Instrument of Grace

Nuthatches Are Green

Thursday evening, just before sunset, my teenage son decided he'd had enough of growing his hair out. It was only bout an inch and a half long, but that length required a comb and often produced morning bed head. Growing out hair was way more work than a crew cut, so fashion be hanged. And mom had heavy duty clippers she's used on the dog.

So mom took those clippers and buzzed that growing out hair right off of his head. It fell on to the deck, and we left it there since it was dark when we finished. I intended to sweep it off this morning, but as I sat at the table drinking my morning coffee, I saw something that changed my mind.

Over and over, a little white breasted nuthatch came and gathered clumps of the hair and flew away. I'm sure, somewhere, there is a nest lined with soft, brown hair. Sure, the hair would have broken down and decomposed if I'd swept it to the ground. But that cute, smart little nuthatch is reusing it. That little nuthatch is green.

It's Planting Day

I think I mentioned in a previous posts we had a pretty strong winter. But the last few days have been absolutely glorious. As I drove home last evening, it was an unbelievable 74 degrees - about 15 degrees above what's expected this time of year. The day before was just a degree or two cooler. Today will be a repeat of yesterday, and did I mention the sky is bluer-than-blue with not a cloud in sight?

I know our safe freeze-free date is 15 May, or so they say. I don't know who they is, but I've gardened here long enough to know that date is pretty wrong. I usually plant out my garden plants, including tomatoes and annuals, the last weekend in April, and I've never lost a single plant to a freeze. To rabbits, deer and cutworms, yes. To temperatures? No.

I know it's a long way to the last weekend in April, but I think it's high time I got some greens in the ground. So today, I'm planting seeds of parsley, spinach, lettuce and whatever else I have. Tomorrow, I'll be shopping for what's missing, and I'll plant that, too. And I'm sticking plastic forks all around, points up, once the plant babies are up, so we don't have a repeat of fall's rabbit salad bar banquet right there in my little garden.

I hope it's a glorious Saturday in your little corner of the world, and I hope you can garden!

Today is White Day

Today, when I drove in from work, just about dark, I noticed two little white iris had poked their heads up to see what the weather was doing. I guess they liked what they saw. Hopefully, they will whisper to their friends still underground and they will come out to play, too.

Does anyone else get silly over new bulbs? I planted these last fall and promptly forgot all about them. Now they are coming up and it's like I'm getting presents every day. I love bulbs!

GGW March Photo Contest - Awakening

The subject of this month's Gardening Gone Wild Photo Contest is Awakening. I love the concept, as I'm anxiously watching my gardens awake after a harsh winter with over 70 inches of snow. Our annual average is about 18 inches, so we really got hit this year.

I thought this photo perfectly fit the bill. It almost appears if my Hydrangea quercifolia 'Snow Queen' is praying for spring, which is exactly what I'm doing right now.

GBBD - Will I Always Be Late?

It seems that way. But please forgive me, OK? It was dark on Monday when I left for work and it was dark when I got home. I took this photo on Tuesday the 16th, late in the evening, but I didn't get to post it until today.

Garden Blogger's Bloom Day is hosted by Carol at May Dreams Gardens. Please visit her and the other bloggers who have shared their gardens. Thanks, Carol!

Here's what I have blooming - Iris reticulata 'Clairette.' I bought these on a whim last fall. I don't know where the white ones are, but the purple ones are blooming their little heads off. After they were smothered under 47 inches of snow in February, I was a little worried, but all the bulbs seem to be jumping up, even if they are a little delayed. Aren't these little purple guys cute? They are about 4-5 inches tall.

Don't forget to visit Carol and the other bloggers at Garden Blogger's Bloom Day. Thanks again, Carol!

First Harvest

It was small, but it was a harvest. Yesterday, we snipped a bunch of chives for our baked potatoes.

After all the rain, things are looking pretty mucky, but the little kitchen garden sits a bit high. It might be ready for greens and lettuce this weekend. I'll also plant parsley then. Spring is coming!

Four Favorite Plants

I'm writing this post in response to Dave, who blogs at The Home Garden. He recently posted about his four favorite plants and asked others to do the same. To be honest, deciding was pretty hard. I have a lot of favorites in each of the four categories of annual, perennial, shrub and tree, and each is a favorite for a different reason. Some I love for their toughness, adaptability and willingness to thrive on neglect. Others I love because they are plants I grew up with, such as the redbud which graced the front yard of my childhood home. Others I love because they are just downright beautiful. How can I choose?

But choose I did. Here are my choices and a little bit of the reasoning behind those choices. Disclaimer:  these choices are valid for today only. Ask me tomorrow and the answers might be slightly different!

Tree:  Japanese Zelkova (Zelkova serrata), and I don't even have one of these in my yard. Although I have a very big soft spot for dogwoods and redbuds (and sourwoods and river birches and cryptomeria), I chose the Japanese Zelkova because if I had a space for one, I'd have it in the ground in a minute. I love their beautiful, graceful vase shape and their oblong, pointed leaves. But it's their scarlet fall color, which is just spectacular, that makes this tree my favorite (today).

Shrub:  Virginia Sweetspire (Itea virginica 'Henry's Garnet')  and I DO have these in my yard. I'm wild about hydrangeas, lacecaps that is, and I'm pretty much in love with Sweetbox (Sarcococca ruscifolia). I also have strong feelings of affection for my Doublefile Viburnum (Viburnum plicatum var tomentosum), but it's the sweetspire I love the most. I love its beautiful, arching growth habit and the fact that it is the perfect size for my landscape. It's the perfect size for YOUR landscape, too. It has fuzzy little bottlebrush flowers in the spring, and the fall color is just a spectacular red wine hue. Mulch sweetspire, and it will sucker just enough to give you babies to plant elsewhere, and believe me, once you get a few of these beauties, you will definitely want more. This shrub is about as perfect as they come.

Perennial:  Oh, my. This one is really hard. If Garden Man were looking over my shoulder, he'd be chanting "daylily daylily daylily." But he's not, and it's not. If you've read many of my posts, you will probably have figured out I just swoon over hosta. I'm also loving hellebores more and more - the deer won't eat them, and they've eaten pretty much everything else I have. Each year I'm more and more amazed at the peonies I planted - they are tough, reliable and downright gorgeous. Agastache and salvia are also favorites, and so is penstemon. And our oriental poppy is one we watch every spring. Did I say this was difficult? Choosing just one is almost impossible, but I'll do it. If I can only choose one I'd have to say (today) it's oriental lily. It amazes me how those funny looking roots produce tough stalks with amazing flowers, and many multiply each year. The flowers are so crazy perfect they don't even look real, and some of them smell like Heaven. And there are so many lovely colors to choose from. This is one plant that if you haven't grown, you should try. It gives huge payoff for very little investment, both dollars and effort.

Annual:  Coleus. Hands down. I know, I know! How pedestrian, how common. But how can you argue with a plant that will grow in sun (some varieties) and shade, in pots or in the ground and thrive? How can you not like a plant that will brighten up a dark corner and make all its companions look good? How can you refuse a plant that grows like a weed and still looks great when you pinch it back (and gives you more plants from those tips you pinched)? And how can you choose from among the hundreds, if not thousands, of color combos? There has to be one, or three or seven that will shine in your garden. My favorite is "Royal Glissade" and I look for it every year if I've not rooted cuttings. With coleus, my eyes are always bigger than my garden space, so you'll find them tucked in pots all over the place, making my garden look good.

So what are YOUR favorites? As gardeners, we want to know. Visit Dave to see his favorites and then visit the others who have posted theirs. You just might find something new to love.

Give the Gardener a Point and Please Take The Deer

Today, I planted 115 more bulbs, including those darned free gifts. Give me a point. I don't even know what color they are. I'm hoping, since they are tulips, that the deer will eat them and leave some of my other things alone. And the rest of the bulbs? Whether they were ordered for forcing or not, they are going to be forced. Probably. If they make it in from the garage.

Last weekend, I walked to the back corner of the yard and discovered a deer had decided to scratch his antlers on my prized new cryptomeria. There was one trunk left with a topknot of foliage. All the other 3 trunks were broken off at 2 feet or lower. All the foliage was scattered around what was left of my beautiful tree. It had been over 4 feet tall, full and lush. Now it looks like a stick with a green feather wig.

Garden Man, sensing a meltdown of major proportions, decided he'd try to help. He took that roll of fancy, expensive deer netting and "fenced" off most of the hydrangeas and the other smaller, even more prized, cryptomeria. Then, he proceeded to weave yellow Caution tape in and out in the top squares. When I got home later that day, I thought I'd happened on an immense crime scene. According to the tape, most of the yard was off limits. Unfortunately, I don't think deer can read, and they may even be colorblind. I just hope the netting is enough to keep them away.

Today, I noticed they had eaten the new Itea down to sticks. Sheesh. For the first 4 years we lived here, we never had any damage. Last year there was just a bit. This year is ridiculous. I'm considering renting out my spare bedroom as a deer blind. Hunting, anyone? I want the deer to leave my plant babies alone. But they can have those unidentified tulips I got as a free gift.

What's Really Scary

Ghosts and goblins? Cobwebs in the corner? Standing water and mildewing plants? You think those are scary? No, I'll tell you scary. Scary is letting your eyes get the better of the rest of you in the bulb-ordering department. Scary is carefully planning just how many you have space for and then ordering "just a few more" just in case. Scary is being seduced by those lovely sirens in the catalogs and being lured to a doom of screaming muscles and aching joints.

Then they arrive. Gee, there are so many boxes. Surely there should be only one. Or two. And the boxes are so BIG. There must be a lot of packing material to safely cushion the bulbs. Yes, that's it. That's kind of scary.

After the boxes arrived, you had nothing but rain every Saturday and Sunday, and it's dark when you get home from work. You plan for planting a leisurely few every few days has morphed into OH NO I have to get them all into the ground on the next clear day. That's kind of scary.

Finally, a Saturday with no real rain. A check shows the soil is dry enough to work, so you get busy. It's kind of scary to see just how many bulbs there are after you've unpacked the boxes. Surely you didn't order 50 of that one variety? A check of the plan shows there's room for maybe 20. And what are those? You ordered those? Where will they go? And you DIDN'T order those. You've been further sabotaged by a free gift. Ha! There are no free gifts. Those bulbs will require sweat equity, agonizing mental gymnastics trying to find a place to squeeze them in, bending and stretching and sore muscles. No, there are no free gifts. Free gifts are scary.

With grim determination, foreknowledge of the pain you'll be feeling later, and maybe a slight glimmer of hope for a spring reward, you set to work. After all, you do have space for about half of that pile of promise in your garage. Right here, between the sweetspire and surrounding perennials, there's room for 30. But wait, what's this? Roots? Big roots and lots of them. Where did these come from? Now that's scary.

And over here, the photos from spring show an empty spot. You start to dig, and what's that? There are already bulbs here? How did they get here? Why aren't they in the photos? What are they? That's kind of scary. Even scarier when you realize you now have no place for this group of 20.

But you persist, and you get 30 in the ground. Then another 10 over here. And 12 here and 24 there. Pretty soon the border looks like it's been invaded by crazed giant squirrels intent on hiding their rainy day cache. Pretty soon, your back has had enough and you can't find another space to stick a single bulb. Pretty soon there are 150 of those bulbs nestled in the ground, so you call it quits and head in. And then you see there are at least another 200 in the garage waiting. Now THAT's scary.

Now THAT's a Raspberry!

Garden Man's raspberry canes are in their second year. The neighbor who gave them to us said we shouldn't expect any fruit the first year, but we did get a little. So did the foxes, and the deer ate some of the foliage.

This year, Garden Man fashioned a makeshift fence around the canes, which are much bigger than last year. They are brambles, after all. Even though a deer, fleeing some imagined threat, managed to land right in the middle of the little enclosure and break everything down, we've still gotten fruit. There was a small flush of fruit earlier in the summer, mostly from the gold berries which I believe are Fall Gold. For the last 3 weeks or more, we're getting a much heavier flush of fruit, mostly from the red Heritage. Heritage is the most popular everbearing variety, and it's typical to get a flush of fruit in July with heavier production in August and September. We pick a small butter dish piled high with beautiful berries every few days. We've had enough to enjoy ourselves, with some left over to share with special friends. Garden Punk's friend next door thinks we are magical, producing such wonderful fruit in our backyard, and he sure is happy to hear "come over and get yourself some berries."

Garden Man delights in bringing me a dish of them every couple of days, and this morning, he brought me this:

Now THAT's a raspberry! And it tasted just as good as it looks.

If you have sun and a little space (it really doesn't take much space, but it does take diligence to keep them contained), you can grow raspberries. They are definitely worth the effort, because the ones from the store just don't compare.