Growing it and eating it

It's amazing how fast things go ( and grow) this time of year. Two weeks ago, the multicolored peas (bottom left) from Cook's Garden were barely through the ground. Now they're like a botanical version of Janis Joplin's coif. All unruly and refusing to be tamed. But lovely. I can hardly keep up with the bindweed (Convolvulus). Little sprouts appear everywhere, climb up a fork left for a day against the pergola, sneak up the stalks of the trumpet lilies and grab hold of the bee balm (Monarda didyma) in an often-successful attempt to wrestle them back down to the dirt as though they resent the Monarda's sturdy character. It's a perpetual battle, not helped by the guilt produced by those glossy pictures of perfect gardens you see in magazines. But I've had lettuce and herbs out of the garden so far, enjoyed the iris and peonies immensely, and have just last night cut my first bok choy, a real beauty. Next week, I'll probably have peas.

Reptile time

I wish I had a picture of our last three snakes, but they caught us unaware. By the time the neighbor had killed one it was too mangled to photo, and when my husband, Gary, caught the second, it was a little too immediate a problem to photo, so you'll just have to take my word for it. The first, we saw slithering under a car headed for the house (one of the dogs, all of whom hate snakes, saw it first). We managed to semi-deter it, shoving it off into the lilies by the well cap, much to the consternation of a chipmunk who blasted out of the lilies as soon as the snake arrived. The following day, Gary found an interesting striped snake who lives in the woodpile. Still no camera and by the time he had one in hand the snake had disappeared. Then later that afternoon our next door neighbor, who is terrified of snakes, was startled in her garden by the one Gary had ushered into the lilies. She killed it, then asked Gary to take it away. Nature may be savage, ( it's a snake-eat-chipmunk world out there) but She cleans up her messes over time, so he pitched it into the back brush where it will gradually feed other things as it decomposes.

An hour later a screech from next door alerted us to the third snake. Our neighbor's daughter-in-law wouldn't let her kill this one and the pair were tracking it in anticipation of the Robson Relocation Unit arriving in answer to t he screech. The snake turned out to be big --5 feet long and as thick as a Kielbasa though as with all the indigenous snakes here on the Eastern Shore, not poisonous. We went over with gloves and a squitch. ( For those of you who remember Horton and Dr. Seuss, you'll need no explanation, for those who don't, it's a kind of extension grabber tool). I ran off to collect The Snake Whisperer, a young friend who LOVES snakes and whom snakes LOVE. But by the time I returned, Gary had the snake in gloved mitts,so we climbed back into the car and drove out to a friend's farm to release him. I only hope the snake doesn't have the homing instincts of a snapping turtle, which houses some kind of internal GPS (which is another story). Life in the country is never dull. I only wish I had pictures.

Norfolk Botanical Garden

From top to bottom: Robinson Crusoe's house in the World of Wonder (WOW) children's garden, path to the NATO Tower, a lovely shaded eagle (and garden) observation tower, and Japanese garden.

Norfolk Botanical Garden

I’d done a bleary-eyed wee-hours drive to Norfolk, VA, so my husband could do his radar recertification on Friday and was looking for something to occupy me for what I thought was going to be 8 hours. Fortunately, the Norfolk Botanical Gardens, smacked up beside Norfolk Airport, was close. And what a surprise! 180+ acres of gardens, including a long statuary allee, acres of rhododendron-and camellia-filled woods, Japanese garden, 3 acres of rose garden, and a wonderfully creative children’s garden that the kids I saw running around obviously loved. The place was, while not packed, surprisingly full. And there's a boat ride available that wends through the gardens. As it turned out, my husband finished his re-cert in 2 hours, not the usual 8 (clever man) and I was out of there before lunch, but could have happily stayed all day exploring then having lunch in their shady picnic grounds by the lake.

Longwood Gardens

This from Ruth Menefee, Master Gardener:
In late-April, I visited Longwood Gardens in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania. My mother-in-law Diana and I walked through some of the many amazing gardens and several rooms in the Conservatory. We grabbed an extra jacket for the outdoor gardens as the chilly winds and periodic sunshine of late-April still did not deter us from a true spring display of Tulips (Tulipa), Snapdragons (Antirrhinum), Foxglove (Digitalis), Larkspur (Delphinium), and lots of Cape Marigold (Osteopermum). The trip was well worth it as visiting the gardens lightened our spirits. Here are some of the pictures we snapped along the way.
Ruth took the four pictures posted above.
http://www.longwoodgardens.org/

Overgrown seedlings

It’s tempting to only write about the successes in our gardens – Look at me! I’m a Master Gardener and everything always goes right since I’m so smart! Well…(sadly) it doesn’t seem to work like that. At least for me. I jumped the gun (I guess) on sowing seeds in the greenhouse, and now I’ve got sprawling, thigh-high tomato plants that needed to go into the ground two weeks (or more) ago. But neither the weather nor the garden was cooperating. (I’m gonna blame them instead of myself). The garden’s problem was a ridiculously healthy crop of bindweed. So I whipped around on the one warm dry day we had a couple of weeks ago with the Roundup. (Down all you purists; it’s the only thing I’ve found in 30 years that does it for the Canada thistle and bindweed. In three days it’s sugar and water.).
I waited three days then planted six tomatoes. And there they sit. I had tucked them into a semi-sheltered bed but neglected, as I have in other years, to protect them with floating row cover supported, so it doesn’t flatten the plants, by the tomato cages turned on their sides. No, the plants were naked. And there they sat, and sit still. The unplanted ones I’m now taking in and out of the greenhouse on a daily basis. They are flopping over in their second pots, dying to go into the ground. That will happen tomorrow WITH row cover.
Meanwhile, have I learned anything? Like when to seed those babies prior to frost? To force myself to keep repotting them when I misguesstimate? To cover them with floating row cover like the feathers of a mother hen? Maybe, but a gardener’s anxious push toward planting time is like a hormonal rush. Tough to hold back. And then life intervenes. You just have to forgive yourself for not being perfect. Mea culpa. Amen.

THUGS

I have been spending a lot of time on my hands and knees weeding(in between rain showers) with lots of time to ponder my gardening mistakes. It seems to me that of the top twenty, at least 15 of them have to do with planting a "weed". A thug that takes over and crowds out all others. Most of these have irresistible charateristics that I adore, so I thought I could overlook their faults. Or, perhaps, I ignored their questionable backgrounds thinking it would not happen to my garden, like the Salvia guaranitica 'Black and Blue' I planted in the South garden. In the beginning I fretted that I would never get those incredible blue flowers to survive our cold wet winters. I fussed and created a well drained soil, planted them next to the South wall for winter protection, and waited anxiously for them to return. I was ecstatic when they came back the first year, and then the second and oh look, the clump is getting larger. Now I am looking at them spreading across the landscape wondering if I will leave one standing when I am finished ripping those large, black, potato like tubers out of the ground. There is the paprika Yarrow that I put in to add a splash of color. Ugh! I am constantly knocking that back into a respectable patch. Did I mention the Verbena bonariensis? Oh, and what about that Valerian officinalis? I am rushing to extract the seedlings now, because once they start to bloom I know my resolve to eliminate them will fade with their aromatic blooms and my garden will be on its way to becoming a Valerian monoculture.
I am starting my spring plantings, looking at some of the selections I have chosen, I know that I am in the process of repeating my mistakes, but the foxglove shaped flowers of Rehmannia elata are so delightful, I am sure I can prevent them from ruling the world.
I have friends that have a knack for being attracted to the wrong man, for me it is a propensity for plants that just are not right for me and bring me heartache down the road.
I fear I am doomed to continue replicating these transgressions.

Damp but not daunted

Five inches of rain in five days. That’s what my gauge says. The birdbaths are beautifully brimming, hosta leaves are spangled with diamond-droplets and the rain barrels at the corners of the garage and shed are all recharged. The bees must be getting a bit stir-crazy, to say nothing of hungry; they've had few opportunities for forays for pollen and nectar for days. Every time the sun peeks out, they all come zuzzing out to hit whatever blooms they can find then rush back to their hives and holes when the skies open up again. Can't imagine what the ground bees are doing in this swamp of a back yard. The overcast has helped produce a skim of filigree mould on the soil surface of a lot of the plants in the greenhouse that need to go into the ground, but I’m not complaining. Drought seems possible just over the horizon. So I’ll take the rain with thanks.

Native bulbs

I've just gone out in a Scottish mist to survey the spring garden. Some things are already discouraging, like the white campion (Silene alba). It produces a pretty little rosette flower on a long stem, and can act like baby's breath (Gypsophila) in a bouquet, but it's horribly self-seeding and has thick choking roots. Once it gets established, it's hard to get rid of.

One encouraging thing, though, is the abundance of Camassia leichtlinii. A native Maryland bulb, one reputed to be a favorite pot root of the Native Americans, Camassia Leichtlinii sends up lovely progressive sprays of lavender-blue flowers on sturdy stems about two-and-a-half feet tall. (There are other varieties, such as the deep purple and shorter quamash, but this one seems to do best for me). The bluey-green foliage of C. leichtlinii is lovely too, elegantly channeled fronds that taper to points. The bulbs multiply with economical discretion, adding several to the collections in the beds every year without taking over. I enjoy the fact that the camassia also act like barometers of the microclimates in my yard. Against the house on the protected south side, the flowers have already gone to seed (not attractive,but there you are), but the farther out you go, the later they bloom. Today, spangled with rain in the perennial bed on the east side of the vegetable garden where the northwest winds whip through they are right now at their blooming best.

EGGS

There is a new nest in the Cherry tree. It is Robin, I can tell by the mud, messiness, and size. I think for sure it is the construction of the pair that have abandoned their eggs on the deck chair when the human activities exceeded their comfort zone.
The little Killdeer, parked in the gravel pathway has no thoughts of leaving. When threatened, he screeches, flutters his wings, charges, and if it is a code 3 emergency, calls to this mate to come in for reinforcement. Today with the rain things should be more peaceful.

Food and Drink for Roaes

Maxime de la Falaise, fashion model and artists' muse died on Thursday at age 86. " Her mother, Rhoda, an Irish beauty, was considered an eccentric even by the elastic standards of the British Isles. Lady Rhoda often made lobster thermidor, for instance, and then fed it to her roses. "She would make fist stew and sometimes forget that she was making it for the garden," Ms.de la Falaise told The Independent in 2004. "So she would add a bit of cognac, some garlic and spices. The roses would almost cry out with pleasure". "

The above information from today's New York Times. If my roses start looking weak this summer, I think this might be worth a try.

Back from Texas

Just returned from a week in Corpus Christi. They are in the midst of a terrible drought with no rain in the forecast. We visited the South Texas Arboretum and since interest has been expressed in what grows in that part of Texas - here are some pictures, including Plumaria that is just coming into bloom. The variety is not as great as it might be in a normal spring with some rain. The dried up wetland (called Gator Lake) says it all. I was told that a few weeks ago there was still a largish puddle in the middle.

Everything looks wonderfully green back on the
Shore.