When 'Jane' Grows Up

In three to five years that speck of pink barely discernible in the center of this picture will be quite the show. That is the plan anyway.

'Jane' the Saucer Magnolia lives there. She has already grown quite a bit since planted even with the snow loss of a split off main stem. Deciduous trees and shrubs have been much faster growers for me. That is probably due in part to most of the conifers that I choose are dwarfs, while the deciduous plants tend more towards standard sizes.

The garden is changing by the year. More plants. More diversity. More editing. In three to five years there could be some hints of maturity. It will have a very different feeling.

'Jane' is doing well at an upper elevation where the hardiness and tolerance of many plants are tested. Others have not fared so well.

My garden is not for plants with delicate constitutions. They are tested by the rapid swings of cold in winter and the lack of heat in summer. The competition with the wild things is fierce. Yet many delicate looking plants thrive here. I'm constantly learning which ones don't make the grade. I already know only the strong will survive.

This Is It

What you have been seeing here in the wild cultivated gardens at Outside Clyde in the last week is the Bulbapaloozathon in one of its better years. That unfortunate episode of squashing had only a slight effect. Most of those squashed daffodils are still in bloom. Bent bloom, but in bloom. Would you believe there are daffodils out there that are still in bud. More are on the way.

Bulbarella has made good progress in filling my garden with daffodils. Her garden next door is still the main attraction.

The native Celandine Poppy is beginning to show color in the buds. It behaves very much like a spring ephemeral, growing, blooming and setting seed before the trees leaf out. It is a great spring bloomer for shadier gardens.

It also self sows with abandon. I now remove it by the sack full from flower beds at the Posh Estate.

Have you seen this kind daffodil yet? I can't keep track of all the different kind daffodils that end up in photographs.

The ridge top garden next door is Bulbarella's domain. I assist in the maintenance end of things. I like a tidy show.

A minor bulb, Puschkinia, among thousands and thousands of other kind bulbs.

We found a new purple/lavender colored chionodoxa this evening. It looks like the whole sack got planted in one hole.

There are daffodils of every kind.

The store bought trilliums are up. They are making a lot of babies. Some will be moving to my garden when they get big enough.

This is the Bulbapaloozathon.

More Kind Daffodil

Today's theme is orange.
One

Two

Three

The minor bulb break.

Four

And Five.

All Kind Daffodil

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

A Chionodoxa break

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

And the old stand by, fourteen. Now I imagine you could multiply this number by three or four to get all the kind daffodils on this mountain.

All Ready

The final pre-spring chore is done. All the grasses are down. I'm ready for spring. I'm also fully exposed. There is a brief flash of full frontal in the barren time before the vegetation returns. Now the editing can begin.

When that chore was finished it seemed like a good time to go Christmas shopping. Merry Christmas to me. I used a gift certificate to my favorite local independent nursery to buy some new evergreens for more winter interest. I came home with another Picea abies 'Nidiformis' to replace a near dead Mugo Pine and a dwarf Eastern White Pine.

I had noticed in the last week that one of my Bosnian pines was decidedly more yellowish looking than the other. Before planting the new evergreens, it got a bucket of aged dung. The boxwoods around the propane tank got dunged too.

Between the sketchy amounts of sunlight for some and the dwarf nature of many others, the conifers are majorly slow growing. Give me another ten years. My garden vision is very long range.

The dwarf White Pine got planted on the slope between the driveway and the main path into the garden. That is a prime viewing location from the front porch. Now grow. In another six weeks it will be gone and I won't see it again until late November. Enjoy your summer. And grow.

Next it was time for a short walk. I was tired and dragging. Wild Kitty stopped in to visit late last night after a month's absence. He got into a short scrap with Button and chased Miss Collar off. I had to wait up even later for him to leave and her to come in. Button has now decided we need to get up at six thirty in the morning. I missed my sleep.

The Hepatica acutiloba is blooming in the deep forest.

One slope in the forest is densely covered with it. I saw the Bloodroot beginning to stir while I was in there looking.

One criteria for bulb ordering is, "I don't think I have that one."

The variety of daffodils on this mountain is rather remarkable.

They go from overly ruffled concoctions to pure elegance. The daffodils will keep us occupied while we wait as the time of vegetation continues to wake up.

A Walk In The Garden

Eight years and nine months later, it is beginning to look like something of substance, perhaps even intriguing. This is the time of the year, with nose pressed to ground, searching, searching, is it up yet? Now where did I plant that? I know I planted it here. At least I think I did. I guess it isn't awake yet.

I spent a beautiful morning house cleaning. Company was coming to visit. When I was satisfied, I headed outside to begin what I really wanted to do, chop down the tall grasses. Gone.

I was just about to start the last of them when my guest arrived. No worries. They can come down tomorrow. We had a guest for the Bulbapaloozathon. That is way better than chopping down grasses.

Spring starts short in the herbaceous department. That is why the meadow and wild flowers get chopped down before things wake up. It is no fun looking at vibrant new life in a field of five foot high dead brown sticks.

The concept of layering is gaining new attention in landscape design circles. What happens in the wild cultivated gardens is seasonal layering, short to tall, early spring until the killing frosts of autumn, a successive wave of bloom from a wide range of species sweeps across the mountain.

Daffodils are the tallest item of early spring. I am excluding trees and shrubs here. This is about herbaceous perennials, though there are some self sowing annuals.

Bulbarella has quite the assortment of daffodils.

And a few chionodoxa.

We walked slowly giving our guest a chance to take it all in. There is no need to hurry.

That is puschkinia.

This is Corydalis. Wow, it has been spreading quite a bit. Killing the lamium is doing wonders for the garden.

She saw daffodils of every kind, kind she had never seen before. It was a perfect day for a walk in the garden.