The Spring Border

Sad news on the tulip (and other spring flowers) border front...

I mean, what is there is pretty, but they're just not wowing.

And it begs the question...is it me?

Because there is a chance that it was the psycho cold, hot, freezing, 80 degrees, repeat winter to spring transition we had this year. A chance.

I mean, they started in early February and then got slammed in early March...

If not that, then it was me messing around with the bulbs when I expanded the bed and tried to re-arrange the bulbs while not disturbing the perennials (and perennials I thought were annuals).
Soooo...I may play again this fall and try to more thoroughly dig bulbs out, move some of the perennials (now that I know some stay green!) and make sure no bulbs are planted too deep.

I'm sorely disappointed at the poor showing this year. Last year was spectacular! This year, less than half came back up and some types not at all.
[cue slow, sad violin concerto]

Time will tell, time will tell.

For now, I will enjoy the beautiful things that are coming...

I see you little hardy geranium getting ready!

And oh the craziness of the tulips coming up through the perennials; what a mess! But they sure are beautiful!

The Garden is Now Open

Ladies and Gentlemen, for the first time in 2017, I am please to welcome you to the tornado path...um...I mean, our garden plot...


Yeaaaaah, so all those lovely, record-breaking warm days in February and what did we do?! Get sick, work in our home gardens, travel, do a whole bunch of other stuff that kept us from getting to the garden plot for clean-up...

But this week we made it.

And it was an ever-lovin' mess!!!


We walked up and are both like, "whoa."

"Okaaaaay, then. This is ... special!"

The tall bamboo poles with string around them to keep the deer out are completely fallen down, there are weeds growing out of every (I mean every) crack and hole in the weed barrier, trellises and poles and such all strewn around.

Pretty sure we were vandalized...


...by wind, rain and deer.

Last fall we very thoroughly removed all of the compost, dug down, re-sized, and placed large paving stones (recycled from my yard at home, thank you very much) before piling the compost back on. All in the efforts to minimize weed growth.
Weeeeell, here's how it looks...

 Weeds were growing out of the bottom just like in previous years. Alas. We tried.

(Typically at home I lay the weeds out to dry out in the sun before putting them in my compost; I've also read that weeds, especially those that have gone to seed, should be put in a plastic bag and left out in the sun to bake for a month or so to make sure all seeding has died. Well, here at the garden plot, we're far too lazy for that!)

All in all, just so much craziness going on!

So we spent a whole 45 minutes or so doing some of the minimal clean-up we had time for to get it a little less like a bomb site.
Our highest priority, though, was to get seeds in the ground!

Hey remember that post-it on which you wrote "SEEDS" and stuck to your cell phone knowing you'd see it and remember to bring the seeds with you on the day we were going out to the garden? Yeaaaah, not so much. Grrrr.

Thankfully partner had a few new seed packets (and hence we discovered that we will have 5 varieties of lettuce...ok, more, actually, because 1 of them is its own variety pack!) and so we cleaned out the disastrous little bed and got in a few rows of lettuce.
Yay! Progress!
We strung bamboo back up and cleaned out the smallest possible bed!


Yeah, so our work's cut out for us, that's for sure.

Well, at least a little does go a long way when it started as THAT much of a disaster!

And with that, the garden is open once again!! So excited for another year!
(And this year we will definitely know what we're doing and have it down! ;-D)

Happy Wednesday...

I'm choosing to ignore that it's like 23 degrees outside and there is a few inches of snow on the ground and will instead just say...

My beautiful first daffodils before they were pummeled. 

Spring. Not Spring.

You lie. You tease! I'm coming for you!!!

Yeees, after my exuberant "It's SPRIIIIIIING!!!!" ...well it got down to the teens over the weekend!

Then it got warm; today it's 65 and sunny.
Tomorrow it will get down to 17 again.

Well that's just depressing.

I was going out of town and so before I left, I figured my spring bulbs are used to coming up with potentially snow, so they'll be fine; the knock-out roses that had started putting out leaves bloom multiple times throughout the spring and summer, so even if this first one kills them off, hopefully they'll come back; so all that I was strongly worried about my hydrangea's poor little bitty leaves.

My coworker suggested piling it with leaves as insulation. Welp, worth a try.
So I did.

And I'm certain that my neighbors think I'm insane ("Honeeeeeey? Remember all the leaves she raked and then dragged to the corner on a giant piece of cardboard instead of a tarp because her husband stole the tarp for another project and then she left them there instead of bagging them up like a normal person? Yeah, well now she's dragging them back up to the flower bed where she got them.    How should I know?!   Shoot, duck, I think she saw us!")

However, upon returning home, I was pleased to see that nothing really had a problem. The rose leaves still look fine (my coworker's theory is that they're too small and didn't catch as much wind...?), the hydrangea leaves appear to have survived with minimal "burn" (we'll say it's because of my incredible foresight and expert gardening care), and not only are the crocuses back bobbing their happy little heads in the sun, but the tulips were exploding out of the ground! (I always have that "Oh yeah, I planted them there too!" moment when these bulbs come up!)

"We survived!! Go us!"

So, we shall see what this longer streak of cold temps this weekend and next week does. :-/   Come on, little guys, make it past this and we can really have a party!


In other news...


THE SEEDS ARE PLANTED!!!!!

Yeah, I'm sorry, but how cute are those?!
Puttin' the good ol' only-way-to-garden-in-a-1-bedroom-apartment Aerogarden to use!

With room for more in a few weeks!

So excited!!! 

(Put them out last night and husband already reminded me that I must be a very diligent little watering elf. I know, I know! I try...I really do!!)

Accidentally Spring

Ah yes, Maryland is currently in its record-breaking run of days in the 60's and 70's.

AND I'M LOVIN' EVERY FLIPPING MINUTE OF IT!!!

I received a wonderful Saturday surprise in the form of the thunderstorms I thought would be all day not starting until after 2:00. So I was able to get out and put in 4 hours of weeding!

I got almost all of the beds weeded!

This is a magical opportunity to be ruthless to weeds with my homi without having to delicately work around the spring flowers that already started sprouting and you're actually not really sure if they're flowers or weeds, so you let them all grow and discover that they are in fact 90% weeds that have gone to seed and multiplied and your entire summer is spent cursing them and yourself and the fact that you have no time to keep up with them.      (Hypothetically, speaking, of course.)

The beds look wonderful, going from this mess in the edibles garden:

To this:

(Still the same white trash junk laying around, but we'll get there.)

Ready for planting!
(And that random green thing popping up in the middle? Just a tuft of kale I planted last spring that has just chilled there all fall and winter. Fabulous.   The green closer to the house is cilantro!! I transplanted some last year and it is taking hold in the garden where it's supposed to be! Once it really takes off, I'll be able to pull it out of the flower gardens where I've let it go because...well, because - cilantro! Hello?!)

I also finished the wildflower border which is always the worst to weed. Between 2 hours last Saturday and at least another hour today, I finally got down to where the flowers end and the hostas start. Yikes, it's a lot of weeds!

Looks great!

Should have taken a before picture. It was covered - covered - in little seedlings.

What seedlings, you ask?

Ohhhhh, you know how I love my fresh cilantro and let it go to seed so it'll keep coming back??
Yeaaaah, sometimes those seeds don't stay confined inside of a sidewalk and the next thing you know your entire wildflower bed across the sidewalk is covered in cilantro seedlings. Looooovely.

So I very aggressively got in there and weeded the tar out of that thing. Not sure if any wildflower seeds/roots/whatever are still left in there to come back, but we shall see!


Meanwhile, the hydrangeas and roses put out buds over a week ago and today I found the leaves starting to open.

Uh oh!

I mean, if it stays like this, fabulous!

But it's February. Remember, little earth...it's February. You're aware of this, right?
So if you're going to be all "Wooooo hoooooo!!! It's Spring! That's SO dope!", be forewarned that if you pull an old switcheroo on us and freeze my little buds, I'm coming for you, winter 2017...I'm coming.

A few daffodils in the back look like they're going to pop!

The tulip border is looking incredible!
Incredibly crowded again. Oops!

All the little crocuses in bloom and tulips and daffodils poking up as well! (Sometimes poking through others. You weren't supposed to be here!!!)

Love the spiral the tulip leaves make...

And then of course there are those delightful snapdragons.
The annuals that apparently aren't annuals. In fact, I cut away the brown so that the brand new green leaves growing can emerge! What?!

Before:

            After:

               (oh, and they're budding!)

So much for my perfect plan of having the bare bed filled in with all the emerging spring bulbs and then having the perennials come up at just the perfect time to cover the dying spring greens. [Sigh]

Well, more green for all!

I looked at photos from last year and we appear to be at least 2, possibly 3 weeks ahead of last year as far as what's popping up! Craziness! 

Apparently, it's Spring!

Oh...except for one particular fellow who's a bit confused and apparently thinks it's Christmas.

The camellia...a winter bloomer (we're talking dead winter: mine bloom in later November / December although probably with more sun they could go longer).

And yet here it is like, "ooh, ooh, pick me! I'll bloom early like the other guys too!!" Uh huh. Pat, pat...gooood, little bush.

Maybe it's because he's new. 

We planted one on either side of the stoop in the fall because it's so shaded and after killing at least 3 Laurels, we figured these could perhaps do nicely; provide beautiful, dark green all winter and yay flowers in the middle of the blahness!

So perhaps he's just confused because his first winter in his new home was a spectacularly un-blossomful one for him and his brother (but it was their first year; they were putting down roots and figuring things out and discovering that when you're out of mom and dad's house and on your own, laundry does have to be done periodically and dishes don't just magically put themselves back into the cabinets all clean. So come on, I cut some slack and figured they'd be all caught up by next winter! Or now. Oh...ok, sure! I'm all for new flowers!) He's the only one blooming. His little partner is not. So yet again, I appear to have gotten the {"special"} plant. Poor guy.

Welp, here we go into another, albeit crazy early, Spring with the plants taking off and doing their own thing!   CAN-NOT wait!!!!

More Winter Flowering...

Today we have a guest poster! 
Please welcome my coworker, garden plot partner, and future vandalism gardening partner-in-crime sharing the story of the office amaryllis...

My earnest and enthusiastic coworker has, I think, a bit of an elevated opinion about my gardening skills, which tend more toward the “let’s see what happens… hey, it worked!” side of things than the “I know what I’m doing, and it worked because of that” end of the spectrum. Still, I will admit that things do tend to work out for the most part, such as when we received an amaryllis bulb at work in December of 2015.

Typically, when contractors or consultants send us Christmas gifts, it’s along the lines of chocolate, cookies, or treats – consumables and temporary items. For whatever reason, one of them gave us an amaryllis bulb in a pot two Christmases ago. I claimed it for my desk (logical, since I’m the only one not sitting next to a window, very smart), and we got a month or two of lovely red flowers out of it.

Typically, I believe the thing to do with Christmas plants after they finish blooming is to toss them, but I’d never had an amaryllis before (and I dislike getting rid of plants [ as does the Accidental Gardener]), so I looked up what to do with it so it would bloom next year. The instructions are pretty precise, but I take many gardening instructions as suggestions [ as does the Accidental Gardener], so I figured I’d give it a go and see what happened.

I read that you have to kill it off around late summer so that it can be dormant over fall and revive in winter to bloom again. How hard can it be to kill a plant, right? We do it all the time, unintentionally, can’t be too difficult, right?

Wrong.

I stopped watering the bulb around August. The leaves started yellowing and drooping after 2-3 weeks (which is stupidly long for a large plant in a small pot), and I eventually just folded them up, stuffed the whole pot and plant in a thick bag, brought it home, and put it in a dark corner by the a/c vent to cool it down and deprive it of light and water. Every few weeks I’d check on it, and the dang thing would still be hanging on, little traces of green and yellow in the slowly dying leaves.

Once the weather got cold (-ish, this has been the warmest winter we’ve had in a while, I think), I put it outside under the porch to complete the kill. I know, I know, it’s not hyper-controlled humidity, ultra-darkness, or pinpoint temperature control, but…. Plants have been growing for millions of years, perfect isn’t necessary. As they say, out of sight, out of mind, and I promptly forgot all about the undead amaryllis.

In late December, a warning went off in my head to check on the bulb. It was just about time to bring it in, warm it up, water it, and give it sunlight to fool it into thinking it was spring and time to bloom again. I went down under the porch, grabbed the bag, opened it up and…..

The dang thing was still alive.

Four months of no water. Three months of no light, and two months of wildly fluctuating temperatures (including down into freezing a time or two), and the dang thing was still alive. The leaves had died back to about 1” above the bulb, but that last one inch was just as green and happy as could be.

The instructions said that, when it was ready for spring, you’d see a flower stalk forming in the center. There was no sign of new growth, but since time was running out for it to flower during the winter, I brought it in, added more dirt to the pot, put it in the window, and watered it sparingly. After a week or so, new leaves started pushing up out of the center, and I figured I’d messed things up enough that flowers wouldn’t happen. I don’t mind greenery in the middle of winter, though, so I kept watering it and enjoyed the fan of tropical leaves.

Four weeks later, darn if a little flower head didn’t sprout out the side of the bulb, and start a race to the top. As if determined to make up for lost time, it took just over two weeks to grow about two feet tall and throw out some beautiful winter flowers...

I see you!

Starting to bloom! And higher than the filing cabinets :-D

It makes us so happy that this is what everyone
in the office sees when walking upstairs!

So yeah, it turned out well, I look like I have the faintest clue what I’m doing, and we get another year of bright cheerful flowers in the middle of the oddest dang winter I’ve seen. Here’s to the undead amaryllis living for another year. 


Update:
The post above was written last week. When I got into the office Monday morning, flowers 3 and 4 had opened! Yay! 
But no yay...because the whole stalk and several leaves were face-planted onto my coworker's desktop :-(

It had a thin strip of flesh attached which acted like a hinge when I lifted it and, I kid you not, crazy zombie flower stalk unloaded (thankfully into the pot!) probably the entire 1/4 cup of water I'd given it on Friday! Like some sad bleed, out it poured from the hollow stalk.
Now I know nothing about amaryllis and very little about plants in general, but aside from bamboo and cacti...is that normal?!

My coworker dubbed it the "water vampire". Sucking the life out of the rest of the plant and life-supporting dirt.
And where did that get you, freak?! A giant head too heavy for your own good and SPLAT! 

So sad.

I snapped it off and put it in a cup of water to enjoy for another day or two.

Unless it continues living up to its reputation of sucking the cup dry, storing it in its bulbous body and refusing to die for yet another year.


Update #2:
Coworker reads the following:
"Brighter sunlight creates the best coloration and a more proportionate plant" (read: shorter stem) LOL oops!

And:
"If they grow too tall, you may cut them: Amaryllis are among the best, most long-lasting of cut flowers."

Yaaaay! Live, you unattached, zombie, vampire, freak! Live and bring us sunshine and color and happiness!!

Let Me Out!!

Well yes, it WAS 70, but quickly dropped back down to the 30's. As I look out my window right now it's lightly snowing. Joy.
(but the sun is still out because that's how we roll here in Maryland)

I walked into the office the other day and found the fern in my "fairy garden" sneaking his way out underneath the lid...

I hear ya, little guy. That's exactly how I feel..."get me out of here! I need sunshine! I need warmth! Stretch. Reeeeeeach!"

Feel like I've been in a box for 3 months and it's time to get out!

There is hope. This weekend is supposed to be nearly 60 and you better believe I will be outside getting a taste of the gardens and soaking in the smell of dirt and springtime trying to show itself!


In the meantime, we stay trapped and bundled up just waiting until we feel we can "alive" again.

"They can put us in a jar, but they'll never take our FREEDOOOOOOM!!!! 
Well...until they decide we're too tall for the jar and so trim us down and we have to start over. aaaawwww"

Poor little fern.