Sure it's almost seed starting time here, and my growing table in the basement is going to be packed with seed flats soon, but there's other stuff going on too.
It's the time of year when everybody has finished looking back at 2012 and started looking at 2013's garden, or what it might be. Ordering seeds (almost time to start them!), making plans.
Remember the other weekend when I moved the mulch pile, all 64 wheelbarrow loads of it? As I got to the bottom of the pile, I started hitting a lot of branches, and a few logs that must have been thrown into the truck at the end of the day.
As I've said before I can't pass by a seed packet display without giving it a look, but I rarely look at the top row of seeds. The other day I did though, and saw this:
Sometime earlier this winter I got a surprise. Not the bad sort of surprise either, as this one made me smile.
Speaking of emerging blooms, what better way to give you a nice taste of the onrushing spring than some nice, cut flowers?
Remember the Amarylis bulbs I talked about a few weeks ago? They're almost ready to bloom.
A couple of weeks ago before the warm spell I noticed a few deer in the yard one morning. (It's important to realize that they're out there every day, but I don't always look at the right times.) They were hanging around the frozen pond, perhaps hoping to find a drink.
Winter has been relatively mild so far -- not as much as last year though -- but spring fever still hits pretty hard. The end of January is when I start yearning for some greenery, color, fragrance, new growth. The bamboo in the garden helps, but it's not quite the same. It's time for a recharge...
I wasn't planning on doing a lot of mulching this weekend, but the unannounced delivery of the wood chips changed my plans.
When I'm at Home Depot, I always check the garden department. This usually leads to disappointment at this time of year, as outdoors there are few plants. Indoors there is usually a decent collection of houseplants though, along with some sad cactus displays.
Even though I live in suburban St. Louis in a fully residential neighborhood, the terrain required the builders 40 years ago to leave fairly substantial amounts of undeveloped "common ground. I have a narrow strip of this behind my house, but there are larger sections nearby -- the reason we have so much daily deer traffic. The residents who have common ground behind their homes often use the "woods" to dump their yard waste: mainly leaves and sticks. I promote this practice, as those materials quickly break down and certainly don't cause any problems.
Notice anything different or interesting about the following image?
I've fed birds in my yard for years. Usually I have two types of feeders up year-round: a traditional one that contains a mix of sunflower seeds and other "songbird" type seeds, and finch feeders that contain Nyjer ("thistle") seed. (I add hummingbird feeders in the warm months too of course.)
As you've seen and read about me before, I'm not a "clean everything out of the garden as soon as it turns brown" kind of gardener. No, I'm more of a "wait until the last possible minute before getting things ready for spring" guy for sure. That means that seeds stay on plants for a long time, probably longer than they should. But the birds appreciate it to some extent, and I like volunteer plants.
The bamboo that is growing outside my kitchen window has been bothering me since May or so. It's got this one culm that bends outside of the main clump, taunting me with its individuality.
I know there are places where moss grows year-round or almost so, where it actually becomes a nuisance, just another "weed". Around here though winter marks the start of what I call "moss season", because under the snow (sometimes) and cold damp those patches of moss are starting to come into their own.
On my walk the other day I took photos not just of the terrible trees, but of the nice ones too. I love deciduous trees in winter, as you get to see their branching structure so much more clearly. Some of them are really magnificent too.
The mild weather this week got me out of the house and back on my mid-day walk -- at least for a few days. I often see interesting or beautiful things on these walks and wish I had my camera, but hate to be encumbered while I ambulate. I did remember to bring my small camera with me one day this week though.
We're in the middle of a warm spell in St. Louis right now, with temperatures in the 40's F a few days ago, steadily climbing to 64ºF (17ºC) by tomorrow. It smells like spring, and the pond ice is melting.
As I've already mentioned, I've been doing some mulching lately. One thing I've learned this year is that when you get a load of good mulch dumped into your truck on a snowy day, you get dirty. Or as two of my neighbors remarked, "filthy" (as in the phrase "why is your truck so filthy?")
I don't know about you, but seed packet displays always get me excited. The logical side of me thinks that it's much too early in the year for these to be put out and wants to walk past without stopping, but the emotional side of me shouts loudly enough that I always stop.
As I mentioned yesterday about my visit to Schlafly Gardenworks this weekend, we all got to take home bags of aged manure.
Yesterday was the first Saturday of the month, and that means a visit to Schalfly Gardenworks.
The pond continues to be a source of inspiration and fascination for me. Recently the ice was clear, but a little warm spell followed by some snow and another hard freeze changed that.
Yesterday I asked about creating better drainage in clay soils, and I got quite a few suggestions (although I'm not yet certain what I'll do). Today I have another problem that I'd like some opinions on: transplanting.
Like most gardeners, one of the things that I do during winter is make plans for next season's garden. Although most of the plans don't happen or take a couple of years to go from planning stages to actuality, I do it every year anyway. Sometimes the plans are straightforward and I know exactly what I want to do, like "build a small deck next to the pond". For other projects though, there are a lot of question marks.
One of the best things about a little snow on barren ground is seeing the tracks that are left by various creatures.
Just quick but heartfelt wishes for a year full of adventure, discovery, and happiness! (Hopefully lots of gardening too of course.)
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