What Will The Garden Do

So far this week an Ostrich Fern

And a native Virginia Bluebell have followed me home. I am a plant magnet whether I make any effort or not. All kinds of plants follow me home and I find a place for them some where in the wild cultivated gardens. Most stay close to me, but with three acres to work with they can also end up in the far reaches of the ridge top garden and in the sunny utility meadow.

I don't always remember where things get planted out there in the vast expanse. The awakening of spring always has some surprises, particularly with the bulbs and herbaceous perennials. Add in copious seed flinging and who knows what will come up. The trees and shrubs are much easier to keep track of.

I go out there hunting, scanning the ground closely to see what is coming up. I know I planted this. Where did I plant it? I know I planted this here. Where is it? Is it not awake yet or is it not coming back? What is that? Did I plant something here?

I try to stick to the paths. This is the wrong time of year to be stomping through the beds.

The mystery of what the garden will do from my constant additions and faulty memory are abetted by nature's rambunctiousness. A lot of plants around here simply don't stay put. They move about and multiply. There are two native Dicentra species here. I am not in control of them at all. They go about their business. I let them be.

The gardeners abet nature by adding other plants that like to run wild. The minor bulbs chionodoxa and puschkinia have reached a critical mass and the multiplication has begun to get exponential.

Natives can do that too. It is hard for me to imagine that ramps could be getting scarce after watching them multiply with abandon over the years. This patch was just a few plants six years ago.

The Bulbapaloozathon should be peaking by this weekend when it warms back up again. The daffodils are having a much better year than last when the bloom was off. Rot was about and bulb flies were discovered. They were not happy last year.

I have seen signs of the daffodils self sowing, but they don't do it much. Multiplication comes largely from division. It finally dawned on me why I thought some of the bulbs had been disappearing. When a clump gets big enough to suit her, Bulbarella digs the whole thing up and spreads them around. She always misses a few bulbs so she doesn't bother to replant the same hole. Some times there are only remnants left. Where I thought a big clump had been only a few sprigs may remain.

I can't keep track of all that.

There are multiple forces at work in the wild cultivated gardens that mean I really have no idea what the garden will do from one year to the next. The abundance tends to insure that whatever happens it will be be more than fine and often quite extraordinary.