Chinese Bloodroot February 18, 2019

Bloodroot is a spring ephemeral.  This little woodland plant emerges in very early spring, blooms for only a few weeks, then goes dormant and disappears.  I'm lucky I caught sight of it at all.  I was just going to the Shade Garden to look at my camellia, then I happened upon my special and rarely seen bloodroot.

 This camellia is what I went in to the Shade Garden to admire.  But the bloodroot was the real treat.

Pretty Rubbish to Dump in the Woods.

I hated to cut off all these blooms, but it's time to prune the roses.

Four Days at the Farm Feb 15 - 18, 2019

 These are some of my Philippine Lily seedlings.  They are three, maybe four years away from being mature enough to bloom.  I have little patches of these throughout my gardens in various stage of maturity.

So excited to have a block of days here!  Bert drove up on Thursday afternoon and I joined him after work on Thursday.

• Friday morning I sat on the front porch in the rocker and drank coffee, listened to the birds singing.  The weather was cool and the time passed very pleasantly. 
• I cut up some Yukon Gold seed potatoes for planting in a couple of days.  They should set for a while and cure before planting.
• Friday morning as I walked around the gardens, I noticed three little buds on my Paw Paw tree.  The flowers appear before the leaves.  Hopefully I will get more than that, but I'm excited about it nonetheless.  I'm determined to taste paw paw this year.  Last year the racoons got them before I could pick one.
• I worked from early morning until 2:00 spreading crushed granite in the Rose Garden.  I didn't get as far as last week.  Although the weather is beautiful today, it was easier to work in the cold rainy weather of last weekend.
• I sprayed herbicide around the pool, around the sculpture in the back and the Star Garden.
• That was it for me on Friday.  I was tuckered out.
• Saturday - cold and cloudy, which was perfect for continuing on with my granite project.
• I finished the Rose Garden, well, except for the path in front of the Rose Garden, the area leading up to the Rose Garden, and the path along the Long Border.  I can tell I'm going to run out before I completely finish, and I want to get the Star Garden going before I run out of time.
• I worked from 8:00 until 3:30.  I had to quit when the wheel barrow broke.  The wheel comes off the track sometimes.  Bert will fix it in the morning.
• Throughout the day I weeded in the Rose Garden and watered the various beds.
• I pruned a few roses.  Since most of the roses are new and tiny (I replaced 15 last fall), I don't have a to make a big push to get them all pruned this month.  I caught a break there.  I still have to prune the roses in the Orchard and the various roses in the Star Garden and around the house as well as the handful of mature roses in the Rose Garden.
• Jeff drove over on his tractor to help Bert pull a dead tree over that was leaning over the Greenhouse.  Then they came over to the Star Garden to pull over a dead tree in there.  I told them it wasn't a good idea.  The tree was hardly noticeable amongst the other trees, and a dead tree is great for birds and such.  It came crashing down right on top of my banana shrub and the bench and my hydrangea and one our bottle trees.  Not anywhere close to the spot they were trying to pull it.  Ergh.  I didn't make a scene, but I was pretty pissed.  Ironically, I just blogged about my banana shrub because it was loaded with buds.  Now, half of it has been sheared off.
• Tuna with dill from the garden, and beet greens and swiss chard from the garden for dinner.
• Sunday.  Back outside to start putting down gravel in the paths of the Star Garden.  I laid down gravel from 8:00 until 4:00.
• I also pruned a couple of roses - Marie d'Orleans and Cramoisier Superior.  
• When I came upon Ox Eyes or Philippine Lily seedlings, I dug them up and moved them before I laid down gravel.  
• I fed the bees some sugar water.
• I planted a flat of Phlox subulata  Drummond's Pink in the Rose Garden.  I know they don't like to stay damp, and I planted them in the Rose Garden, so they certainly won't stay damp.  We'll see how it does.  I'm always wanting low-growing plants for the space below my roses. 
• Bert and I walked the Meadow before the sun set.  Hog activity nearby, but not in the meadow this time.
• Mustard greens from the garden for dinner.  
• Monday - my last perfect day before going back to work.  Weather was gorgeous.
• The first thing I did was cut my three vitex back.  I pruned them back very hard, in fact I had to have Bert use the chain saw on a few limbs.  I saw some vitex in a small plot at the movie theater I go to sometimes.  They were pruned really hard and in bloom, the blooms were really showy because they were so close together.  I realized that I have not been pruning hard enough if I wanted mine to look like that.
• I cut my red shrimp plant in the Star Garden down to the ground.  Nothing died back due to the warm winter.
• I cut my Elderberry in the Medicine Garden to the ground.  The debris filled the cadet completely, dumped it in the woods.
• I planted Yukon Gold potatoes in the Vegetable Garden.  I planted lots of them, about 50.  Last summer the voles really got to my potatoes.  So I am planting enough for both of us this year.
• I also planted 1015 onions. Lots of them, maybe 50.  
• I cut 3 sections of sugar cane off my mother plant that were growing roots and planted them next to her.  Some day soon I will be saying "Why did I ever plant sugar cane?" because it spreads so fast.
• Fertilized the asparagus and the new plantings of onions and potatoes.
• I planted 3 prostrate and two regular rosemary plants in the Medicine Garden.
• Pruned my Archduke Charles rose that's next to the house. 
• Next I worked on the Kitchen Herb Garden.  I dug up all the lime balm out of the top section of the garden.  Lime balm is one of those plants where you look up one day, and it's the only thing in the garden because it has completely taken over.  I pulled up a whole wheel barrow full of lime balm and dumped it in the woods.  I planted 3 Greek oregano plants in that space.  I need mulch now!
• Throughout the time I've been here this week, I have peed in the Rose Garden, maybe 10 times.  I've always heard that deer don't like the smell of human urine, I'm desperate enough to try anything.  Bert even did it a few times - he's a team player.
• Headed in to work on Tuesday morning, happy and content after 4 beautiful days at the farm. 

Before and After in the Rose Garden February 17, 2019

Here is another before and after.  It took three solid days to finish spreading gravel in the paths of the Rose Garden.  I want to note that for the future to see how my strength changes over time.  I'm willing to pay to have someone do this for me after I retire, but now - no, I'll do it myself.

Before

After

Before and After in the Star Garden February 17, 2019

I decided to move on to the Star Garden with my project of refreshing the paths with decomposed granite.  I'm about to run out of the pile I used to do the Rose Garden.  I have another large pile over by the arbor, but that's a pretty long way to push that wheel barrow filled with rock.

Before

After

Camellia February 16, 2019

I'm currently in a love affair with camellias.  I have enjoyed my camellias so much this year!  In the fall I'm going to buy another one, red I think.  It's a decision because you need to buy large shrubs since they grow so slowly.  And they are expensive when you buy them large.  But I don't have enough years left in my life to wait for them to get big.

Emerging Excelsior Spanish Bluebells February 16, 2019

These are my Excelsior Spanish Bluebells coming up.  I planted 250 along the driveway last fall.  I should have been more artful and planted them in drifts instead of like little soldiers all in a row.  But it was so easy the way I did it.  I just stuck my trowel sideways in the ground and ran a little furrow about twenty feet long right along the ground by wiggling the trowel back and forth slightly.  Then dropped the bulbs into the furrow and covered them up.  It took minutes.  

Daffodils February 16, 2019

This is the beginning of the (very short) daffodil season.  My Daffodil Border is just beginning to take off.  The little groups of daffodils in the first several photos are St Keverne.  The ones in the border that are just scattered blooms are mostly Sweetness and Narcissus Odorous.  The 250 Sweetness that I planted this fall are only about two inches tall.  They will bloom later because they were just planted.  But next year they will bloom at the same time as the others.

Banana Shrub Buds February 15, 2019

My banana shrubs are loaded with buds.  I have one in the shady part of the Star Garden and two along the path to the Boardwalk.  The shrubs are not attractive, they look like ligustrums, but the scent of the flowers is really special.  Just like ripe bananas.  Because the winter has been so mild we will have a bumper crop of flowers.  If the winter is really cold, the early spring flowers can get zapped and then - no wonderful banana scent floating on the evening air.

Weekend at the Farm Feb 2 - 3, 2019

Bert and I drove together on Friday evening after work.  It is our 19th anniversary.  We went to LuLu's in Roundtop for dinner on Saturday night.

• Friday night I walked around for about an hour with a flashlight looking at everything.
• Saturday morning - I see lots of hog activity in my meadow, they have rooted up lots of earth right where the largest concentration of my wildflower seedlings are growing.  We've been lucky through the years regarding hogs. This time and only once before have we seen what is clearly a large group of hogs move though the area around the house in such a destructive way.  I fear for my Daffodil Border.  It is exposed.  
• My paperwhites are about a week away from being at their peak.  They are very pretty right now.  Last night their scent was heavy on the air.  Last summer at a plant swap, my neighbor Debra brought a sack full of Ehrlicheer bulbs.  I guess due to the oppressive heat of the summer, I didn't grab any of them.  I could kick myself.  I should have taken them and planted them around trees, etc. 
• The daffodils in the Daffodil Border are loaded with buds.  We have had quite a warm winter so far, and I think they are farther along than they should be at this point.  February is always cold.  But, I guess that Mother Nature knows what she is doing.
• I spent some time in the Orchard transplanting Kiowa blackberry canes from flowerbeds over to the blackberry beds in the Orchard.  At first I tried to carefully dig around them so I could gently pull them up with roots, but they broke off despite my efforts.  So then I just pulled them right out of the ground.  Some of them had the feathery roots , some only the fibrous runner roots.  But I'm hoping for the best.  I planted them and watered them in.  I never thought I'd see the day when I was doing anything other than yanking them up from unwanted places and throwing them in the debris pile, but they've thinned out a bit, and I love blackberries.
• I spent about an hour in my Woodland Glen cutting down yaupon and treating the cut with poison.  Bert says I've officially run out of stuff to do since I'm clearing out my woods one yaupon at a time.  Although he helped me last weekend, he thinks I'm crazy.  But it looks really pretty in there.  I've made a lot of headway.  I've figured out how to successfully cut trunks with the loppers that are about 5 fingers thick.  I was needing Bert and his chain saw for that prior to my new-found knowledge.  He's super helpful, but a bull in the china shop.  I'm making large leaps now that I can cut down the bigger yaupon with the loppers.   I envision the grandkids here five years from now building a fort in the woods.  You can't traverse these woods because the yaupon is so thick.  So I'm clearing out a section of the dense undergrowth in preparation for that future adventure.
• Since I had my oil can and loppers, I decided to cut yaupon away from the neighbor's barbed wire fence along the back of the property.  Bert and I noticed last weekend that he had been cutting some growth away from the fence line, in fact he cut down a cedar that was growing up through the fence.  It was growing on our side of the fence.  I'm not sure how I feel about that, but I've been concerned about the small stands of yaupon that are multiplying along that fence line, so I spent some time cutting and poisoning.  It's the good neighborly thing to do.
• Next I transplanted Ox Eyes from paths to a bed in the Medicine Garden.
• And I dug up some more Philippine Lily seedlings from paths and planted them in the Shade Garden.  I feel like this is much more of an accomplishment than moving Ox Eyes, because the lilies will be there forever, but the Ox Eyes come and go depending on the amount of water they get.  And the unruly seedlings from Ox Eyes have to be moved or killed.
• I read an email from the Washington County Bee Society that it was time to feed the bees.  Actually, the note read that we should try to lift up the hive, and if we could lift it, then we needed to feed the bees right away.  I can't imagine my hive ever being light enough to lift, even if it was empty.  So I went ahead and fed them.  
• The Sweetness Daffodils that I planted some weeks ago have now all emerged from the ground.  And most of the Spanish Bluebells are up.  The Silver Bells (ornithagalum nutans) have not appeared yet although they were planted at the same time.

My Landscaping Progress in the Rose Garden February 10, 2019

We were experimenting with these boards around one of my flowerbeds in the interest of not letting them go to waste, but they are too tall.  They will be gone next weekend, replace with cedar logs.

 Below, this is the dividing line between the area I have finished and the are I still need to do.

 The below two areas have not been done.  So it is clearly going to be an improvement!

Camellia in the Shade Garden February 10, 2019

I don't know the name of this camellia.  It was planted by a landscaper at my home in Houston on Adkins Forest.  It baked for years in the too-sunny spot in which it was planted. It was little more than a stick with a leaf on it when I moved it here and planted it in the Shade Garden.  It came back from the brink.  This year, it has more buds on it than I've ever seen.  They are actually quite pretty flowers.  Not nearly as impressive as my other camellias, but healthy and blooming.  A bright spot in a dreary winter landscape.

My Little Wildings February 10, 2019

These little plants just showed up.  They are wild flowers, but they aren't from around this property.  I'm pretty in tune to the wildflowers that grow on this property, and I've never seen these anywhere but in my gardens.  Seeds were probably brought in from some mulch or compost that I bought.  I call them Lazy Daisies, but I don't think that is their real name.  The flowers don't open up until midday.  The tiny little petals have a purple tinge in the summer, but they are quite lavender in the cooler months.  One time I was lucky enough to have a substantial stand of them in one of my beds, it I was very showy, but usually it is just one little plant here and one there.