Cold Weather in the Forecast Cold Weather in the Forecast

Red stemmed, red flowered trillium with mottled leaves

Well, I mowed the lawn, at least in the back yard.  What little lawn is in the front is alive, but not growing.  Also, not greening up are a couple three-foot sections of my privet hedge.   The buds of my forsythia froze.  Now with frost in the forecast each night through Monday I am concerned for the apricot which has been in full bloom for three days (which is three weeks later than usually and seven weeks later than last year).

After a near fruitless year last year and with Spring so late this year, contemplating a  hard frost now, let's not.

I realized with the deep leaf mulch in my shrub and tree border along the alley way that I have missed a big opportunity to plant this hedge with spring ephemerals.  Each year I tell myself this poor trillium needs a better place to be than competing with the hydrangea and lily of the valley. This year when I noticed the purple tipped eyes I transplanted the majority of it to the shrub border.  Upon emergence it is very similar in root structure to the lily of the valley.  Rather than transplant something as aggressive as the lily of the valley to my border I left a pip of this to compete against the lily of the valley.  Even so the part I moved already appears much bigger than it has in other years.

I also planted seven Virginia bluebells into this border along with the stray daffodils coming up in places I never remember planting them (Those ants, again!).

Very little has really leafed out.  Within the last two days there is a shimmer of green, tender leaves to be burnt by frost has appeared on some trees.  My katsura tree has tender baby leaves.  My pear and 'jade' crabapple are loaded down with buds.

Of all things, my sweet autumn clematis appears dead.I'm still crossing my fingers for it, though.  It showed no signs of distress last growing season, and I kept it watered throughout its bloom.  My roses, which I will admit are in protected spots all seem to be leafing out.  The village's 200 Knockouts along our main avenue mostly died out, at least to the ground, after doing well for five years,  A lot of finger crossing there, too.

The family garden has been too wet to till, so the potatoes are still uncut and not planted.   I guess fall potatoes it is.  In  the potager, I have planted a handful of shallots, a few spring onion, three savoy cabbage seedlings, and a couple varieties of lettuce, and seeded some broccoli.

And as today is Mother's Day, I am seeing streams of posts from gardeners honoring their mothers, including a post by one of my sisters who posted a link to a time lapse of our ultimate mother, the earth. 

Happy Mothers' Day.

Mothers' Day Daffodil Parade

I don't think I've ever been able to utter daffodil and Mothers' Day in the same sentence before.







I don't know the name of any of these daffodils. Some were parts of assotments, others given to me.

This morning I spent a half an hour pricking out baby bok choi. My son had floated into my growing room and wished me a happy Mothers' Day and hung around to chat. He watched me carefully press the tiny bok choi into their own individual cells for transplant to the family garden in 10 days or so. I sent him out to the cold frame with them. Later we visited my mother and went to a movie.

When we got home, I asked him to water the plants in the cold frame. A little too much water, not enough care. Half an hour of his mother's time-- busted.