Colours

I am happy with the variety of daffodils we have out at the moment.  There are more on the way, but I already like the white and yellow and variations in between.  

I also very much like the way that the grape hyacinths and daffodils are out at the same time.  That's good colour interaction in my book.  

Plus,  I think both compliment the new colour of the house well.  I'd hate to find a lot of clashing between the garden and the house.  

Bye-ya!

The hyacinths in the side are starting their decline.  Yesterday, they were leaning into the sidewalk and house like insouciant youth.  Today (which is much colder) they are a little bit more upright, like their grape hyacinth friends.  I love the way the grape hyacinths look like 18th-century wigs.  Sadly, not even the grape hyacinths looking so good can stop the inevitable decline of the hyacinths.

In stark contrast, the hyacinth in the front yard is still barely out of the ground, let alone in bloom or declining.

Maybe I should get more hyacinths for next year, too.  

Blue forest

The grape hyacinths make a wonderful tiny blue forest, if looked at from the right angle.

Unfortunately, to look at them from the right angle, one must splay oneself on the sidewalk in a most undignified manner.  I am a bit self conscious about the picture-taking.  

I am self-conscious when strangers pass by and find me splayed across the sidewalk.

I am self-conscious when friends pass by and (maybe) discover just how many hours of the day I spend photographing my flowers.  I prefer to think of it as "documenting", but the fact remains that I have manymanymany gigs of pictures of flowers and dirt and things that will be flowers some day and things that were flowers recently and ....

I admit that I should be able to record this information somewhere and keep it in an easy-to-find way.  It's only a teeny-tiny garden, after all.  The best bit is only a foot wide, but so much can happen in that foot.

But it's worth it in the end to be know that it's normal for the hyacinth to be out before the grape hyacinth, and to know to look for crocuses in the first week of March.  

Hiya!

I am well pleased with the hyacinths in our garden.  They aren't given to hideously flower-heavy heads (at first, at least).  They put up this sensible flowerhead, and it blooms and makes me happy.  

They come up before the grape hyacinths, but there is a time when they're both present.  The grapes are soon to be flowering.  

Some sooner than others, I think.

The grape hyacinths are fantastic because they have this greenery most of the time to let you know where they're going to be and where they've been.  I would dig up many fewer crocuses if they followed the same regimen.  

Hello snow, what do you know?

This morning, the main story on the local news was about the hundreds of cars stranded on the highways as a result of last night's snow and ice.  

It's not that bad in the city (although very icy), but it is now definitely winter.  I know, we have a month yet before the shortest day and all that.  We can't argue with the white stuff.  It's boot weather; it's time to exchange the midweight wool coat for a nice puffy wind-resistant stuffed parka; it's time to put the lawnmower away and bring the salt, ice chipper, and shovel up from the basement; it's time to set the heat to come on before we get home in the evenings; it's time to put the big cauldron of mittens, hats and scarves in it's convenient-to-the-door location; it's time to stop watching last year's garden.  The gardening season is over.  

I'm going to try to keep up with the blog anyway.  Sooner rather than later I'm going to be fretting about next year's indoor plantings.  There's the indoor herb garden (still flourishing, even the crazy basil) and the potted plants.  The christmas cactus is looking good.  

Besides, in the next month I'm planning to be away from these snowy climes and in slightly more temperate bits of the world.  Perhaps I'll find something to say about other people's gardens.  

So, for the last report:  The gazania is covered in snow and ice.

The yellow flower has collapsed under the weight of the snow and ice.

The outdoor blooming season, 2008: March 6 - November 20.

Seeds

The grape hyacinths are doing the thing they do after they finish blooming, which is to sprout rather interesting-looking plate-like things.  I have always assumed that they were something to do with seeds without actually considering that my grape hyacinths grow from bulbs.  The bulbs can be split after they get to be big ... they grow a sort of offshoot.  No seeds required.  

So when I noticed that there were some little white bobbules on stems amongst the dying leaves of my pickwick crocuses, I should have thought harder than I did (I thought: "oh, I missed some dead flowers.  How clumsy").  

This morning, one of the bobbules was burst open and there are seeds inside.  And there are lots of other bobbules popping up out of the ground.  

Most definitely, I have crocus seeds.  

What do I do with them?

after

I'm back (although not yet back to gardening).  

I did see some absolutely wonderful other people's gardens while I was gone.  Probably I'll put some lessons learned from them into the blog after I've had a chance to filter the ~2000 pictures I took.  However, this blog isn't about other people's consistently marvellous gardens.  This blog is about MY inconsistent gardening.

The garden, having been neglected these two full weeks, is looking mighty fine even if I do say so myself.  My dire predictions of missing everything were absolutely wrong.  The grape hyacinths are busting out beautifully.

The daffs are STILL GOING!! 

Better yet, no-one has obviously stolen them.  A little while ago, a strange man suggested to the sweary one that he should steal flowers from the derelict school up the street.  Now, I have to admit that the thought did cross my mind that they have a really fabulous daffodil garden going on and presumably when the bulldozers finally arrive, the demolition crew aren't going to painstakingly rescue all of those delicious bulbs.  I have yet to work up the nerve to make a midnight raid.  I keep thinking that really, it would be like a public service to dig up those lovely perennials; the taxpayers' money went towards making that garden!  Surely it shouldn't be wasted along with the building.  Of course, given my inconsistencies, I am not the most worthy recipient.  Also, if my garden were awash with daffodils and the school garden had a my-garden-sized hole in its display ... I think someone would be able to put two and two together.  At any rate, I still have daffodils in my garden.  I haven't checked on the school.

The tulips are out, now, too.  

Even the late tulips at the dark end of the garden are starting.  I can't remember what this one was called, although I think it might have had something to do with a WWI battle site.  I do like it a lot, though. 

This has in the past been the best time for the garden.  I think I may have fewer tulips coming now than there were in previous years.  This may be due to some aging of the bulbs.  It may be due to my appalling habit of forgetting where the bulbs are and digging them up over the summer.  (They are then subjected to the indignity of sitting out in the open for months until I remember to plonk them into the dirt somewhere ... anywhere.  I did even forget to bring one bunch of unfortunates in out of the sun for really quite a shockingly long time.)  It may be because I haven't done much to make the soil nicer for them in the past few years.  The excellent tulip-obsessed blogger yarnstorm puts in all new tulip bulbs every year.  This shocks my frugal soul (what does she do with the "used" bulbs?), but you can't argue with her results.  

Of course, the real question is: "What survived?"  It's not enough to have a couple of beautiful tulips.  If I am going to be a gardener, I need to be able to grow stuff in more than one way.  

First of all, let me explain.  While we were living it up, sweltering under sun-drenched 30+ degree weather in Paris, back at home the temperatures were hovering around zero and steel-grey skies poured oceans of chilly rain onto the ground.  We didn't miss spring here because it delayed itself for a couple of weeks.  Our maple tree is in full flower.  The other trees (lindens, maybe?) aren't even that far along yet.  The natural world in this city looks very fresh and green, just like early spring.  

All of those hot-weather plants I dumped into the ground weren't going to enjoy the cold nights, I thought.  Little did I know that winter would return.  

Nonetheless, it looks like maybe the nasturtium is clinging to life.

There is the barest possibility that one or two marigolds will have survived the shock.  

The scarlet runner beans by the house are possibly going to make it in the long run.

The scarlet runner beans on the guy wire (the whole point of the srb's) look very much like they won't make it in the long run.  

The lavender, which I savaged, seems to have recovered enough to be producing plump leaves.  I would love to grow large quantities of lavender.  It's not really hot and sunny enough here to do it well, though.  

All in all, that's not the weed-ravaged nightmare I was anticipating.   

Sunny Sunday

Still no actual gardening to report.  In fact, it dawned so grey, cold, and miserable that we didn't even make it down to the plot for the gardening meeting.  Oops.  

However, the sun has come out and it's lovely now.  The daffodils are starting to think that maybe it will be ok after all.

The hyacinths are doing what hyacinths do.  It's silly, really.  It must be a breeding thing.  There must somewhere be a natural hyacinth that isn't barbie-doll-ishly top-heavy.  It can't be a favoured trait to end up face-down in the dirt.  But not here in my little bit of earth.  Nope.  Gotta get so many flowers onto that sucker that it can't support its own weight.  

My favourite thing at the moment is the little star-like crocuses.  They must be part of the new collection I planted last fall.  They're not in the friendliest of spots, but they're doing an ace job being elegant. 

Breaking News

The first of the grape hyacinths is blooming

I don't know if it's significant that it's in the shadow of the regular hyacinth.  I am sure that they came at different times last year.

Hardening

The peas, beets and beans got another dose of it today.  The wind blew them all flat in the morning, but the afternoon was stunning, so they did alright.

So did I, for that matter.  It's not just the plants doing the hardening of today's title.  I am trying to get rid of my softie-ness.  The difficult truth is that yard work is hard work. 

The side yard is spring-ready.  I took out some stones, but mostly I tackled weeds and debris today.  I also dug up the spots that didn't have anything growing.  It looks better.  MUCH better. The front yard still looks derelict, but we'll deal with that in time.  

In the front, we still have snowdrops.  

We also have these delicate lovelies cheering up the entire place.

Even more delicate are these little star-like crocuses.  

The pickwicks in the front are just passing their peak.

The pickwicks in the side are pretty much finished.  I removed the rotting flowers from the main batch.  This is not a task I savour and I probably would have waited for the rotting to get a bit further along were it not for the fact that the pickwick patch was being eaten by clover (more on that to follow). 

The deep purple crocuses (with some pickwicks mixed in) are just finishing and they are going to get the chance to rot properly before I take away the flowers.

The zwanenburg bronzes are completely done.  I removed the mercifully dry remains of its flowers as I cleared out the last of the leaves and a few weeds from under their stalks.

The hyacinth is peaking.  Lovely.  

The grape hyacinths are coming up but they're a way from blooming yet.  

The daffodils are starting to look like they'll bloom soon.

Some of the tulips are looking promising.

Mostly, they're looking like tulip leaves, though.

I have no idea what's in the ground around the tulips there.  I hope that they flower soon to solve the mystery.  It's just possible that they're onions or garlic.  I remember thinking that any leftover sets we had should just be put into any convenient bit of ground for the sake of seeing what they did.  

I cut back the lavender.  

I cut it very far back. 

I cut back the marjoram (?).  It was attacking the zwanenburgs and neighbouring tulips.  I tore some of it out of the ground, too.

I went gonzos on the mint.  I am starting to think that maybe the mint was a mistake, after all.  I was happily cutting it back (it was choking some tulips) and thinking how well it was doing and then I found some roots.  HOLY COW!!  The mint is seriously sinister in the way it wanders around the garden.  I'm going to have to keep a close eye on that little bugger.  I suspect I could remove all the mint I know about and it would still be coming up in unexpected places.  I ended up digging out a large chunk of it, and also digging little trenches between it and the tulips and daffodils.  Any roots in the trench came out.  

I left this in the earth. I hope that it's something I want.

I also left this in.  They can't both be delphiniums, which is basically the only perennial that vanishes completely every year that I expect to come up.  The delphiniums actually look like this:

The tulips at the far end, next to the delphiniums, aren't yet out.  However, they are usually last.  And well worth the wait.  I think the picture shows how much worse the soil is at that side of things.  I believe that is part of the reason why the tulips are so late.

There are irises, which didn't flower last year but hopefully will recover from the transplanting and start blooming eventually.  I put them into the ground at the end of the season in 2006, so I think that they should be given a stern talking-to if they can't produce something nice this year.

The bits and pieces of daylily are not obviously dead.  Some bits have sprouted where the plant originally sat, and I think I didn't put any part of it back in the original hole.  I think they must be shoots from the bits of root (?) that were left in the ground in the chaos of trying to get that monster out of the earth.  We did get to the stage where we were hacking at it quite barbarously.  It wasn't an easy task.  I will have to remember that I split it in 2007 and remember to split all of those in 2011, and NO LATER.

There are these things which could be irises and could be daylilies.  Time will tell.

So, I did pull out a lot of that insidious creeping weed that at first I thought might be a herb.  I now am certain it wasn't.  I can tell the difference between the herbs and the weeds.  The herbs smell delicious when you hack at them and tear them out.  I don't fool myself that I got all of the insidious one, but I got lots and lots of it.  I think it's got such a stronghold because last year I managed to convince myself that it was alyssum coming back after self-sowing.  Oh, innocence; such a mistake.  

I don't know if I'll have any alyssum this year.  The marigolds could be a nice replacement.  The nasturtiums will fill in the ground where the runner beans grow up.  That's the plan, anyway.

I didn't take photos during the process, but in the front I still have some clover attacking the bulb plants.  What gives with that?  Why is the clover favouring the places where my dear old bulbs are coming out?  And why is clover so bloody impossible to get out?  I have been digging and digging and digging with my little claw, just to get to the point where the root is weak enough to break.  I know, you're supposed to get the whole thing out.   I can't follow the whole root when it's wrapped around the bulbs.  

The rhododendron is looking better this year than it usually does.  We had two in the back and they were so sad and hopeless that we gave them away.  They survived the transplant and are enjoying seeing the sun for more than 20 minutes every day.   The back yard has issues.

The biggest victory on the day is the "lawn".  That little strip of grass between the sidewalk and the street, which the sweary one spent a good half hour raking and clearing.  

This is the best it has looked since we moved in.  No, we're not golf-ready.  We're not about the lawn.  And if we were, we'd be very ... upset ... about that gash delivered by the sidewalk plough.  As it is, we can shrug it off and hope that the wound will heal. 

After several hours crouched over the beds this afternoon, I may be hoping for healing myself.