Easter Sunday Stroll

Wanda and Rosie wait patiently for love. We waited and waited until 5pm when the animal control officer finally arrived. I hated waiting with two cats securely hidden and business deprived deep in the closet beneath the stairs. One can't be too upset though with pickup service on a Easter Sunday.



I tried to go for a stroll earlier and as soon as I disappeared over the hill Wanda made a pitiful fuss and I came back. I could wait in the house and they were fine.



It was a picture perfect day of blue skies, warm sun and a hillside covered with blooming bulbs.



It was probably a good thing Wanda, Rosie and the animal control man made me wait. I was a bit wore out from a long week of work and the hand meadow mowing from the day before. I needed to sit still for a while.

Some of the bulbs on this hill just are not in the Scheeper's catalog I am looking in. This looks like a double with a trumpet. Is this some new class or division? Bulbarella doesn't keep records. She just places an order when something looks new or different.



The minor bulbs are popping up every where. Each year it seems there are more. Each year the ridge top garden has gotten a bit tidier too.



With the dogs now gone I was finally free to take a long leisurely stroll and inspect the entire grounds. The conditions couldn't have been more perfect.





The Anemone like the other minor bulbs is showing up in more places. The warm is encouraging all kinds of stirrings.



Something has gone horribly wrong. The WUD (World's Ugliest Daffodil) has under gone an amazing transformation.



I think it must have snuck off to an undisclosed location for some major plastic surgery during the off season. What happened? It is like Cinderella has arrived at the ball in all her frilly finery. The WUD is no more.



I saw the first slithering thing of the season. That is how warm it is at 4000 feet up. I like the box turtles better.



I am always thrilled to see the Foxtail Lily, Eremurus, return. I have read a bit that they are fussy. This must be the perfect spot because they keep getting bigger every year.



Looping back around to the beginning with the setting sun,



It was time to pull two scaredy cats out of the closet and toss them outside. It took quite a few moments of sniffing around to relax.



Free at last. Still it is a good idea to keep on top of your evasive maneuvers.



A beautiful day ends with life settling back into its normal routines with its normal inhabitants in anticipation of all the new green life that is stirring.

Hand Mowed Meadow

There was one last little chore to do to get the garden ready before spring began in earnest, that is if summer hasn't already started. The sunny utility meadow needed all the dried sticks from last years growth mowed down. This is a cut and drop operation done with the manual hedge clippers. Gardy wasn't about to try and remove all those sticks. Let them rot.

It could be done with a weed whacker, but that would send woody splinters flying and make a lot of racket. I prefer the quiet. The chance for close examination, precision cutting and careful stepping around the new life emerging from the soil is aided by a manual approach to the chore.



There really isn't that much left standing after a winter with so much snow. And this summer weather only kicked in last week. I was able to get to it before most thing had a chance to grow very tall.



You could say it is a fairly sizable space from one end to the other. It didn't take that long. I was in the tidy zen.



It just looks better without all them dead sticks poking up in the air. The new green growth will hide the flat on the ground brown much sooner. Besides that is how soil is built. I am speeding up the process by getting the dead material in contact with the moist, bacteria and fungi laden soil.

There are rational reasons not to be a total clean freak. In this forest setting it makes for a good compromise between my maintenance gardener psyche and the reality of the situation.



The deep forest does just fine without anyone picking up after it. The Hepatica, Anemone acutiloba has burst into bloom, the first native forest wildflower to show itself this spring.



Look at that mess.



There is bound to be some maintenance compromise in portions of the deep forest. There are parts of it I want to put trails through and I just know I won't be able to stop myself from picking up the bigger branches and arranging the fallen logs in a more pleasing manner. It's on the list.

This Is The Bulbapaloozathon

The theme this year would have to be Fast and Furious.



After an initial extended delay, nothing is stopping them from rushing to complete the job. There is no hint of caution. Crazy bulbs. I don't trust winter that much.



The difference between early, mid and late bloomers could be completely erased by the end of the warm week to come. I think we have the large cupped 'Ice Follies' here. Then again three of them have some other business going on in the cup and could be a different cultivar altogether. It is not unknown for different bulbs to end up in the same clump.



This one must be the cyclamineus daffodil 'February Gold'. That could be wrong or that just shows how delayed things were.



The trumpet daffodil 'Goblet' is a good fit.



I'm guessing small cup. Lets see. Now that I have found you 'Juanita' I remember seeing an actual name tag, but you are a big cupped girl.



Could be the trumpet 'Lemon Glow'. I am beginning to think I need the Daffodil Illustrated encyclopedia.



One of the very poorly represented in John Scheepers catalog split cup daffodils. Not in Van Bourgandien either. No name for you.



Will they last the week in this warm weather? I can only watch and see.



There will be daffodils blooming in a week I have no worries. Plenty are left that are unopened or still pushing up bloom stalks.



You see the plan was to have a long drawn out season by planting the whole range of early, mid and late bloomers, then mixing it up with one of every kind just to be on the safe side. It works in theory and in certain weather conditions.

Disclaimer: The author of this blog is not an expert on daffodils. I just know the varmints won't eat them.

I Smell Like Dog

Right after I finish this post I am going to go let the kitties get a good whiff of me.

These are my new friends. The black one has better manners, but as you can see she sits on daffodils. We can't have that. Rosie get you butt off those daffodils.



The tan mottled one likes to jump up on you and is a bit more hyper, but she was the first to come close and check me out. The black one followed after the initial contact. It is a shame she has her eyes closed. They are different colors. Wanda open your eyes and sit. I said sit.



Of course they are as skinny as can be and inhale their food without bothering to chew it. I do not think it would be a good idea to feed them until they stop eating.



I hate you people who do this to me. Listen up stupids. Domestic dogs can not hunt! They are starving to death or could get hit by a car out on the road. Take your unwanted pets to the pound. I should not have to take care of your responsibility. There are two choices. They die out here scared, hungry and alone or they take their chances that a nice responsible person will adopt and love them from the pound. Idiots!!

Scenes From Bulbhilla

We have gone from zero to hundreds of blooming daffodils in three days. These highs in the 80's are freaking me out.



I have not yet acquired the seasonal fortitude for nonchalance about how things are. Here the garden is on a schedule. Plants are supposed to come and go in an orderly fashion and on time. Messing with the schedule messes with my head. I come from a place where that was never even a thought. In time I will adjust. I have no choice.

Rip Van Winkle knows what it is doing.



The Chionodoxa are back on a normal schedule.



These high temperatures could burn them out quick though and I just know they are bound to get smacked with snow again.



The big trumpet daffodils are open. 'King Alfred' perhaps.



More new crocus blooming later than the others. I'll guess Crocus vernus 'Jeanne d'Arc'



A split-cup daffodil with no name.



This means spring in these mountains, Allium triccocum. I need to buy some eggs.



The teeny tiny slightly out of focus Scilla siberica. It is a wonder it can even push through the leaf litter.



I think we have another no name split-cup daffodil. They must have come from another catalog.



You can see the Puschkinia from the kitchen window now.



They still favor being accompanied outside during daylight hours. Under the cover of darkness I have trouble getting them back inside for the night, especially now that it is warm and the creatures are stirring even more.



The ridge top garden certainly looks like it should for this time of year. It just feels most odd to be wandering around out there in my undermost layer, plain white cotton t-shirt and not be enveloped in the green wildness. At least I wasn't sweating while raking out the paths. I know where they are, but it helps any visitors who may stop in for a stroll to know where to walk.



The resident gardeners return has been delayed this year for a few weeks for knee replacement surgery. I hope they are duly impressed with the garden cleanup when they get here. You would really have to garden here to notice the difference. It's now tidy look could still shock real clean freaks. There are leaves all over the place and I may have missed a few sticks.



This surgery delay has had another unexpected effect. The 82 year old Bulbarella is learning how to use the computer so she can see her bulbs while playing nurse maid to the Building Contractor.



The power of flowers is awesome.

Look The Other Way

Yesterday we were down there looking up. Today we are up there looking out from Client #3's. West to east, facing generally south I think. I can get confused up here.



I do believe that line on the middle mountain on the left is the Blue Ridge Parkway.



It was a freakish 83 degrees when I got back home to my mountain. It isn't supposed to get that warm up here in the summer. The diagnosis is calling for sunny skies and highs near 80 for the next week.



The daffodils are bound to go into overdrive in those kinds of temperatures.



But what can you do? If it is going to be like this all spring and summer, maybe I can grow some decent sized cantaloupe this year.



And you know it is going to tempt me to plant the vegetable garden before May the 15th, our last average frost date.



I would be much happier with highs around 65. That is plenty warm to me now. The patch of Puschkinia is enjoying the warm sunshine.



Two of the firepit crocus are a different kind than most of the others around here. You know how it is looking in those catalogs, "Oh I don't have that one."



I spotted the first of the Anemone to bloom. I have also spotted two dogs roaming the ridge top garden for the second time in three days. I do think someone has set their dogs free out in the country where they have a better chance of surviving than being taken to the pound. NOT!!



It was such a nice day Crawford and Collar spent the whole day outside for the first time in months. Two days ago when I came home they were freaked out and had been inside the whole time. I knew something or someone had been out there by how they were behaving. Later that night I saw the dogs. Today the dogs did not return until I got back. Otherwise I would not have seen hide nor hair of those two cats. They have a burrow or something they hide in when strange cars, people or creatures come around.



Now there is water and dog food out in the garden. I need to make some new friends and call the humane society.



How will this spring be? Will there even be a spring? Will the daffodils bolt in one great crescendo to be snuffed out in a deep freeze? The forest floor has only begun to consider waking up, a few Hepatica have sent up bloom stalks to test things out. All the other inhabitants are still missing underground. Not even a violet was to be found and it was 83 degrees up here today.

What manner of dogs have been let loose in the garden? Will the kitties be able to go outside?



Such is the way of things. Even the tidiest the ridge top garden has ever been since I arrived leaves several piles of stick in the garden. They don't all manage to leave the premises.



It is easier at times to look the other way and enjoy all the good things going on in the garden.