Horticulture Magazine

So without sounding like a complete egomaniac, I thought the blurb Horticulture magazine did was sorta cool......you'll notice that I managed to hide my fat body behind the beautiful gate outside the perennial garden at the Big House!

For some reason I seem to be the last person in America to receive the latest issues of Horticulture, so I had gotten several messages from people commenting that it was a great little article about roses and hydrangeas.

That being said, I am soooooo excited at the appearance of the hydrangeas this year, particularly after the late season freeze of 2007, and the crazy drought of 2007 and 2008. The Annabelles are covered with buds, as are most of the macrophyllas, though it's still a little early for them.

At my own house, the H. seratta "Preziosa" (Carol H's favorite) is already in full bloom, and it's quite pretty. I'll get a picture in a couple of days when it's peaking. I was walking through the garden today at the big house, as well as here at home, and noticed the oakleafs are already starting to show some bloom. It always reminds me of somone with a can of that spray whipped cream, seeing how high they can possibly pile the cream on the pie before it tips over.....how can you not just love them?

A Great Week for Gardening!

It's been a challenging week for communications, but the people at Sprint and Dell have that under control....the new phone is in hand, spending hours reentering numbers, the new computer on its way. On the other hand, what an awesome week for gardening! Hovering around 80 degrees all week, mostly sunny, then some showers started today. It's hard to believe we were close to freezing just a few weeks ago! I've been able to get a ton of things done at the big house, doing the final pre-season "primping." The summer containers are full, we're getting blisters from pruning shears, the annuals are in, and things are just starting to explode in the garden!

The irises and peonies are loving this weather! Here are a few shots from this morning....unfortunately I don't know the cultivars of any of these beauties!

The Last Cold Morning?

It's 44 degreees right now (7 AM), and according to the television meteorologists, this is going to be our "last cold morning of the season." I'm not sure how they know that, but The Weather Channel's website is saying the same thing, so who am I to argue?

All I know is that the weather has been absolutely glorious the past couple of days, and the forecast is for mid-to-high 70's and lots of sun for the next ten days (I'm ignoring the 30% chance of showers tomorrow afternoon......)

The top half of the neighbor's tree is still lying in my back yard from last week's storm, but other than that, it looks like smooth sailing for the spring and summer season! Give yourself an Earth Day treat and go visit your favorite garden center this week! When you see that one "I couldn't possibly spend that on a plant......" plant, buy it for yourself!

Container Mania!

We are currently in the midst of "container mania" at the big house, which means there are a gazillion things in flats all about the pool. I've slowly been chipping away at the major containers, and the first of the spring bedding plants are going into the ground! I am so excited with the "Honey Bee Lantana," with muted pinks, peaches, soft yellows, and whites all on the same plants! That's being planted in the beds under the crape myrtles, where nothing else has the stamina to fight the roots of the trees. Photos to come once it fully opens up.

People keep asking me about container combinations I'm using this year, so I'll get them up on here in the next few days. I'm a big believer that even with the same plants, every arrangement is different, since there is inevitably a different container, and a different "designer's eye" involved. I've borrowed some of my favorite combinations from friends, and find it flattering when people ask me to do the same.

One of my favorites so far for this year: Lion's Head Japanese Maples (Acer palmatum "Shishigashira"), underplanted with "Bonfire" Begonias (Begonia boliviensis "Bonfire"), finished with Creeping Jenny(Lysimachia nummularia "Aurea"). Very simple, very clean, very elegant, and really shows off the tree, which is the whole point.

The Big Chill

This morning brought that inevitable April blast of cold air that happens every year; like always, it's just a 36-hour thing, but enough to disrupt all of the best laid plans!

The greenhouse has quickly become the storage unit, jammed with as many plants as I could get inside, most notably the two "Lion's Head" Japanese Maples that will adorn the front porch at the Big House next week. I decided yesterday it was a time for "better safe than sorry," so anything that was still in a pot is either in the greenhouse or the garage. The garden is dotted with lots of plants wearing their little "frost hats"----everybody's praying to the Hydrangea goddess that it's not as bad as 2007, when we had virtually no blooms on the macrophyllas because of just this kind of a late freeze. The "Saratoga" gingko (which cost about the same as my car payment for a 5 gallon pot) is also hiding out in the garage.

It's hard to believe that it's 34 degrees at this moment in the Atlanta 'burbs, is going to freeze overnight tonight, but will be safely back in the 60's by tomorrow afternoon. Only 8 more days until tax day! I have no interest in giving the IRS anything, but it's always a good day since it's the historic time to plant in this part of the world.

I think I'm going to put on my parka and go hug the Gingko!

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!

A Bit of Spring Cleaning

After a weekend of cold drizzly rain (which we desperately needed), it was a treat to be in the garden today in the warm sun. It got into the high 60's, and was the perfect day to do some "spring cleaning" in the vegetable garden and the big perennial beds. Can you believe we're only a month from planting summer annuals?

The blueberries are positively covered with blooms, which are pretty in the walled garden, since everything else there is either still dormant or just starting to grow for spring.

I managed to pull out some of the winter cabbages, which had started to bolt with this warm weather, and are developing that funky odor that occurs when they start their decline. Time to move the last of the "Antique Shades" pansies from the nursery area to the displays at the front of the house, since it still needs to look good for another month before the spring things arrive. They are the perfect color for the brick of the house, but a challenging cultivar that needs lots of babying.

Took the broom to the creeping fig that covers the wall in the garden; it starts to look pretty ratty at this time of year, so the broom makes quick work of brushing away the dead leaves, exposing the new growth; it was exciting to have to tiptoe through the spears of asparagus that have just started popping up in the past couple of days! One of the luxuries of being the gardener is standing in the garden, in the silence, in the sun, eating the first stalk of the season's asparagus......

I was raking away the last of the autumn leaves from the vegetable beds (we leave a light covering there for the winter), and discovered the tiny little shoots of sweetpeas around the base of the tuteurs....I can't wait to see them start racing up the slats in the next couple of weeks!

Across the gravel walkway, the peonies are showing their heads (one in a particularly hot spot is about six inches high already), so I got to put out their cages for another spring show. Peonies always make me smile, thinking of my grandmother calling them "Pee-OH-nies" with the New York accent that still came through, even 70 years after leaving her childhood home.

I finished my day giving a haircut to the "Sunny Yellow" Knockout Roses that arrived a few weeks ago, grooming them to go into containers at the pool in a few weeks. There is something magical about spring, when you can literally watch things grow right in front of your eyes!

Leave the dreaded leaf blowers and power mowers in the garage for just another week! Sit back and enjoy the simplicity of the spring garden.....and look for those first spears of asparagus!

PS....The sakurafubuki is getting closer!

Sakurafubuki!

"Sakurafubuki" is the Japanese term for the blizzard of cherry blossoms that occurs every spring. If you know me personally, you'll understand that this is one of those bizarre sorts of things that I just HAVE to know!

Anyway, I was walking through the garden this afternoon as I was finishing for the day, amazed at the things that have visibly grown in the past few days. It's been very warm in Atlanta, and as my friend Carolyn said, "Everything is looking like a big Easter basket!" I was walking under the grove of Yoshino cherry trees that are behind the greenhouse, looked up, and was so excited to see blossoms on one of the branches. Not buds, mind you, but full blown blossoms!

It's not exactly the Sakurafubuki that will come in a few weeks, but it's definitely on its way! When it happens for a couple of weeks every spring, it reconfirms for me what magic there is in gardening!

I will definitely get a photo this year from under the trees (in the midst of the "blizzard"), but here's one from last year that shows just how awesome this sight is!

If you don't have Yoshino cherry in your garden, go out NOW and buy one.....or twelve!