And More Rain, April Showers?

I took off the top 1 1/2 feet of the Japanese cypress, but the bottom which look looked a bit green, is looking browner.  Not the way this is supposed to go.

There was five minutes of sunshine today tucked in amongst all those little black rain clouds.  I took advantage of the sunshine to drag my trash to the curb and bundle the prunings Handsome Son did on my katsura over the weekend, and dragged them to my car and drove them the scant distance to the curb.  It sounds lazy, but moving me and anything else any distance, well it doesn't happen fast and I get tired.

I then decided to plant a few more sweet peas anywhere I have trellising and a rose or clematis hasn't started to bud up.  I noticed my alyssum has self-seeded along the curve of tulips.  I also noticed buds or shoots coming on four of my 11 clematis, so far.  Still crossing my fingers on those.  My William Baffin climbing rose and rugosa alba have buds, nothing yet on the John Cabot, Eden, Knockouts, or Blaze.

Most of the peonies have tips showing, along with a woody shoot from the ground on the Japanese 'Hanakisoi'.  I planted it deep, so although it is grafted to the tuberous type this is definitely an herbaceous stem.  I might not have any blooms this year, but the root is alive.  On a pricey, and hard to find cultivar such as this, it makes me happy to no end.

I have radishes coming up and it appears my primed and pelleted spinach seed has germinated.  So far, no shimmer of green on privet, which structurally would be quite a loss in my garden.  The forsythia is alive, but I think euonymus fortunei is not. The forsythia will probably not bloom this year, either.  That's two years in a row.

Yesterday, I drove to Oshkosh.  Everywhere whole foundation plantings of yew (taxus densiforma) are dead.  Many arborvitae are dead as well.  This is a particular hardship when a homeowner had a privacy hedge of either one fairly well-established.

I am still crossing my own fingers for a lot of shrubs around my yard as well.  I think spring is about four or five weeks behind here.  The number of hours where the temperatures have hit 50 degrees (F), I would guess is less than 20.  No dandelions in bloom yet.

Have a Plan...

April 2014, actually the "after" photo, this is not a bare slate...

July 2013

It is always good to have a plan.  Last year with the Garden Walk looming, I wasn't about to switch it up or around, or make any drastic changes.  Even experienced gardeners will admit, if they are honest, you never know exactly what a growing season may hold and how that impacts well-laid plans of mice and men... and gardeners.

Without any changes, it will like look much like this again this year.

So although I conceived this idea...

Rain...Storms? Planting?

My pansies are looking good.
I have about the only flowers blooming anywhere.
My neighbor across the way had the first clump of his Tete-a-tete daffodils bloom yesterday.

I like my new smart phone.  It has a hundred different things it is ready and willing to do for me, once I take the time to learn all its cool applications, as in uses.  The flashlight, calculator, Siri, using it as a white noise machine by repeating the recorded thunderstorm and rain while I am sleeping (a great aid in normalizing my sleeping pattern, I've found); but not the least is the week's weather forecast at a single tap.

But really, I haven't asked Siri, as I am fond of asking her the stupid questions, "what is the difference between a forecast of rain and a forecast of showers?"

After the Destruction of Winter, May I Recommend an Evergreen

South side of my 'Blue Star' juniper

Okay, I know it is not ever really green, but a pretty steely blue.  Notice it is not dead.  It is not sun scalded.   It does not look like it took any sort of hit what so ever after one of the worse winters in more than 100 years.  During the winter it does take on a nice purple hue, but it is always nice to look at.  This specimen is ten years old and about 18 inches high and maybe just over two feet wide.

If you are looking to replace your evergreens damage by this year's winter, this sport with its soft, juvenile foliage might be just the right plant for you.

Proof of Life

A peony with red foliage making way.  The foliage greens up about the time the buds begin to form.

Winter, you shall not take us down.  You might win a battle here and there, but there will be gardens and there will be
flowers.

And lots of them!  These globe alliums have been seriously hindered by the Austrian black pine I removed after last summer's garden walk.  This will be their year!

 Although out of focus, you can see the results of the scratch test (scraping the outer skin to reveal that shimmer of green)on the akebia quinata:  proof of life!

Akebia quinata scratch test

Native geum triflorum, prairie smoke

A small alpine plant I grew from seed, which I am going to have to check my records to identify!

Crocus under the white pine

My own seedlings of 'Palace Purple' heuchera

Bergenia, or pigsqueak, grown from seed decades ago, and even here evergreen!

At least one of my Pink Knock Outs made it!

Russian achillea, 'Love Parade' looks like it means to fill in some significant real estate left vacant by the black pine.

Ah, tiny bud growth on a few of the branches of the Japanese 'Bloodgood' 

There are a lot of healthy buds on this clematis alpina 'Blue Dancer', which blooms on old wood.  Last year it bloomed two blooms near the ground in mid-May.  This year it looks like it will have a good show, but at eye level.

The privet are thinking about it, but until they leaf out there is the opportunity for the scilla to put on their opening show with a shimmer of blue.  I mean to move them (or some of them to a better location but life pre-empted me.

THIS JUST IN!

Report from the Outliers: The Bee Keeper says this was a good winter for bees.  Although, extremely, bitterly cold, there were none of the extreme temperature fluctuations we have seen in more recent years.  Her father's hives look good and are robust.  As you might remember her hive's queen was attacked and killed by marauding hornets.  The surviving bees were sent to their cousins' hives.  The Bee Keeper reports she will purchase a new queen and the bees will be back in a week or so.

The Brutal Winter, The Great Garden Extinction, Gardening on the Edge

Just too much brown yet for this time of year.   My PJM rhododendron still has a very brownish cast, although temperatures have been mild for a few days.  The blue dwarf leaf Artic willow is starting to think about budding up its leaf buds, but typically does not set the catkins which are its "bloom" as it is typically sterile.  This year, I can tell it is stressed as it have several sprays of catkins looking more like a pussy willow.  The vedict on the survival of the lavender 'Munstead' and the zauschneria (California fuchia or California hummingbird plant) is still out.  Even the 'Gold Coin' lysimachia looks hard hit. 

I am not sure what to think about this spring clean up in the garden.  I have spent a mere handful of hours in the garden cleaning the debris from both last fall and the winter.

The grass left longer than normal, as no mowing took place after my injury, particularly in the hellstrip ditch bordered by daylilies looks better than it ever has.  It was also covered by all the leaves blown or washed there as part of the villages highly evolved ditching efforts as the village sits on sort of a sandy boggy wetlands.  My house, one of the first built and therefore sited on a higher place, where I needn't worry about flooding still has an impressive ditch where leaves and debris can collect.

My neighbor, Dr. Darrel Apps, and I have been conferring on what we see dead in our yards.

Lettuce and Peas...And Edamame!

Sugar snap peas, lettuce, 'Buttercrunch, and 'Cimarron' sown about 2 1/2 weeks ago in the large pot on my deck.  They had germinated before the last snow and night when temperatures reached 12 degrees (F).  Still looking good!  

Here in the United States, we must be pea snobs.  We tend to eat peas shelled and steamed (or boiled).  Regardless, when we eat peas we are usually talking about eating the immature seeds, not the fresh shots or tender pods.   We do this not only with peas, but a host of other garden vegetables.  We eat the beets, but tend to forego the beet tops, we eat the lettuce when it is mature.  We wait to eat the florets of broccoli and ignore the leaves.  Same for immature cabbage before it has formed a head, we decline to snip off a few tasty green, or red leaves to add an extra peppery crunch to our spring salads.

Once you start growing your own salad plots you begin to understand how much food we waste, even as gardeners.

Planting the Small Garden in Central Wisconsin

Four trays on the top shelf of my grow rack filled with seedlings fro transplant

Choosing the best varieties, for me, is part seed saving, part experience, and part leg work.  I have been talking to truck farmers, market growers, and checking out the winning varieties at the local county fairs for a few years now.  My goal in seed saving is develop cultivars with provenance, that sense of place, cultivars that will grow well no matter what Mother Nature hands us.

By talking with other growers and checking out the county fairs, I am attempting to cut down my research time frame and develop some good knowledge for local growers.  Here in central Wisconsin we live in a unique horticultural climate bounded by gardening extremes.  I don't want tomatoes in the hot year, I want them every year.  Same for peppers, potatoes, lettuce, and broccoli.

Over the past few years I have started to develop some favorites.

My seedlings are typically a bit larger, but this year, I didn't start many until March 15, including the annual flower transplants.  As spring is slow in coming this year, I am not particularly concerned that I will be late.

Sweet Peppers:

Surprisingly 'California Wonders' are the best bell peppers with the best probability they will get red, even in a short growing season.  They are sometimes marketed under some other names like 'King Arthur'. Also surprisingly, they seem to come true from seed, although they are F1 hybrids.  I have not noticed a difference over seed collected over the course of a number of years.  Additionally, the saved seed germinates at nearly 90 percent.  I wish I could say the same for the pricey purchased seed of new cultivars I would like to try.  As an added kicker the purchased seed sometimes runs 50 cents a seed, for seed that does not reliably germinate.

Pimento Peppers:

'Sheepnose', by and far, is the meatiest of these pimentos I have tried.

Other peppers:

Peppers are an interesting group.  They are super easy to wash, slice up, and freeze.  You can dry them.  I use them in a wide variety of foods from stir frys to fajitas and soups.  Surprisingly, seed saved at almost any stage of harvest will germinate-- whether it is a red pepper or a potentially red pepper harvested green.  All the mumbo-jumbo about hybrid seed does not seem as rigid with peppers either, which means you have a really tasty grocery store pepper, by all means save the seed and try and grow it.  I have had good luck growing  peppers from saving the seed from the nearly seedless roasting peppers you see in supermarkets for tail-gating coming football season.

Tomatoes:

Well, there are these, and this...

Beans:

When it comes to green beans, I will admit I wasn't a fan...until beautiful SIL made her gluten-free green bean casserole.  I will say I planted a short row of 'Fortex' last spring and they were incredible.  Even just blanched and frozen and then heated in a microwave these were really good.  Previously I have grown some other beans, like kidney beans and white northern, primarily to use as dried beans.   The white northern were a pain to shell which had to be almost completely done pain-stakingly by hand, while the kidney beans could have been beaten and shook loose fairly easily.  I have also grown some of the white and red mottled bean of the dragon tongue type, beautiful mottled red pods on smallish plants, singles this bean out for use in a well-designed decorative garden space for edible landscaping.

Onions:

I have struggled with onions.  First off, I like them fresh, like as scallions.  Second I would like some good storing onions. I also, because I like onions, am a fan of all the nuances the right onion can add to any dish.  Unfortunately, central Wisconsin is a long day length onion growing zone.  Most of what is sold here are onion sets, which certainly seem to not actually set onions of much size at all.  They certainly don't have the nuances that a sweet Spanish yellow can impart to a dish or even the flavor of a Vidalia.  Both of these are short day length onions and will not grow very well here.  For flavor and storing potential 'Alisa Craig' seems to have the lock.  The only way to grow them is to start your own from seed.  Some of the Asian onions will do well to grow as scallions, and grow fairly quickly.  I have tried the flat, red Cibolla types here and they were okay although only about two inches in diameter.  Onions do germinate fairly well from seed, so if there is a variety that is a favorite I do encourage you to start your own sets sometime in the end of February.

Next Post: Salad greens and peas...

April 15, 2014 Bloom Day?

Last night the temperatures plummeted to 12 degrees (F).  We had 4 to 5 inches of snow the day before.

Temperatures are forecast to only reach freezing for the high for the next week.  This is not the wet snow and gone by noon snow.  It is cold.

Those pansies, are in the house.  Winter has certainly returned, with a vengeance.  Previously, the soil was still frozen down around four inches.  Those top four inches may be in doubt, too.

A Garden Sense of Home: What's on Your Plate?

(Photo: www.softpedia.com)

Mother Nature is seriously messing with us.  I suppose she feels we (people) have it coming.  Gardeners are just the collateral damage.

Overnight the rain turned to snow.  It is a heavy snow, but it doesn't appear it is primarily  sleet clinging to the needles of my white pine and various shrubs, so that's all to the good.  The last couple years with the fits and starts between winter and spring, we have had a couple bad ice storms which knocked down power lines and brought down huge branches from my monumental white pine, bouncing them off my tiny hobbit home like it was the backstop on a baseball field for an angry pitcher told to practice.

Ice storms so bad, you remember the dates; last year's on April 10, two years ago on April 12.

Conversations, though, are turning to gardening.  Even among the eaters, who have benefited from my gardening without the work input required.  "Eat local, know your farmer."  For them, I am that, their source of local produce.  Seems beautiful sister-in-law (SIL)has been sharing the wealth, without leaking that information up, or down," the food chain."

Life's Short, Wear Sparkles When You Can

Two of my favorite "sparkles"

My neighbor Andrea is an ambitious woman.  She might not be even 30, although I assume she must be.  She sure seems to have her head screwed on straighter than most at her age.  This is fortunate as she is raising five children, almost unheard of in this day and age.  I am not sure I had it quite so together as she when I was her age.

She and her brood were making the trip from door to SUV while I was working in my front yard and two of the younger girls traipsed across the alleyway so I could admire their latest clothing choices.  One had a ballerina's tutu, possibly the tiara as well, cute patent leather flats with rhinestones and flowers, and leopard print tights.  The other was equally done up in some satiny, silky flowing material with rhinestones and her fav, latest wardrobe addition (I think because of the color), a turquoise quilted vest hugging her from shoulder to knee.

Although their older sister is studying ballet, neither of these two girls do, but the casual observer would think them on their way to some production of some sort.  I knew better this was not the case.

They were very cute.  Sparkly.

Andrea lets them put together their own wardrobes and wear what they like whenever they like (nearly all the time...she draws the line at tiaras in church).  They take great joy and care in their choices. I find their choices openly amusing and charming.

She called to her daughters to come back and get in the car.   In greeting, I called back, "Life's short, wear sparkles when you can!" 

It stopped her short.  "Yes, it is isn't it.  I'm going to put that on a wall."

Yes, Andrea, it is.  Don't save the good dishes for company or your favorite outfit for a special occasion.  Life is short.

Sparkle!

Cold? Today, we will have rain

These top couple buds on Japanese peony 'Hanakisoi' appear dead, but I did not remove them.  I continue to remain optimistic, at least until the leaves break away from their petiole freely.

Commercially, spring has been slow to arrive here in central Wisconsin.  There are none of the greenhouses popping up on what seems like every corner as you see in years past.  For the past couple weeks I have been on the hunt for pansies. There have been simply none to be found.  After a couple days of hunting I actually bought seeds to germinate, thinking small pansies will be better than no pansies, especially if as I predict we will have a cool, spring.  I would add cool, damp spring, but I don't know if moisture is necessarily part of that picture.

With cooler a possibility this year, I planted some flowering sweet pea seeds.  If it is going to be cooler here, let's go with that.  I have planted an edible pot on my deck with two types of lettuce and edible peas dressed up with bamboo to form a tuteur on which the peas can scramble.  I have also planted some radish and carrots actually in the ground.  The lettuce and peas have already sprouted.

Today and tomorrow, it does look like rain is part of the picture, however.

Yesterday with the late afternoon blue skies I had not realized rain was the weekend forecast.  The weather here seemed to turn on a dime.  What was forecast to be hovering at freezing on Monday morning, now looks to be a solid 23 degrees (F).  Enough that the pansies I finally found will need a bit of cover, to not be set back over much on their flower output.

Finally, pansies in the window boxes

I have been working on my yard and garden.  As I move (very slowly) around the space I am reminded of all the plans I had pre-injury.  I stopped to talk in the street with a fellow gardener.  Four of the six or seven nicest gardens in the village are on my street.  It seems to be a walking destination for many in my village.  The walkers probably wonder if I died or something.  With so little clean-up and the grass unmowed since September, my little house certainly has had that abandoned look to it.

To my fellow gardener, I expressed my goal to not stress it this year, to keep it simple.  To do as little or as much as I felt like with no goals of perfection.

'Hanakisoi' last year

My hope is with the depth of this brutal winter, that most of my garden's signature plants simply survived.  Sometimes, simply surviving in the garden, and in life, is the big win.

Boulevard Cypress

Boulevard cypress

If I could find my soil thermometer, I'd probably have a hard time getting it down more than about 4".  I think that's about how far down the frost line is right now.  The hybrid maple across the way has buds that are starting to swell, but other than the alliums and a few iris and very few daylilies, and my blooming crocus there is not a lot of green to be had.

I am still getting a handle on what sort of picture I can take with my phone and what I am actually taking a picture of...

As you can see from the picture above, my boulevard cypress is having a particularly bad "ugly season".  Unfortunately, its "ugly season" always corresponds to my clean up the garden mode.  Some years I have sat down and carefully removed every little bit of brown desiccation, other years not.  It seems to better when I don't.  There have also been the years where I stand there, saw in hand, ready to cut it down.

It was one of the stars of the garden walk last year, so I will abide within myself that urge, counting carefully to 100, if necessary, until that urge passes.  In four to six weeks I will take another look and prune a bit for shape.

Boulevard cypress last September, underplanted with a white clematis, for which it will provide a wonderful contrast and framework, I hope.

Crocus Pushing Past the Winter

Yay! Crocus!

This is the second day they have been blooming in the back yard shrub border.  I think the ones under the giant white pine are still nestled in frozen ground.  The frost went very deep this year.  Very little shows any sign of life.  Since the snow has melted we have also had very little precipitation.  A nice spring rain might go a long way to making things pop.

Today after work, feeling less than my usual 50% these days, I think I pushed a bit too hard on yard work yesterday, I decided to forego working in the yard.  I have managed to cut back almost all of last fall's leaving, and rake several bags of leaves from the long border.  Many years I leave the debris in the shrub border simply because it adds compost over times to what I want to be more of a woodland setting.  This will decidedly be a leave it year.

I have planted some radishes, carrots, and a handful of peas.

Today though I also took my first pictures of my garden in 7 months.  And I took them with my phone.  I am mildly surprised with the quality.

What a tangle!  I usually trim this back in two stages, once right away,  and once it starts growing.  It is a sweet autumn and blooms on new wood. 

Clematis 'Josephine' , check back in six weeks!  It blooms on old and new wood so I seldom prune this at all.

Yesterday, this was a tuft of quack grass, which I managed to hit at just the right time to be able to cleanly weed it without the garlic chives present.  Today would have been too late.  Yay, me!  (Hate grass in the chives!)

The Japanese cypress has just a bit of green the bottom foot.  This is a wait and see...

Azalea 'Rosebud' I think did not survive.  If it did, I see no buds.  I will give it time, but no sign of "green wood".

Looks a lot neater than last week.  The shrub there, left center, is a forsythia.  The buds all froze off last year.  This year, it is unknown. 

Strawberries 'Honeoye' look good.  They usually start bearing two weeks before most.

Would you believe, in a planning meeting in like 1999, at Motorola, I uttered the words, "Who would want to take pictures with their phone?"

DUH!  Everyone!

(Of course as beta testers for texting, we thought the following message was in poor taste and lazy, too, "This is 4 U   pls call me  @ 2")

LOL, ya' all!

Gotta go rewind my DVDs!

New Rose: 'Belinda's Dream'

(Photo: White Flower Farms, Rose 'Belind'as Dream')

I have been jonesing for some pansies.  Out on the hunt, there was only one greenhouse that even had annuals stocked.  I am sure this is due to the cost of heating a greenhouse when temperature were seldom creeping above zero (F) here in the upper Midwest. 


The one greenhouse with pansies priced them in the same league as premium annuals, like Persian shield, and the latest petunia.  Most of their offerings were violas.  None of the happy faced pansies I desired.  I wish I had been home to start my own.


I am so glad I did start my own petunias, this year.  The coleus I have started are a couple times the size of those I saw.  Same for almost everything else I have growing in the couple trays under lights.


I also wanted to find some love-in-a-mist (nigella) and flossflower (ageratum) seed.  My seed I collected from the ageratum I grew last year did not germinate.  Neither was to be found.  Burpee's seems to have the lock on the retail seed sellers.  These two are obviously not on their profit radar.


Also, I have been hunting for a rose I saw a couple years ago at the Chicago Botanical Garden, but which I did not get a definitive identification.  I keep thinking it is either an antique heirloom or possibly 'Bonica'.  Thinking I might settle for 'Bonica', which Jung's is carrying in their catalogue, I scoped out their bare root room in Stevens Point.  Instead, I found the rather special (and pricey, at least in the White Flower Farms catalogue, where I had ogled it) 'Belinda's Dream'.  This rose is close to the one I keep thinking about.  If it survives, it might make me very happy indeed, especially at Jung's bare root price.

This is that rose of my dreams...not Belinda's.  Whoever Belinda may be...

Tar Spot on Maples

(Photo: PA Education Extension, extension.psu.edu)

I spent six hours working in my yard and garden yesterday.  In a normal spring, six hours would have gone a long way toward clearing away the dead of winter, this year with a lack of fall clean up and my slow speed setting, it hardly made a dent.

Marshaling my strength, cutting back last years's detrius, then raking a and bagging a while, punctuated by dragging bags over to the municipal compost site allowed me to give different muscle groups and joints rest.  It probably also builds my stamina.

I am always reminded of the Chinese proverb, (paraphrased), "Even an ant can move a mountain, one grain at a time."

I am so totally with that ant this year.

Pansies

(Photo: almanac.com)

This year the weather is predicted to be extreme. Swinging wildly from one thing to another.  There is still so much brown in my garden it looks more like the garden of rust.  I am sadly in need of some spring color.

As a little girl, I remember my maternal grandmother planting pansies each spring.  She planted them in the same place, and always the same kind, although I don't think she had much to choose from then.  I remember asking her why pansies, why that kind...why, why why?  I'm sure I drove her absolutely crazy.  I remember her as a forceful woman, who lined up her cutting garden flowers in regimental rows.

"Why?"

"They make me happy."

There you have it.  I don't think she stopped there.  I think she probably went on about cold, long winters, too much snow.  Pansies were always the first thing she could plant out and not worry overmuch about them freezing.

Recently, my nephews and my brother came to visit, more like to check up on my condition, physical, mental, and emotional (I'm afraid these days...).  One of my nephews noticed a string of tiny silver bells strung over a doorway to my dining room.  He asked me why?  I touched them gently, and they made a happy little jingling sound like music.

"Why?"

"They make me happy."

You could see the sound made him happy, too.

So, all you gardeners out there faced with wild weather, I encourage you to plant something that simply makes you happy.

A Murder of Crows, a Flamboyance of Flamingos

A very cold robin, one of over twenty, I spotted back in February.

Yesterday was a beautiful, albeit balmy day here in central Wisconsin.  I, like all hardy gardeners, ventured out into the garden to see what there was to be seen.  The venturing was the hard part.  Walking since my fracture has not been my best life skill.  Having to use a cane does make you plan your forays a bit more carefully.

But having not been able to walk in my garden and having nearly all (maybe 90%) of the snow gone, I was anxious to be in the garden and see and be seen...yes little bunnies a gardener does live here.  The birds were the most appreciative.  Having missed fall clean-up there is a lot of food to be had in my garden.

There were a lot of birds in my garden.  While I didn't see a murder of crows, interesting that a collective group can also be deemed a congress of crows, I did see a charm of finches and heard a gaggle of geese.  While I saw an eagle sitting atop a deer carcass on Feb. 22 just outside of town, I always figure an eagle siting as a good luck omen, there is no where near the convocation, or congregation that can be found along their more central late winter flyways of the Mississippi River.

I also caught a blue jay (scold) sitting on my new porch rail and a downy woodpecker (descent) flitting from branch to branch of my 'Crimson Frost' birch giving me the once over as to say where is that pretty little Austrian black pine we love to pound the crap out of each spring?  Too bad, so sad, My brother cut it down last fall after you birds just about killed it.

I await the glittering of hummingbirds, and the rafting of ducks; they'll be here soon, I'm sure.  Last spring, with our weird weather pattern, I took my mother to see the estimated 17% of the entire world's ballet of swans in Shiocton.  It was impressive, even without any dancing.

I could do with out the quarrel of sparrows that try to figure out some way into my house's fascia to build nests and the noise the starlings make is hardly a murmuration. Although there is something piteousness about the coo of my mourning doves.

No clue what to call the twenty plus robins that denuded my 'Red Jade' crabapple of all its persistent fruit shortly after I spotted them back at the end of February!

And, all you gardeners out there, forecast has 6" to 12" of snow predicted for Thursday into Friday.  So don't  go grabbing that flamboyance of flamingos and be staking 'em out in the garden any time soon, ya' hear!