of the vines I ripped out are slowly awakening poison ivy! Oh well...
I've been planning on creating a new shrub area for some time. Bob and I have collected a number of lilac suckers from several friends and we (spontaneously) purchased a shrub or two thinking of the future. Bob also had a few small flowering trees from my sister Beatrice having enrolled him in the Arbor Day Foundation. Those were healed into the vegetable garden and have grown impressively, making for a harder transplantation than we originally anticipated. The crab apple especially seems to have liked where it was residing and put up a fight at being moved.

Doesn't look that big but it resisted being dug up! There were a couple of dogwoods, too. One I planted out near a variegated dogwood we purchased last year. The digging in that area was so hard and it got to be late in the afternoon, so I put the other dogwood in the new shrub border. Sometimes, the path of least resistance is awfully appealing!

So it make look just like my shadow on a spot of earth, but there's a hole there waiting for a new resident. I dug and ripped and raked and dug some more- I spent the entire day outside, installing this new section of the garden. It's going to be nice, once we get the fence moved and put a new gate up at the end of a sort of natural path that leads through this former wilderness. Hey: we have friends who are down sizing and getting all happy about not having lawns to mow or gardens to weed. I just keep developing new gardens...
But look what the competition is!

We made a trip to the New York Botanic Garden last week, to deliver Bob's metal work that they sell in the shop there. (One of the horticulturalists said to Bob, "You're famous! Everyone wants your metal work!" That was cool.) But wandering around their 250 acres of trees, shrubs, perennials, bulbs and millions of specimens makes me so envious. Look at those flowering cherries above! And literally a zillion daffodils! Yikes. It was awe inspiring, but I hate to think of how many gardeners they employ. Back here at home, we only have me and Bob and Robin.

Bring Me A Shrubbery! (In The Miserable Month of May)

Well, today is beautiful, but I'm thinking the last few days. Saturday was so rainy and cold that I couldn't even consider planting any of the things that are languishing in pots. All of the flowers on my petunias and nicotiana are rotting off an look like frozen kleenex. I feel badly for garden center owners; it's Memorial Day and you're supposed to have everyone out buying and planting and it's the "safe planting" no frost date and it's miserable. But at least we didn't get snow like upper New York state! I'd move.
So I spent the day in my studio, which was refreshing. My whole studio, as pictured in the corner above, is full of plants hunkering down indoors and seedlings and things awaiting their germination. It's crowded but oxygen enriched. (That was supposed to be a photo of the pieces I'm at work on but I can't find them so I'll re-shoot and make that my next posting.) Between Bob and myself, we start many things from seed.
Today is really nice, so after I finish this I'll go back out and plant some more things. I got a couple of containers started (One needs major chunkiness; it looked too delicate for such a massive container.) I have a few more containers to adorn our deck with.
And then there's all the other perennials and things to plant... and lust after.
Have I mentioned that I am a complete plant addict? I cannot pass a nursery or garden center with stopping and most likely purchasing something. Yesterday, in my own form of botanical porn, I snapped pictures of things I'm currently pining for (pun intended as they're primarily evergreens.)

I want one of these. Yellow or gold, delicate needles... And one of these:

Tall and columnar and narrow. Like Juniper "Sky Pencil" (great name!). Even tighter column would be better. I have need of extreme verticality.
It occurred to me early this spring that I've truly never been able to plant permanent things like shrubs and trees.  And there are holes in my borders (and my life!) Big, empty dirty spots in my garden, singing out for truly year round interest.It was as if I suddenly understood what all those things at nurseries were, in larger pots beyond the annuals and perennials. Now I wander between them, coveting them all.
Look at these beauties:

So powder blue it's almost white! With little cones! Oooooohhh!
And look at these spruce! Like mumps!

Woooooooooooooooooooooooooooo! Now I have to go take a cold shower! Thank Dog my birthday is coming up in July...