The Stepchild Gets Mulch...Finally!

• I wasn't working at the big house or the penthouse today, so it seemed the perfect time to actually work in my own garden. Since I've been meaning to put out pinestraw mulch since March or April, it only makes me about six weeks behind schedule. Fortunately my home garden tends to fall into the categories of "eclectic" and "eccentric," so I'm able to fall back upon that excuse.
  
  I think my home garden is perhaps an emotional response to working in very manicured gardens on a daily basis; "manicured" is definitely NOT an adjective most would use to describe my garden!
  
  Some possible reasons my home garden isn't considered "manicured":
  
• The 300 or so Cleome flowers that have self-seeded themselves since last year, coming up everywhere, including one growing in a crack in my driveway (I adore Cleome, but will definitely be putting out Preen next year);
  
• The New Dawn rose that finished blooming a couple of weeks ago, and is now so large that it threatens to topple its arbor or grab a small child who makes the mistake of walking by (or both);
  
• My Herbal lawn. When asked if I have zoysia, Bermuda, St. Augustine, or Fescue, I simply reply, "Yes;" (But it stays green year round......)
  
• My unique version of Botanical Latin names. I'm not sure why the AHS doesn't list, "Dad's Yellow Iris," "Alice's Monarda," and "Not Ogon Spirea," in their publications.
  
• The fact that my pansies are still in the ground, and actually still blooming their little blue hearts out; The IRS and summer annuals are supposed to be taken care of by April 15 in Atlanta.
  
  As could have been predicted, the rain starting pouring down after I had finished mulching about 25% of the garden beds.......why do I think I'm going to soon be seven weeks behind schedule?
  
  I'm trying very hard to care about being "behind schedule", really I am......
  

When Gardeners are Crazier than Golfers

In another life I managed the clubhouse at a very "chi chi" country club in South Carolina. It was there that I discovered how crazy some golfers can be. In the midst of howling winds, black clouds, crackling lightning, and alarms telling them to get off the course, I would inevitably look out my window and see a golfer raising his (iron) club up in the air for that one final shot (Final being the key word here).

Fast forward to the present, when I'm gardening for a living. I garden in three places: "The Big House," a garden I'm truly passionate about, and from which many of these photos are taken; "The Red Headed Step Child," which is what I call my own little suburban garden; and "The Penthouse," which sits atop one of Atlanta's better known towers.

If you've been paying attention to Atlanta weather, you know that we've had pretty major electrical storms last night and today (Until you live in the South, you only think you have seen lightning!) Anyway......guess which day Chuck and I chose to replace all the plants in the Zen garden, way up there in the sky?

After loading the truck and driving into the city, we did the usual "through the gates, down the ramp to the loading dock, unload the truck and go find parking for it, load all the plants onto carts, roll them down the hall to the security desk, up the elevator for a mile and a half, and gingerly walk five trees, four shrubs, eighteen groundcovers, bags of (wet)Erthfood and potting soil, and all our supplies through most of the apartment, through the bathroom to the terrace."

We got to the terrace, and there was ridiculous wind, but that's sort of the norm for that garden. Then it was time to play "Beat the Clock" to remove the old and tired bamboo that's been in the Balinese antique containers for ten years, and replace it with the new plants. (Have you seen the rootball on bamboo that's been potted for that long?)

I'll get to the point and say that this afternoon's best questions from Chuck were, "Do you feel rain?" and "Holy Crap! Have you ever had lightning come so close you could hear it buzz???"

Let's just say the new bamboo is going to look beautiful in those pots for a really long time......

They're Not Invasive! They're Exuberant!

I was walking through my own garden this morning with a cup of coffee, just sort of roaming (as much as one can "roam" on a half acre). It was too wet to work in someone else's garden today, since the skies were opening every fifteen minutes. As I looked around, I realized that I have accumulated lots of those dreaded plants that every garden snob hates; I like to call them "exuberant," instead of invasive.

The Akebia is already half way up the poles of the pergola, and the scent was awesome. It's one of those things that garden snobs say, "You grow that???" To add insult to injury, I have porcelain vine (AKA crazy weed) growing up the other pole (that's it in the picture above). I have never found anything else with such beautiful berries.

I seem to now have six forsythia bushes growing in different spots. Is there anything as happy in the gray of winter? I planted two, and don't truly know where the others came from, but they aren't bothering anyone, certainly not me.

Then there is the Mahonia, with those awesome butter yellow blossoms in January, followed by the berries than look like hanging clumps of blue grapes until the birds get them. The Eleagnus ("Ugly Agnes") really needs a good haircut, since she's looking more like Medusa, with those gangly shoots that appear out of nowhere, and reach out to grab small children. (I haven't seen the little boy from next door recently......)

The huge clumps of Yellow Cannas (I would love to say they're a "cultivar," but they're just yellow) seem to swell more each year. Another plant that gets zero attention from me, and blooms its heart out in summer.

I tell people I'm going to thin out some of the yarrow this year, since the clumps now run together in various shades and colors, but I'm really not....one can never have too much yarrow.

I was excited to see all of the new sprouts of Verbena Bonarensis, which I like to think of as "punctuation marks" around the perennial bed. This is a plant that everyone should have in their garden somewhere. Just buy one, since you'll have ten next year!

If Alice's Cleome and the Verbena B. ever cross-pollinate, I'll have no choice but to move!

The Creeping Fig Photo

Chuck was working in the garden this morning with me, and I got him to snap a good shot of the infamous creeping fig. This is the fig I mentioned cleaning off with a stiff broom a couple of days ago. In this photo, you can probably see remnants of the dead leaves, with the beginning of the new growth starting to show through.

There's not a lot more growing in that particular bed (I just pulled the last of the winter stuff that was starting to bolt), but the blueberries are covered with blooms, and the thyme is looking pretty good for the first day of spring!