A couple of weeks ago I talked about removing the variegated Vinca major that had been taking over the stream. There was a second part to that project that I actually tackled a week ago but just never got around to posting about.
The common grackle is a bird I have a love/hate relationship with. First, I think they're beautiful birds -- the males especially with their iridescent heads and big yellow eyes:
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| From Wikipedia. Link here. |
What makes bamboo such a fun plant to grow is the expectation: how many shoots will you get this year? how fat will they be? where will they come up?
I want to jump ahead a couple of months into summer because the pond is progressing slowly right now. Still, I guess things are happening.
If you've been reading my blog for a while, you're probably familiar with the finch nest. It's been a regular feature of my front porch for three years now, two broods a year. I posted about this the first year, then last year too, and then earlier this spring in the infamous bird rescue board post.
My spring-flowering bulb plantings would have to be considered a success by almost any measure. I planted them so late last fall -- after all of the bulbs were on clearance -- that I was concerned that they wouldn't have enough time to establish. The mild winter gave them a break though, and it seems like all of the bulbs bloomed.
One of the sights I returned to after my recent trip (besides the knee-high lawn) was the ninebark.
For the past several weeks I've been doing little jobs in the garden. Moving pots out of the garage, potting up new plants, weeding, dragging potted bamboos around, cutting down last year's dead growth, pruning -- you know, gardening.
Here's a riddle for you: what do you get when you start with a lawn that needs a mowing, watch it rain for three days straight, leave town for the good part of a week, then watch it pour down rain again the day after you return?
When a cardboard box arrives on the front porch at my house in the spring, there's a good chance it's going to contain plants.
If you are like me, the garden can never progress fast enough. Plants take forever to grow and fill in, vegetables don't ripen as quickly as I want them too, and seeds -- well, they just take forever to emerge and start growing.
I've recently realized that the three different ferns I have...
Yesterday was my Garden Bloggers Bloom Day post, and today brings us another popular meme: Foliage Follow-up! Experienced gardeners know that although flowers get all of the attention, it's foliage that really makes the garden, so Pam over at Digging started this meme to help give greenery the attention it deserves.
It's the 15th, which means it's time for Garden Bloggers Bloom Day -- a meme I participate in a few times a year when I actually pay attention to the calendar and have some flower pix to post.
As I've noted before, this year I've been visiting the Schlafly Gardenworks -- a large (to me) urban garden just outside the St. Louis city limits in "historic" Maplewood. As the gardeners there are 95% focused on growing food, I thought I'd pick up some tips on getting my veggie garden producing this year. Three years of disappointing harvests motivated me, and I remade my veggie beds earlier this year, got the cool season plant seeds in the ground early, and things are looking pretty good.
I started collecting photos a week ago for a post I was going to call "emergence" -- it was going to show all of the things that are bursting out in my garden, out of the soil, out of the branches of deciduous trees.
One of my first experiences with "easy to propagate" plants in the garden was variegated Vinca major. This plant arrived in a hanging basket, and eventually got planted in the yard at the base of one of the large raised beds I built years ago.
Spring is an exciting time for all gardeners, but for those of us who grow temperate bamboos it's extra special, as it's when most of the species send out their new growth: it's bamboo shooting season!
You know that I really enjoy trading plants with other gardeners. I did it several times last year, and this year I've already received a few packages, some more spiny than others. This one was a little different though.
I've been doing a little bit of work in and around the pond -- so have the toads apparently.
A quick look at grassy views in my garden this Easter morning.
If you asked me what plant I had the most "extras" of, it may take me a minute to think about it, but the answer would probably be Agastache foeniculum. Besides having it growing in half a dozen places on purpose, it's also popping up everywhere -- including the mulch around my neighbor's tree.
A month or so ago I remade my veggie beds. Again. For the second year in a row.
Remember those innocent-looking brown paper bags full of dangerously prickly plants? The ones I got in a plant trade a couple of weeks ago?
The pond has already been teaching me interesting things; surprising me in many ways.
With all of the different methods of springtime planting I've been doing: seeds, tubers, bulbs, replanting stored rootballs, it's the wait to see if a plant forms that is exciting. Exciting but also nerve-wracking, as until I see the greenery poking though the soil I wonder what's going on under there. Is there enough moisture to get things growing? Is there too much, with the seeds or tubers rotting? Are temperatures too low -- or more fittingly for us this year with highs for the last couple days around 90ºF (32ºC) -- too high?
Like many gardeners, I've been starting plants from seed indoors over the past 4-6 weeks. Today they got their first taste of sunlight.
If you were reading my blog in the fall you may remember me talking about elephant ear tubers. I've grown various elephant ear varieties, and used various overwintering strategies. I've left them in pots in the garage, dug up the tubers and stored them dry, kept small plants alive inside under lights -- trying to find the strategy that involves the least effort on my part but allows me to have as many of these plants as I want come spring.
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