Balmy Breezes, Shivery Freezes and Rainy Days

The magnificent flowers of Tulip Magnolia (magnolia soulangeana) are sometimes lost to a late frost--but not this year!

                                                  
March never can seem to make up it's mind. It starts out in the morning shivering in a winter coat, and by noon it's shorts and a tee shirt. Two hours later and you're drenched in a sudden downpour, mixed with 3 inches of pea-sized hail and wind that litters the ground with thousands of tiny twigs and branches, usually just after you've just picked  up all of the debris from the last weather snit.Then the sun peeks out; Mother Nature laughing at her own perverse sense of humor (Not Funny, Mom!) and warms your body and soul , kissing you with fresh breezes and hugging you with the delicious scents of fresh flowers and moist earth.

Miniature daffodils

                                                                    

Tritellia, one of my favorite small spring bulbs

                                              

Peppermint stick (clusiana) tulips

                                                                 
The next day, you wake up to a skin of frost all over everything, the daffodils are shivering and the rhododendron leaves are curled up into slim fingers that makes you want to fit them out with mittens!  There's a promise of 70 degrees by Sunday, but.....are the promises going to be kept?

Butterbur (petasites) flowers come up before the leaves

                                    

Vinca minor atropurpurea with white grape hyacinth

Spores on moss

Woodland walk

                    

Hosta montana aureomarginata

                                                       

Lots of promises to keep.

"And time remembered is grief forgotten,

And frosts are slain and flowers begotten,

And in green underwood and cover

Blossom by blossom the spring begins."

--Swinburne

Ah, the darling buds of May!

Seems like summer has sprung, full blown, from the hopeful days of March and April. Spring has flown by on beautiful gossamer wings, flitting off in such haste that has left me shouting, "Wait! I'm not done with you yet, I didn't get to see.....where are you going so fast?" Already the roses are overnight bursting into full bloom, and the rhododendrons haven't even finished opening up.

Red Knockout Rose!

We have been gone for 4 days, at the Tri-State Gem and Mineral Show here. It was an outdoor show, and it alternately rained, hailed, and gusted windily (is that a word? ha!) except for the last day, and most of it it was absolutely miserable, wet and chilly. So coming back to the garden was truly a marvelous adventure. With the rain and a couple of days of sunshine, everything seems to be twice the size it was a week ago and dramatic changes are everywhere.

And what a year for the irises! I am in love with irises, this time of the year. (Of course I am in love with whatever's blooming, at any given moment!) The newer cultivars are absolutely gorgeous, but I think I love the old varieties best. Some of the new ones don't seem to have much fragrance, which to me is the soul of the flower. Like with roses, all that hybridizing seems to have removed the essence and just left the lovely faces.

One of my favorites, an antique that started blooming again after I divided it and gave it some sun.

A new combination has struck me like a revelation: I am going to save seeds of wild columbine and scatter them in the bed of yellow iris for next year.

Won't these be pretty together?

The wild roses are blooming in the woods, scenting the air for blocks around. Kind of makes up for the scentless Knock-outs, which I love for their beautiful, don't-need-any-coddling ways. Therese Bugnet has buds, but being somewhat shaded by lilacs that have grown to tower over her, is just going to be subtle these days. Plus, I found a caterpillar chomping merrily away at her the other day, and it had already stripped a couple of branches. I removed it to a wild rose where it can chomp to its heart's content and not do any appreciable damage.

Therese Bugnet

The wild roses are multiflora roses, a type of rambler introduced from Asia
 to the eastern United States in 1866 as rootstock for ornamental roses. Beginning in the 1930s, the U.S. Soil Conservation Service promoted it for use in erosion control and as "living fences" to confine livestock. State conservation departments recommended multiflora rose as cover for wildlife. More recently, multiflora rose has been planted in highway median strips to serve as crash barriers and to reduce automobile headlight glare. However, because if its tenacious growth and rapid spreading ways, both through seeds and its habit of tip layering its log canes, it has made its way to the noxious plant list and is a scourge of farmers everywhere. I don't think there is anywhere it won't grow; sun, shade, open fields, woods, gardens; and it is lethal to mess with, having prodigious thorns that catch everthing within reach and rip clothing and flesh alike to ribbons if it has a chance. Its saving grace are the wonderfully scented white flower clusters, and the only reason I keep it around. When it is done blooming, I will arm myself with leather rose gloves and a sharp pair of pruners, and reduce it to about a three-foot mound (currently, they are reaching 8 feet and still climbing!) and while I'm at it, I'll dig out its new tip-layered progeny. It will spend the rest of the summer regaining its size, and next spring again be covered with buds. (I'll have to look out for cardinal nests, they like it because it's safe from marauding cats in there!)

A wild pink dog rose grows by the edge of the wood and I've planted a beach rose that I got from a friend who summers in Maine. It too is a thorny, dangerous thing that spreads, but more of a ground cover type. I don't know its botanical name. It needs to be kept in check with a firm hand also but it's single deep pink flowers are wonderful.

 Speaking of cardinals, I don't know where they are nesting this year, but last year a silly pair built a nest in the magnolia tree right over the path off the deck, just overhead on a low branch. They spent the entire nesting season scolding and fending off anybody who walked under it, and frantically swooping at the cats everytime they came anywhere near the tree. They did successfully raise their family but are not back in the  same tree this year! I think they learned from experience and may be nesting in the euonymous that grows above the stone wall, away from any human and feline threat.

 I've added a few more plants to the woods this week. It took some hunting, but I finally found stoloniferous tiarella, hostas and toadlilies to add to the wildflowers. I have plenty of the clumping tiarella wherryi varieties in more disciplined parts of the garden, but in the woods I want them to spread and form colonies.

Tiarella cordifolia should colonize by the dry stream.

The last leaves of adder's tongue (erythronium) have disappeared for the year, and the path is open again. Part of today will be spent moving wild phlox out of it to a spot where it won't get stepped on. Wild ginger and ferns have almost completely covered another path and need to be relocated. It's still not too late in the season, and it's supposed to rain (again!) this weekend so that will be good for them. Butterbur (petastites) and giant solomon's seal that I moved last week are perky and happy already in their new homes with more wild phlox and ginger, surrounding a pussy willow and an old mock orange where only poison ivy and honeysuckle used to grow.

The cursed invasive Virginia waterleaf. Beautiful, isn't it?

Arum Italicum Pictum in bloom. You have to look under the leaves to find this huge flower!

I love the way this fern is opening up!

 

The woods has changed to summer dress. Some of this ginger has got to go! It will be transplanted to another area or donated to a friend's garden.

The moss along the dry creek is well established, in spite of the robins and brown thrashers. The woods is my favorite place to be. I often put aside my pruners and weeding tools and just sit on the old bench, listening to the birds and enjoying the serenity of this sacred space. It's the first place I go in the morning, savoring my coffee in the dappled sunlight, and the last place I visit at night when the air is cool and dim; listening to Nature speak to me in whispers of soft wind voices telling me deep secrets of the woods.

A visiting neighbor enjoys the garden too! Or maybe he just comes over for the petting.

A local resident out for a stroll among the violets.

Every day is an adventure in the Chaotic garden!

"Nature is a mutable cloud, which is always and never the same."

--Ralph Waldo Emerson

Outwitting a Robin, Hawk Wars and Birds in Concert

Yesterday

He' s not much afraid of me, that fat red-breasted fellow strutting along the paths in the woods.  He cocks his head and keeps a beady eye on me until I turn my back, and then he promptly flips over every bit of loose moss he can find. I'm not sure if he really thinks there may be a tasty worm under there or if he is just playing a game with me and likes to watch me put it back. After all, he just checked it a few minutes ago, and he knows what's under there.. I'm not much appreciating his sense of humor!

But I'm smart, too. And maybe I can outsmart that feather brained wiseacre. I have an secret weapon. Somewhere, a long time ago, I acquired a box of vintage hairpins, and I am going to pin that moss down!

The pins will just rust away. Ha! Take that, you feathered bandit!

Fade to this morning

Well, there was a lot less moss in the middle of the path and an lot more still fastened down. I missed a few pieces, but of course, Cock Robin didn't and flipped over every one that was loose. By mid afternoon, he had it figured out that he could just shred the moss to pieces and get it out that way. But not all of it! So far, I'm calling it a draw. I've still won some, there is more left pinned down than he has managed to tear up. At least if it's in bits he will just scatter it, and it will take hold where it falls. Then he can't flip it over!  I think I have learned that spring might not be a good time to transplant moss. Next time I'll wait until fall when Mr. Redbreast has flown south for the winter! (I have noticed that it isn't the female of the pair that's doing all the mischief, it's the male. She must be too busy with her housework and raising a family to be out there causing trouble!)

More bird drama, this time in the air. Hawks and crows are having a war! Several times a day a hawk comes screaming over the woods, with crows in hot pursuit. Whatever it is that he has done to offend the crows, they are definitely bent on running him out of town! Today there were a pair of hawks, and a whole murder of crows, circling and diving and chasing above the treetops. I think the hawks are nesting in the woods Out Beyond; tomorrow I will walk out there and see if I can find their tree. I'm not sure what kind of hawk it is, just that's big, so it might be a redtail or Cooper's hawk. They are moving too fast when they fly over for an ID!

I haven't seen anybody home here yet! This might be a crow's nest.

A mockingbird has taken up residence in the oak over the house, at least for his sound stage. When he opened his repertoire with a bob-o-link song, and followed it up with a whip-or-will, I knew him for a bird that has been around. His concert lasts a good 30 minutes, and I don't think he repeats anything, including a few cell phone rings in there. He is a dancer too; with every third song or so he leaps a couple of feet into the air and lands launching yet a new riff. Yesterday a robin in the walnut tree joined him and there were bird duets in stereo! What an awesome concert that was!

I guess I forgive him for the Moss Incident.

"Let us be like a bird for a moment perched

On a frail branch while he sings:

Though he feels it bend, yet he sings his song,

Knowing he has wings"

                   --William Blake

Come take a walk in the Woods With Me

Grab a cup of coffee and let's go out to the woods! Redbuds create magenta bowers that beckon the way down the path, past the studio, under the pergola, through Virginia bluebells that make you careful of your step, and really look at what's at your feet. Stop and sit for a minute in the secret garden patio on the left, and enjoy the hellebores, celandine poppies, tulips and violets; and listen to the wind chimes.

Oh, look! A rare pink Virginia bluebell! I love it when Nature surprises us with her diversity!

.The mossy path is as soft as carpet under our feet. I love to walk barefoot on it!

A tiny fern has made itself at home on the edge of the path.

This new bed wll have hostas and a variety of astilbe, coral bells, tiarellas and ferns. The tall plants are surprise lilies ( Lycoris squamigera) that bloom in late summer. Behind this bed is a big colony of giant Solomon's seal (Polygonatum commutatum, var.), just coming up. A  young white redbud (cercis canadensis alba) is in the background. It is too small to see, but there is a baby redbud in the center of this bed, behind the big clump of surprise lilies. It will be beautiful in a few years. Redbuds are native here, and most of ours have planted themselves. 

A tangled mess of  Virginia waterleaf  ( Hydrophyllum virginianum) had to be eradicated here, but no fear, it is everyplace else in the wood. See that patch of green to the left and above? Yeeeah, there's more! The bright green area at the top right is yellow archangel ( lamium galeobdolon). It's beautiful when it blooms but really aggressive. Lets's see how long I allow that to stay there!  It carpets the ground under a huge hackberry tree and yellow twig dogwoods.

Woodland phlox has started blooming, and here is another stand of Virginia bluebells.  It is a beautiful morning and the sunlight slanting through the trees gives a ethereal light to the forest floor.

To the left and just out of sight, a bald cypress/dawn redwood cross (taxodium X zhongshansha Nanjing Beauty) will one day shade this area. A tiny Japanese maple (Bloodgood) is on the right behind the daffodils and a white dogwood is behind me. Another dogwood, Cornus Kousa, will be visible through the trees and to the left, as will an oakleaf hydrangea. This whole area (and most of the rest of the woods) was once a huge tangle of honeysuckle and euonymous that we have spent years eradicating and reclaiming. Woodsy perennials and shrubs (and more hostas, what did you think?) are planted here but this bed is only three years old and not filled in yet. Most of the perennials are still not up completely either. 

There are half a dozen dogwoods scattered through the woods also, but most are too young to bloom for a year or two yet.We have also planted  a catalpa, a witch hazel, an Arkansas black apple, elderberries, bird cherries, Tiger Eye sumac, a couple of viburnums, blueberries, pussy willow, buckeyes and nandinas as well as azaleas, both evergreen and deciduous. Privet, wild burning bush and bush honeysuckle were already  here, but seedlings need to be carefully weeded out to keep them from taking over. A huge mock orange is a remnant of the original owner, the only one left of a forest of them. The big trees are all native: hackberry, various oaks, black walnut, hickory and wild cherry.  At one time, this area was totally cleared, some 50 years ago, and a vegetable garden and orchard was here. The last of the apple and peach trees died in the late 1980's. Morel mushrooms still come up in the area where they were, in a good spring. None this year so far, tho!

This is the original wildflower patch that was planted (added to) some 25 years ago.Crested ireses, yellow adders' tongue, bloodroot, trilliums, toothwort, false rue anemone, woodland phlox, violets, wild ginger and a host of others make their homes here along with the mayapples and Solomon's seal.

False Solomon's seal (Smilacina racemosa) is up and will be blooming in a week. This plant was a native

here.

Dutchman's breeches (dicentra cucullaria) has colonized through the area. (I'm trying to remember to give the scientific terminology but I still love the old common names the best!)

Would you believe that this colony of Mayapples (Podophyllum peltatum) started with only three plants? Giant  variegated Solomon's seal is in the background.

 

Wild ginger (asarum canadense) and tiny woodsia ferns are a thick groundcover. Did you know that wild ginger root can be candied and eaten? It smells and tastes like tropical ginger but is very mild.

Gooseberries, remnants of the old garden patch that was here, bloom early and are a favorite of the bumble bees. Wish I could have gotten pictures of the bees, but I have an elbow bumper who likes to spoil my best shots. (See below)

 

Ras Tafari, king of the woods, companion, treat hog, lovable sometimes pesty elbow noser Abysinnian

 Shhh! Don't tell anybody you know where this is!! A friend gave us seeds of wild ginseng (Panax quinquefolius) a year ago last fall, and a few plants came up. We thought we had lost them in last year's drought, but I guess they just went dormant. Here's one! There are only a few so we are never gonna get rich off our 'sang patch, but it's fun growing them! It won't be harvestable for 5 or 6 more years anyway.

Crossing the dry creek. Mosses are getting well established, as well as lots of ferns and wildflowers. The dry creek is in its third year. It was all honeysuckle before then.

Four out of eight serviceberry saplings we planted along the edge of the woods last fall will bloom this spring, and they are all alive! They were transplanted from a bush near the house that was threatening to take over its entire bed. It is capable of making a grovefor itself.  Serviceberries are loved by the birds for the sweet, delicious berries (or so I'm told, but I haven't been able to get any of them! It was the first tree planted at Mt.Vernon by George Washington, and the berries are reputedly delicious in pies. If you can beat the robins. 

A side tip: to keep the robins out of your cherry tree, hang a wren house in the branches. Wrens don't eat fruit, and they are territorial little scrappers that will drive other birds away!

    The oak trees are blooming. The wind took down this  twig last night. Soon there will be a yellow haze over everything from the pollen.

I know there are purists who don't like to mark woods paths, preferring to keep them "natural" but after visitors to the garden persisted in wandering off  paths and tromping thru stands of delicate wildflowers, I opted for stones and fallen log edgings.

The cats are ready to go in to the Back Beyond, but that is for another day!

 Though the white lilacs beckon, my cup is empty and it is time to go back.

Thanks for joining me! I've loved visiting with you and sharing my woodland patch! I hope we can do it again soon!

Prairie Fire crab tree buds

"When I was a child, the woods was a magic place

Where acorn caps were elfin hats

And lilies of the valley were bells

that played for fairies to dance."--S.P.