Early Spring Pics

i'm getting antsy - went around the garden and took photos in the bright, cold ( unfortunately, VERY cold ) afternoon. LOOKED warm and pretty, though...! Above is a just - budding lilac with last year's kiwi vine curled around it.

My hubby loves rocks - moves them around and arranges them all the time - sometimes we both forget where the bulbs are planted!

These are some of my favorite little spring ephemerals ( chionodoxa ) on the rock garden.



...reflections in the pond....



i love Easter Egg trees ! Easter is my favorite holiday - nothing to do with religion, exactly, just like the pastels, the flowers, the celebration of Springtime!

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Yay! First Day Of Spring!!!

i am referring to yesterday (even though the first day of Spring was almost a week ago). i mean that it was the first day when i could TELL it was Spring! It was fairly warm, rained on and off in the morning, but cleared up in the afternoon. The breeze had lost it's chill, the birds were singing and i could SMELL things growing! From a distance i could see a faint green tint to the trees and bushes, which told me that they were starting to leaf out. These first few days like this make me feel as if i had been holding my breath for six months and can finally start breathing! The weeping Crabapple in the front flower bed still doesn't look like much, but just wait a little while longer, and it will be totally transformed!

I Love The Tropics

...which is funny, cause i've never BEEN to the tropics! i have palm tree jewelry, palm tree clothing, palm tree screen savers, even growing a hardy palm in my Z5b climate. It's an obsession with me- i was born in this area, but i still hate wintertime - hate the cold and the dark (while it still may be dark in the winter in the warm zones, it would still be WARM!). Plus my Tillies could stay outside, where they belong!

i complain every winter, and everyone tells me, "Oh, then you'll complain when it's hot". Not hardly. Yes, in the summer, there are times when i am really hot and sweaty and worn out from the heat, but no one ever hears me complain. Now, when i was a little girl, a lot fewer people had air conditioning, and summer was sometimes miserable without it! i'm not crazy - i'd love to live in a warmer climate, but i still want air conditioning for a little relief occasionally. But only occasionally. In fact, in our hot, humid summers, we don't use the air a lot - we're happy when we can finally open the windows and get fresh air. i recall our first apartment- the air conditioning was included with the rent, so it was on all summer. i realized at the end of the season that i hardly knew it had been summer! Oh, we were comfortable, but we never heard birds singing or frogs croaking, never smelled fresh mown grass or felt warm evening breezes coming in the windows. So while i'm all for air conditioning, i think there's a point where it's overused.

Did have about 40 houseplants, though :o)....

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! RANT !- PLANT SWAPS

i have attended quite a few plant and seed swaps in my day, at least, as many as i can find (alas, this is not a popular area for gardening enthusiasts)! But there are some things that bother me...First off, if you want plants or seeds and show up at my garden, i will probably give you more plants than you can carry away! We gardeners are like that. But, when i attend a SWAP (i.e., TRADE), i expect everyone to bring something in exchange for the other items they are interested in. Well, in my city, the plant and seed swaps also welcome people who bring nothing to swap (and there are many folks around here who want something for nothing), i believe primarily to promote this wonderful hobby/lifestyle, which i am all for. So i am happy to see folks show up who are beginners, or people who just don't want to bother to bring anything, that is, IF there is a time period provided for the 'swappers' to swap first -the ones who actually have dug the plants up, divided them, potted them, watered them and labeled them, and/or collected seeds, dried them, packaged them, labeled them and transported them to the swap! That is a lot of work, but for the possibility of finding something cool or rare or pretty at the swap, it's worth it to me.But don't show up with nothing, run in ahead of me and grab the only variegated lilac, or Butterbur,or speckled violet that i had been looking for, when you don't even know what it is and didn't do anything to warrant your having it! Plus most beginners don't realize that if two or three of you want one plant, most of them can be divided! But the "something for nothing" people just grab a huge bag of Cannas or grasses and run, not realizing that a lot of gardeners just bring them in that way, thinking everyone will take a part of them. So it has bothered me enough that i have contacted the people who organize these swaps and given them my opinion on this (whether they wanted it or not- LOL).

AND it always seems like those are the people who complain the most- "Oh, it's awfully crowded", "Why doesn't this have growing instructions?", "This is an older packet of seeds, someone's trying to rip us off!" All actually heard from a young (non swapping) couple near me at the last swap!

Please, if you don't have plants or seeds and want to go to a swap, at least go to the local dollar store and buy a few packets of seeds, or ask a gardening neighbor if they have anything extra you could bring. It's only the considerate thing to do.

'Tillyhouse'

Some of my favorite plants since i learned about them - Tillandsias! Unfortunately, they aren't hardy in my area, plus they need high humidity, since they normally do not grow in soil, and take in water and nutrients thru their leaves. They spend our hot, humid summers outdoors, which they like, but for the eight months they are in, they spend their time in this little hanging greenhouse in our unheated sunroom that i fabricated out of PVC pipe and vinyl sheeting. They do get cold, (but don't freeze), and i spray them periodically with warm water, which makes it nice and moist in there for them - I still lose one now and then, and it isn't the best life they could have, but i just love them, and i have to have them around! Works pretty well, they even bloom for me once in a while!

Thoughts On Skunk Cabbage And Steroidal Giants...

My garden contains as many rare and oddball varieties of plants as i can find, whether grown from seed or cuttings, acquired from neighbors, friends and family, traded for, or purchased (last resort!).The trees are filled with many cultivars of Tillandsias, not hardy -or even heard of- in my zone. The yard also is home to variegated Horseradish, variegated Dogwood and Redbud trees, variegated Lilac, HEMP (!) leaved Lilac, hardy Bamboo, things like that, and over in the veggie garden, purple snap beans, Elecampane, and "Preacher's Pride" tomatoes grow. Now that i'm a "leafer", my sights are on unusual plants with large leaves. i do have a Gunnera (she is keeping the Tillandsias company in the Florida room at the moment), a Butterbur, giant Lotus, and Inula (Elecampane), but this year i decided i "need" a Tetrapanax (one of the varieties is the 'Steroidal Giant') and Skunk Cabbage!

A Story...

i discovered this little story a few years back in a gardening magazine - it made such an impression on me that i cut it out and kept it ever since, and i'd like to share it. Did not get the author's OK, but i will reproduce the whole article as it was printed and hopefully she will not mind my passing it along....

"The Mouse Who Roared" by Linda E. Rosendahl

The short days and cool October nights had brought out pink buds, like miniature Christmas tree bulbs, on a dozen Christmas cactus plants in my small greenhouse. Touching the soil in one pot, I thought the plants needed a drink of water. Hose in hand, I aimed a generous spray of water into the biggest planter, a ceramic elephant, and out shot-what? Popcorn? Beans?

As the tiny pink things hit the concrete floor, I was horrified to see that they were baby mice. In the weeks since I had watered the plants, field mice had made a nest in one leg of the elephant planter, and now I had destroyed their home and all but drowned the whole family. Flinging the hose out the door, I went to find a small box and and something soft to nest the babies in, hoping that their mother would find them again. Some minutes later, box in hand, I bent to pick up two babies, when something in the corner of the greenhouse caught my eye.

There, standing at her full two-inch height, was the mother field mouse. With her two front paws, she clutched one of her babies to her chest. She looked me straight in the eye. Then she bared her teeth.

We stared at each other for a long moment. She did not blink.

"I'm very sorry," I said.

I set down the box with the two babies in it, then backed out the door and slid it almost shut, leaving just a mouse-sized opening.

All evening I thought about that fierce little mouse, defending her baby against something so unimaginably huge I needed a calculator to figure out that, if I were in her place, I would have been defying a monster nearly 200 feet tall.

Our culture would have us believe that big is best, and that without great power we are of little consequence. That night it did not feel one bit good to be a giant. And I knew that the mouse had more courage that I will ever have. I could only hope that somehow she would find a new nest for her babies, one far away from the huge and powerful.

In the morning, I slid open the door and peered in. Nothing. No pink babies, no fierce protective mother. Just the box.

But the box was empty. During the night, she had managed to carry away her little ones. Had she found a snug, safe place for them? I dared to hope so.

Linda E. Rosendahl, a retired high school teacher and librarian, gardened as a hobby for 40 years before having this close-up encounter with a field mouse. She resides in Swampscott, Massachusetts.

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A "Real" Sign of Spring!

The crocuses are hiding, the tips of the tulip and daff leaves are just breaking through the soil, but at least something's blooming! A friend of mine from my old job gave these to me - thanks, Barb!- don't think she knew the name of them, nor can i remember what i thought they were (winter Aconite?... hmm, have to look 'em up), but they are a pretty sight amidst all the brown leaves and sticks.
(P.S.- Yes, they ARE Winter Aconites!)