The Second Awakening

Plants that had wisely waited until after the mush making freeze are beginning to stir. Fiddleheads are breaking the surface all around the shaded half of the garden becoming.

The bamboo is alive. I've been checking and checking and checking. Finally new culms are coming up. The first few have just broken ground. Now the question is will the old culms leaf back out. The stems are still green. Either way nothing will get cut until the new culms are all the way up and leafing out. Making them grow through the old growth will ensure that they grow taller.

The False Solomon's Seal has arrived. I'll need to look for babies from my seed tossing on the slope below the scenic byway.

The botanical garden bought trilliums came up first.

Then the existing patches of the nodding trillium showed up.

Now I am starting to see the transplanted trilliums come up. These look like they are going to be the Trillium grandiflorum from deep in the forest that were moved last spring. Now where is that Painted Trillium? Then while I was at a job this week, a memory bubbled to the surface, what ever happened to those big red trilliums that followed me home? I don't remember seeing them last year. Was that last year or the year before that I planted them? I better be on the look out for those.

One Japanese maple, one I found on the side of a garden just last month only got slightly nipped because it hadn't gone too far before the freeze. It is looking most interesting so far. The stems are bright green and the new foliage is bright red.

Look at all them May Apples. Yes it is a native. You may want to think twice before planting it in your garden. It makes trilliums harder to find. My May Apples came with the place.

Late last summer I sprayed a section of hillside because it was a near pure thicket of the Clematis virginiana and the thought of hand weeding it was too daunting after spending months weeding out the steel rooted clematis all over everywhere. I started planting in early fall. Shortly there after the turkeys used the newly cleared slope for a dust wallow and then the cats decided it was a fine litter box. My seed grown baby plants took a beating.

Spring is proving how resilient the crowns of perennial plants can be even when they are tiny or transplants. I have been surprised how much has survived the constant digging and thrashing. The mystery bulbs turned out to be alliums. I hope they like this sunny slope and are reliable returning bulbs. The other plants coming up are sedums, goldenrod, milkweed, baptisia, Indiangrass, purple coneflower and liatris. I tossed out copious amounts of liatris seed and see them coming up in large numbers.

Then I sort of bought a pot of Little Bluestem grass at the big box today. I cut it in half and added it to the mix. By mid summer I expect all bare dirt to have vanished. The cats will have to find other accommodations.

We are down to the last few daffodils as the second awakening gathers momentum.

There is much to come in the months that lie ahead. I need to remember to look for seeds on this Larkspur, Dephinium tricorne. It wouldn't hurt to have some of that in the garden becoming.