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.

Hiatus

Never mind the five inches of snow that fell in one night the second week of April. The last thirty days are a memory. All the waiting is a memory. I bought violas home today and planted them. I brought horse manure home today and planted that too. Never mind that I had to skirt a snowbank in order to get to where I wanted the horse manure to be. When will that snowbank be a memory? My guess is April 30. This is a list of what I can see growing: daffodils, iris, ladies' mantle, yarrow, columbine, lupine, day lilies, sedum, Shasta daisies. Small - yes. Alive - yes. Alive is all that counts.

Thaw

Thirty-four degrees feels like a whole lot of degrees, especially when the degrees are accompanied by zero precipitation. The geese were inspired to walk up the trail to the garden shed. Perhaps they imagined they might find bits of growing vegetation. No such luck. But there is some small degree of thaw - the snow on the roof of the shed, and on my house, recedes a bit further each day. I'm soaking Passiflora incarnata seeds. I brought the potting soil indoors from the shed, wanting the soil to change from a frozen block to a friable and plant-able substance. The chickadees are singing their Spring tune. The time changed last night. It's all slow but it's all change.

Recored Breaking Be Damned

I'm done with breaking winter records and so is my crazy bougainvillea. Deer Isle and my garden have been the recipients of over 6 feet of snow within the past month. There have also been record-breaking cold temperatures, I don't want to know any of the details about them. If I ignore the facts, perhaps less plants will die, that is my strategy. This is a picture of my crazy bougainvillea also in the act of ignoring and beginning to bloom in my studio despite the pile of snow in the outdoors (the pile is taller than me). I have read that snow is poor man's fertilizer - that the snow captures nitrogen from the atmosphere as it falls, and I can look forward to a lush-er season because of the snow. I therefore anticipate a veritable jungle, given the depth of "nitrogen" on the gardens.

2015 Seed Order

Here are the only seeds I plan to buy (someone should remind me in June that I said that in February). They arrived Saturday - I did not crop the dish or the computer out of the picture so that perhaps one can discern that seeds are all 1/4 lb. packets. Shady Woodland Mixture, Beneficial Insect Attractant Mixture, Bee Feed Mixture, Butterfly and Hummingbird Mixture, Xeriscape Mixture Eastern US... "Mixture" is clearly the operative word. My plan is to sow them mid-May, water as needed for a few weeks and see which things germinate/grow/survive the slugs and deer, etc. and which survivors attract local pollinators. Survivors/Attractors get kin.

Reflecting

Because there is a new blizzard and because I have read through my current seed catalogs to the point that the catalogs themselves are tired, I have been looking at pictures of my property and the progress. Once upon a time, there was a cabin, a neglected trailer next to the cabin, and a pond. No walkways, no gardens - although there was a significant amount of Comptonia proclaiming that sweet plants could indeed live here. This Google Earth photo says so much to me: the trailer is replaced by the main pollinator garden, there is an interlocking series of paths to the pond, to the goose Palace, to the rhododendron gardens, through the woods (plural), to the deer feeding station. Every inch of path was built with cardboard and gravel and a wheelbarrow. In the beginning, the driveway was a series of holes fringed by long reaching fingers of alders. No longer. The ankle-biting blackberry vine ground cover is replaced by a hundred other plants that welcome both my ankles and a host of helpful invertebrates. So much has changed. I will hold tight to the thought that the property is all resting under the newest blanket of snow, waiting to explode into green once again.

Blizzard Topped With More Snow

Within a week, my gardens went from bare and brown to buried under more than two feet of snow. My snowshoes and I are reacquainted and have made numerous loops of the woods, down to the goose Palace and the pond and back up to the house. I can also report that the bottle tree is doing an excellent job of capturing evil spirits as they meander down the driveway. Or do evil spirits slither? In any case, my debris pile now has an insulating snow roof and there are tracks everywhere indicating the feeders are being visited by a wide variety of critters. Several seed catalogs have arrived and January 2015 is hours away from done. This feels like "winter progress."

New Year's Day

I had no true plans for my own holiday supper but was well pleased to see this doe visit with her fawn for their meal. They surprised me and I surprised them as I was clearing the last of the blow-down from the backwoods walkway. I dropped my tools and went indoors so they could dine in peace. All paths are now navigable, the forecast holds no snow cover for plants. Sawing dead limbs and tossing brush will have to content me for a while. I read the following on Garden Rant and liked the words enough to repeat them. It's a good gardening thought for 2015 - shaking hands with the divine.

http://gardenrant.com/2014/12/trees-in-memorium.html

"I hope the New Year brings the opportunity to garden with joy. And even if things will be planted in memorium, I hope we can all take comfort in the fact that we are gardening in collaboration with something grand, and every time we put something in the ground and wait for its transformation, we are shaking hands with the divine."

After-Christmas Walk

Contrary to popular belief that gardening ends in the Fall, I have been "gardening" throughout December. I label any outdoor endeavor as gardening, perhaps that is my reasoning. It has taken me most of the month to tote away the debris from the three Nor'easters. My wildlife shelter/debris pile is immense, I do so hope there is a bunny within it. The fattest-possible gray and red squirrels preside over the bird feeders. The onslaught of 2015 seed catalogs has begun and I read the wildflower/pollinator seed mixes to see what already exists within my garden and might exist should Providence prevail. The rhododendrons seem well, their leaves variously droop and come back to life with each passing bout of cold weather. I have rebuilt the stone walls surrounding the shed door and filled those mini-beds with soil. I believe they are my weed-free, full sun locations for next season. The geese have produced soiled hay as is their job and I have moved that hay to the newest compost area. I loved the all-day rain on Christmas. Soak on, rot on. Walter the Dog and I had the spare time to meander through the back woods. There is a lot of work to be done there as well, to clear the paths for our fourteen year old dog friend Keene, who is quite blind and needs an air-lift over logs. We saw this stellar example of shelf fungi.

Actual Thanksgiving/Another Nor'easter

Happy Thanksgiving

I am thankful for this young solo heron that stood in my driveway and posed for me,  and I wish him well on his travels South. I am thankful for all the small trees and branches that came down in the early November storm. I used the branches to build a debris pile that I hope will shelter many a rabbit, vole and mouse through the winter. My geese love all the leftover scraps from the school's cafeteria and the flock of visiting Mallards love all the leftover scraps from the geese. The red squirrel who lives in the shed praises the grain and seed spilled each day as I feed the deer and the chickadees. I am thankful to whomever brought nine bags of leaves to the dump. I brought the bags home and used them to grow the pollinator garden ever larger for next summer's feast. And the leaves were chipped, how glorious and compostable is that? I am thankful to the woman in Blue Hill who places bags of horse manure and a Mason jar by her curbside. I am so happy to buy manure. All the brown-ness and bareness of November just seems like a rearranging of life to me. My Halloween pumpkin is happily rotting and destined to leave some seeds to sprout next May, a few winterberry branches are my bright red, next-holiday decorations on the deck - the cedar waxwings ate all the rest from the bushes. The bounty and the blessings are everywhere.

November News

Brown warblers, sparrows, chickadees, juncos and nuthatches are not pollinators now but my November garden is a-flurry with them and I am enchanted by their presence. All the brown stems, canes, and seed heads seem to be sprouting birds. If ever I had doubts about not furiously cleaning and tidying the "debris" of last season, those doubts are gone. Tidying can happen in April. It's easier to photograph the birds at the feeder than against a backdrop of brown, tan and yellow - so here's a view of just a few of my visitors. One feeder is slightly misshapen from nocturnal visits by raccoon and deer.

An early snowstorm walloped the Island last weekend and today was spent with the background noise of generators and chainsaws (we still do not have power). Spurred by the removal of broken branches and fallen trees, we were inspired to cut a path through trees and krummholz into a clearing. (One cannot do dishes or laundry when there is no electricity. The house is distressing. One must therefore remain outdoors in the sunshine.) Now there is a Secret Garden ready for suggestions. Acid soil, excellent drainage, partial sun, sort of south facing but surrounded by balsam and spruce. What do you think should grow there?

Compost Bonanza

I was ecstatic to find six huge bags of leaves at the burn pile at the dump, although I could only fit four of them into my Forrester (damn the need to buy groceries next). I had already placed a screen in front of my newest compost pile and begun the process of adding kitchen scraps and soiled hay to the existing layer of cardboard topped by grass clippings. Given the addition of a layer of seaweed and then the leaves, I have gone from "building a new compost area" to "waiting for Spring and the resulting fertile planting site" in a matter of two weeks. The location qualifies as partial shade as it is south-facing but also in the shade from the adjacent trees and the shed as the sunlight moves across the garden. Yes to well-drained, and let's not forget the need to be deer resistant. Spicebush? Serviceberry? Oregon grape holly? Rock cress aubrieta? Packera obovata? I love dreaming.

October Complacency

I was feeling quite proud of myself for planting absolutely nothing the last three weeks. Not only that, I have walked out of several nurseries empty handed, having visited for the sole purpose of buying a pumpkin or shopping in the associated Farmers Market. I worked on my Halloween display and I re-worked my stone wall. But no new plants for me, no-no-no. I toted water to the rhododendrons whenever there was a dry spell longer than six days. I pulled apart mature seed heads and distributed their contents. I envisioned cosmos and calendula and morning glory seeds in new places next season. I began a new compost pile and raked leaves from the roadside to aid to the soiled straw from the geese and soiled shavings from the rabbits. But I just said NO to the purchase of new plants. I cautioned myself that any week there will be hard frost, we are past a time for putting down new roots. I am past a time for daily check-ins to spot watering needs. I organized the shed, I brought in all the ceramic planters and birdbaths. My winter mode was switched on, the motor that plants from April onward was switched off. So I thought until I remembered alliums. I wanted to plant alliums this Fall. I wanted to see alliums sprout up giant and crazy and deer resistant next Spring. PayPal to the rescue, the bulbs are ordered, my trowel will not rest yet.

October Garden

I have been reading a lot of debate and ranting about the garden in Fall:  is it wondrous or is it barren of beauty? I'm not ready to exclaim that the October garden is as glorious as a May or July garden. But a garden is never without merit. The pollinators keep visiting, just varying their species in shifts. There is plenty of color and color contrast. Also, I side with the gardeners who do not tidy up and there is a bevy of small birds helping themselves to seed heads and no doubt other small creatures burrowing down through canes and fallen foliage in preparation for colder temperatures. Between the constant movement of the insects, birds and mammals and the daily changes of hue and texture, I believe my Fall garden is anything but dull.

September Terrarium

The most beautiful terrarium I ever possessed has been waiting for me in the woods behind my tool/rabbit shed.  I made my first terrariums in 1992 with my class of seventh graders and for twenty two years since I have been buying attractive glass containers and experimenting. I have bought books, I have Googled, I have done this and that and the other thing. I estimate I have created or supervised the creation of  more than thirty terrariums, less than seventy five. Most of them have turned into a bottle of wet dirt or a bottle of grass. Then this afternoon I was collecting moss for entirely another project and discovered this glass bottle with soil, moss, and ferns inside - one frond emerging from the mouth of the bottle. Perhaps I should have left it in the woods. But for just a little while, I have brought it indoors where it perches on a north facing windowsill. It stuns me.

On the other side of the garden,  a neon pink aster is blazing forth. You can read about it at http://www.abnativeplants.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/plants.plantDetail/plant_id/96/index.htm
I just call it Glamour-ata glamour-ata, love the color, loves the bees upon it, love the contrast with the zinnias nearby, love the fact it blooms when everything else other than black-eyed Susans are well past blooming. My September was full of ignoring but enjoying the garden. The sulfurs (yellow butterflies) are here, the wild asters and goldenrod abound but I have done very little to support the garden other than water the rhododendrons and think about the to-do list come hard frost. How lovely that the flowers thrive and surprise me nevertheless.

August, Come and Gone

I spent the majority of August traveling, first to Atlanta and then to Portland, Oregon. Beyond my Abuela Adventure, I saw a lot of personal gardens and I visited the Atlanta Botanical Garden and returned to Maine and visited the Coastal Maine Botanical Garden. I was most impressed by the horticulture mosaics and reminded that gorgeous plants and gorgeous plantings take a veritable army of gardeners to create them and maintain them.

Therefore, when I take note of my soil which still needs much amending and my lack of underground irrigation and the fact that my army of gardeners consists solely of ME, I am satisfied with the profusion of flowers that exists. Currently, there are zinnia, cosmos, rudbeckia, gallardia, echinacea, native bee balm and several varieties of goldenrod hosting fritillaries, red admirals and white admirals. It's my kind of jungle.

Happy Birthday to Me

I had a handful of Lowe's gift cards which I traded in for peat moss, pearlite and three berry-colored Echinacea. There were nine Fritillary butterflies on the plants while they sat in my driveway. Now that the plants are "installed," there is an absolute flock of butterflies. Plus one end of my garden is changing from white to yellow while the Bunny Barn end is turning pink. I find it difficult to capture the butterflies in a photo but they are there:

Then I went treasure hunting to my favorite antiques shop -  West Bay Antiques -  in Gouldsboro. The crab basket I spied last spring was still waiting for me. Now it is ensconced near my old compost pile, ready to serve as a base for the cucumber volunteers. Or are they squash? I'll know by September. The citronella geranium which I can't seem to kill sits on top of the crab basket. I love how this plant smells but I have not yet been able to train it into a pleasing shape. Its current form is what shot back up when I hacked off all the winter sprawl. "Hacked" is probably not the best garden verb. I believe "coppice" means the same thing and conjures up an image of me with a lavender floppy hat and flower trug vs. the reality of my blaze orange sweatshirt.