Private enemy number 1

We have a maple tree in our back yard, which I love.    I love it even though it drops things which need to be swept away.  I love it even though it renders our backyard a virtual growth-free zone.  It's given us syrup (OH SO FANTASTIC!) and beauty and it's a good tree.  

One of the things it drops is maple keys.  The maple key season is oodles of fun because Chutney the cat watches them drop through the window and goes crazy over every single one.  She wants to devour each and every maple key that drops within her sight.  They madden her.  She makes unusual noises and hurls herself bodily at the windows if they get too close.  She feels more passionately about the maple keys than she does about passing birds.  

The maple keys get swept up, of course.  They are small little buggers, though, and one or two escape the great broom to the compost heap.  Those guys, to a one, turn into little trees.  Or at least they try.  Yesterday afternoon, I started to see baby maples popping up in the garden.  I am a baby-maple killing monster.  If I see one I cannot prevent myself from yanking it up.  I'll cross fresh crocus beds to murder a little tree.  It's not that I don't like maples ... I do, very much.  I just know that given half a chance, our whole house would be destroyed by their probing roots and strong trunks.  I cannot possibly give them half a chance.  I can't give them a quarter of a chance.  No fraction of a chance will be offered to the maple babies.  

Focus on Crocus

Yesterday afternoon, while the sun was shining, I took some pictures of the crocuses.  I did it partly because it makes me happy to see them blooming and partly because when they're open, they are distinguishable in ways that they're not when they're closed.  

In fact, I missed one set of crocuses completely when I was giving the most recent update because I mistakenly identified one batch of pictures as being a second set of the same flower.  Not so.  I have two sets which are slightly blue-y white.  They're very different when they open.  (Above are the Blue Pearl and below are the starlike ones.)

There are the star-like crocus which were in last year.  I don't have their name recorded anywhere, which is a shame.  They're bluish-white on the outside.

There are the white crocus which I put in this year.  They're called Peter Pan, and I planted 24 of them.  I don't think they're up yet.  I think they're probably the ones about to emerge from the forest at the sunny side of the front.  

There are the white crocus with the blue petals, called Blue Pearl, which I also put in this year.  Their blue outside is really quite striking, despite what I wrote when I was planting them.

There are blu-ish purple crocuses, nameless, which I put in a few years ago.  

When I took the pictures, there was one yellow amid the Blue Pearls and I thought it was a rogue mis-plant (all of the bulbs look alike, don't you know).  However, this morning there are many more yellow bloomers.  They are the Golden Yellow I planted last autumn.

I notice that the labels for the Golden Yellow say EARLY as do the Blue Pearl, but the Blue Pearl definitely came out first.  Very definitely.  Some day I'll write down the order so that I might have a chance of planning.   I have a dream of having a deliberate garden, in which the blooms come in a lovely stream and there is nice leafiness all the time.  As it is, I think I get some pleasant stretches in the spring, but the rest is hopeless.  Little bursts of bloom happen here and there.  Leafiness happens in late- and midsummer when everything is weedy and leafy anyway.  Still, I like it.  

So do passers-by, which I dig.  I like having the joy spread around. 

Second century

I was going to post about yesterday's pictures when I noticed that this is post 200 for me.  I like round numbers.  

Nothing deep to say.  I still like the way the blog can show me things I forgot, but I wish I had some things recorded within that aren't here.  I hope practice will bring improvements.  

After a coupla hundred posts, I don't feel that my writing has improved at all.  Oh, well.  This comes from writing, posting, and never revising.  

Passing of seasons

I am trying to learn when my garden starts, not only in absolute terms (March 4, thanks very much) but also in relative terms.  

Today, I saw a few coltsfoot flowers starting up.  It's not in full swing, but it is starting.  Since it's the first weed/wildflower around here, I think I'll try to tie it to what's up in the garden.  

What IS up in the garden is that the zwb's are done, the pickwicks are mostly done and the deep purple satin ones are in full-fledged glory.  The snowdrops are going well, the little blue crocuses of various shades in the front are starting.  The hyacinths are going.  The Joyce bulb lilies are going.  The grape hyacinths are just starting to put their flower spears up between the leaves.  The daffs haven't started (but they will soon).  

Rehabilitated Coriander

I wonder if there are any kids out there named "Coriander".  I think it would be a good name. 

Anyway, I thought I'd provide photographic evidence that the coriander on my windowsill did perk up once I'd watered it.  It never stands very tall.  It's too leggy for that.  I guess I just don't live in a climate that can support coriander well.  It probably needs 8 or 9 hours of sunshine per day.  Nonetheless, on my windowsill I get something which can provide me with leaves for my soups.  

Window greenery

The herbs in the window are now doing quite well.  When we got back from our trip, I was expecting to find them all dead, but our nice cat sitter had watered them without being asked.  Lucky plants.

The parsley is positively running amok.

The basil I am carefully and sternly pinching back in the hopes that we'll have some nice bushy plants instead of the stilts we had last time.

The chive, singular, is looking pretty nice for a chive, singular.  

The coriander is suffering terribly because it's in a small pot that I didn't water enough.  The good news is that as soon as I'd taken this picture (honesty, full disclosure and all that) I did water it and water it well.  Hopefully it'll stand up again (as much as it does, anyway) shortly.

I have a dream of setting up time-lapse photography on the windowsill to document the plants reaching for the sun.  I turn them when I'm home, and a quarter turn every day leads to dramatic results.  They are such neat things!

Up-up-update

I started this post yesterday afternoon and then got distracted by cutting my finger badly while harvesting parsley.  Honestly, I am WELL past the age when people started trusting me with pointed-end scissors and I did think that I had a few years left before I got to the blunt-pointed ones.  Wrong again, I guess.  

This reminds me that I should document the indoor herbs, too.  

We went away for a quick break which is why I haven't been posting for a while.  This is opposed to the rest of the winter and spring when I just was being lazy.  Hard to believe that I really posted every day for weeks.  At any rate, the break was lovely and much-needed.

Well, we're back and the garden is looking pretty good.  Having spent the last few days being astounded by hillsides covered in daffodils, it's kind of nice to get home and find that ours haven't started yet.  Even though the daff-hillsides were amazing, it's nice to know that we haven't missed our own (albeit humble) display.

I took some photos this afternoon in the bright sunshine which has been punctuating the hailstorms.  Honestly, the weather this weekend has been weird.  And snowy.  And rainy.   

Anyway, there have been splatches of sunshine to encourage some growth.  And to give me the chance to document it.

In the front, there are our old friends the dirty snowdrops.

There is also a little patch of newer, more demure, cleaner snowdrops in the re-claimed bit.

There are pretty purply blue crocuses, thinking about opening, but maybe waiting until the weather warms up a bit.

There are pretty pale blue crocuses, following the mood of their darker compatriots.

And there is a veritable forest of things yet to come.  That's my favourite.  It's all in reclaimed ground.  There are alium, daffs, more crocus, and heaven knows what else.  I'm very pleased.

In the side, the Zwanenburgs are well and truly finished.  

The hycacinths are starting.

The daffs will be out soon.

The Pickwicks are in slightly rough shape, but still going.

The Pickwicks have been joined by the "Joyce" bulb iris.  I love these.  

There's a house on my usual lunchtime walk round which has these in its front yard and for years it was driving me nuts that there were these things that looked like irises, but grew like crocuses. I am very glad to have them in my garden now (and to know what the heck they are).

The lovely satin purple crocus are also going well.  They, too, cohabit with the Pickwicks, and I think the mating is absolutely wonderful.  I'm not responsible for it.  I wish I were capable of such planning.  

All in all, it was a welcome sight.  I love the bulbs.  I love the way that they come up in the spring without intervention on my part.  They come up before any weeds have a chance to ruin it.  They come up and shine when the sun doesn't.  What a happy thing a garden is!