It’s been awhile since I’ve shared an update of what’s happening in the garden here, roundabout six months or so. I’m quite happy to report there’s something to report. Mind you, none of this is earth-shattering, but sometimes when I’m busy writing about fake plants or gate colors, the little things happening in the garden get forgotten.
Frankly, there’s very little happening the garden. There’s still no sign of the winter aconites, which I took a picture of last March 28. The earliest daffodils are just pushing up out of the ground but it will be some time before they show any color.
The only pruning I’ve done is on the hydrangeas (here’s a video I made about it). It still seems a touch early to do the clematises and roses. I like to wait until there are fat, swelling buds before I do those. Speaking of roses, someone asked me the other day when I would take the rose collars off and the answer is any day now. We’ve got some cold weather (with talk of the “S” word) in the middle of the week, so I think I will wait until after that. Most of the canes that were exposed appear dead, but I’ve peeked in there and see swelling buds lower, so it’s likely they’ll all be getting a hard pruning.
I lost one of my ‘Alnwick’ David Austin roses last winter (2017-2018) but I was late to report the loss to the company (did you know that David Austin guarantees roses bought from them for five years?) so they sent me a replacement this year. It came last week, which is good for a lot of zone 5 areas, but really early here. I potted it up and I’ll grow it on for a bit before planting it in it’s official home. Keeping it in a pot allows me to baby it a bit and move it easily under cover if it gets quite cold.
I haven’t really started cleaning up the garden yet. In fact I’m trying to hold off a bit to be kind to critters, but it will need to be done soon just because the garden tasks stack up quickly when the weather does decide to get nice and stay nice.
Down in seed-starting land (my basement) things are green and growing. In fact some things are growing so well that they need to move out. I’ve started the process of hardening off my onions and a few cells of mesclun I sowed inside with hopes of planting them out very soon. I’ve had plastic on the vegetable garden beds to help warm the soil for a couple weeks now and the soil is warm enough for those cold-tolerant plants.
It’s a big seed-sowing week so I’ll need the room under the lights and on the heat mat. There’s a huge list of plants that I should be starting now, including tomatoes but I need to move some things around to be able to fit more. This happens every year, and I always figure it out, but some warm weather would certainly help.
Perhaps the most exciting gardening-related news around here is that an order of dahlias and eucomis is arrived this weekend from Longfield Gardens. I can’t wait to start getting them potted up and get them growing.
What’s happening in your garden?
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