Some Things Should Not Be Rushed

Morning coffee, hosta unfurling their eyes, the bloom of tulips, the blossoms of a crabapple, childhood...

Some things should not be rushed.

Creeping phlox

Portion of the long border

Basket of gold and white tulips in front of stone cairn; I still can't decide if the basket of gold alyssum I grew from seed is a weed or a decent garden plant, Hiding in the background is a try of tiny hostas I grew from seed, because I had to start growing something and was still pretty much bedridden.  Thing is, now I don't know what to do with them!

Large blue hosta, maybe Blue Angel or Big Daddy

The front garden bed, usually filled with hosta by now

This year, I think cutting back and removing shrubs, roses, and other herbaceous perennials are also on that list.  The temperatures have shot up to almost 90 degrees (F) a couple days in a row and that is putting done to tulips and making the lilacs pop.  (I got into my car yesterday and the dashboard temperature gauge read 102 degrees!)

The warm temperatures and delayed spring have made my crabapples leaf out and bloom simultaneously, sort of hiding the show.  Rushed...

Some things do not look particularly healthy.  I hate to say it, but my grass is one, I usually have a pretty nice lawn, which is actually more garden path and gets incidentally watered from the borders.  Some lawns around here have sort of died out because of the drought of 2012 and the winter kill this past winter.  I suppose I should count myself lucky.

Given what the plants in my yard look like, as I walk around, I have come to the realization that this year's theme should be to improve the health of the plants in the yard and the soil they grow in.  I am going to be particularly fussy with ensuring plants get watered before they are stressed.  I am going to add some compost rather than mulch this year to my beds, and I am going to fertilize my lawn.  It might be a short growing season.  (Rushed, again...) Plants need to store up the sugars in their root systems.  If they don't, and we have a repeat of last winter, anything that hesitated to break dormancy this year will certainly be dead next year.

Gardening has taught me some degree of patience.  as I look around my yard and count the things I have grown from seed or from a cutting, I realize, I cannot buy this landscape in a big box store.  That was very apparent, last summer in the Garden Walk process, when visitors to my yard asked where I got this or that.  I have things that can not be simply bought.

Gardening is a process.  It evolves slowly.  It is not rushed.