Garden Evolution

First, there was a series of wicked storms in November through January, events which caused many a tree to bend over and lay parallel to the ground. Then there was the six foot layer of snow which covered my property February through mid-April. Too many trees would never grow upright again. This was the garden equivalent of receiving a truckload of lemons.  My version of making lemonade was to create a new garden space.

Any tree or seedling with more then a thirty degree bend was sawed at the base. The sawing coincided with my 2015 load of rotten rock delivery - rotten rock is pink granite too rotten to sculpt. The stuff serves a superb base for paths and sitting areas. Here is the current pile and the new entryway into what I will call the Fern Garden. I found pillars at my favorite antique store, West Bay Antiques,  in Gouldsboro last week - of course, now I need gargoyles. I also am searching for a few more beams from the dump's burn-pile so that I can fashion a raised bed which will feature...me.

My planned design is a circle of sitting area at the end of the entryway. The ground falls away gently from the sitting area and already has a host of fiddleheads. The green jardiniere is three feet is diameter, a score from an antique store in Owego, New York about a million years ago. The ferns were already established in the shady interior and will now grow more prolific. Perhaps I need a statue or two as well?

Planting at Last

I am enjoying a weekend with two unencumbered days. After I did an hour of rotten rock path restoration, my dog Walter and I took a short trip to the dump and a long trip to Ellsworth. I bought goose food and groceries and the beginnings of the plant list I assembled all winter long: a little flat of portulaca, two bush honeysuckles, a tiger eye sumac and a Joe Pye weed. The portulaca went into the hanging planter on the deck, the Joe Pye weed was installed near the pond, the honeysuckles went into last year’s salvaged bed near the echinacea, and the sumac was given its own nook within which to grow six feet tall and six feet wide. There was rain last night and fog now, I will actually water today to "drive" the water further into the ground. Plants and paths will get a much needed drink. The weather has been dry with temperatures locked into a 40 degree low-60 degree high pattern. I haven't planted my seeds because I have been concerned about soil temperatures as well as the need to water tender seedlings. Now of course I am itching to put everything into the ground. We'll see how much restraint I exercise through this day, good thing I literally have a ton of rotten rock that I can play with. 

First Flowers

Granted these are "store-bought" but they are flowers on my deck, daffodils scheduled to pop open tomorrow, coltsfoot blooming along the roadside. This is the year of the gourd, I have over thirty seedlings under the grow light. Last year was the year of the moonflower and that species failed miserably in every condition I offered (sun, shade, south, north, dry, moist....). I saw frost on the roof two nights ago, I am not thinking frost is behind us. But I am knowing that I raked the last of the snowbank into oblivion on Sunday and the perennial foliage increases exponentially with each passing day.