things emerging

I take more walks around the yard, admiring the new green shoots and unfurling leaves, happy to recognize some, puzzling over others (I've forgotten so many names and appearances). 

Young leaves on my hybrid maple:

I love seeing the ostrich ferns arise! (though do need to pull weeds here)

I'm pretty sure this is obedient plant 

Glad that much of the little sedums I moved over here when took out the remains of the stump in the front yard (where this pretty little redbud is now growing!)

are still here- mixed thickly with violets in this spot-

here's a fuller stand of it-

I know this is a flowering plant I put here on purpose- the taller stems among the violets- but I can't remember what it is, or what it looks like blooming

This one I distinctly remember transplanting as well- catmint?

Since this turned into a walk down the 'sunny' sideyard, here's the last plant to show: my hollies! They grew a lot this past year. The one on the left (with a chunk of old stump under it) is much shorter- gets less light

The one on the right is taller than me now!

early plants

I haven't done my usual walk all around the property to see what's growing, but here's a few pictures from the last couple days minor work outside. In the garden, one plant I moved to shade spot on the inner ends of beds 3 and 4 the year before, survived: a catmint.

I made no extra effort to protect plants from the severe cold we had this winter, so pleased and surprirsed to find that both lemon balm

and sorrel survived (though tarragon, winter savory and bunching onions did not. And sage is gone. Remains to be seen if my sculpit will regrow).

My lavender looks okay, if reduced. Both rosemary plants are browned and bronzed in the upper foliage

but some green remains on the lower parts of the plants, so I hope with a trim they'll be okay.

Similar with my potted thyme, which I really thought would die in the greenhouse this winter! (camera refused to focus on the green leaf)

Chives

and parsley are also still alive.

Also my happy thing- a new tree! Pictured from my bedroom window.

In the fall, I planted a young redbud out front (don't remember if I posted about it here). I've long wanted a redbud out front. I don't know how old this one was when I bought it from the local nursery, but it's about the same size as the one I've had for years on the sideyard, and a better shape. I am hoping it blooms this year. I put it where a tree died not long after I moved into this house, and the stump was left there (on purpose) for years- I think more than five years- with those yellow-flowering sedums planted around/over it. 

When I put this tree in, that stump had rotted out enough that I literally just pulled hunks out of the ground. Very little effort. It was super easy to spade up the soft humus and soil- easiest hole for a tree planting I've ever done. And I hope the rotted wood will feed this young tree well.

work!

I made a list of tasks for the garden, and surprised myself by getting more than half of them done today. Plus a few other things that I just started to do while out there. Spent much of the day outside, it felt great though my muscles are very sore now!

Broke apart a straw bale and spread it over the garden beds. I had four bales and was surprised that one was plenty for all eight beds- and a good two inches thick, at that. That stuff is really compact! I already like this better than dry leaves as winter mulch- it doesn't blow off and around the yard again when it's windy. Got to figure out how to store the other bales to keep dry. If I don't have any problems with the mulch (mildew, or tons of wheat sprouts ugh) I will happily use more on the beds in spring, around the plants.

I cleaned up the smaller sideyard today. Cut back joe pye weed where the dead leaves had blackened (from aphids I think). Pulled out flopped over gladiola foliage that was going through fence into the neighbor's space. My black-and-blue salvia is so lush and thriving over there! It had spread to almost completely cover the lamb's ears (which are nearly all gone- or dormant- only one sad plant could I find) and somehow, I don't care. I trimmed the blue salvia a bit, and gave it leaf mold mulch, and pulled up vinca around it much as I could.

Moved some plants around in the front bed, under the house windows. I dug up and moved forward the two small newer azaleas, and moved to the back the one young beautyberry that's doing great, and put in the same row two more beautyberries. They had been in the back side bed flanking panicle hydrangeas, and must've got too much shade or competition, because just thin slender bits compared to the one that's been in front. So hope they will grow more here, and grace my front yard, I can just picture them draping lovely over the edging onto the lower bed (it's two tiers kinda). There's two very cut back little evergreen shrubs in between the beautyberries, maybe they will show some green when I cut the beauties back. Or maybe they will get overwhelmed, not sure how that will work out.

I pulled up and cut back more yellow salvia in front (not so fond of it anymore). Yanked out some sensitive fern- likewise loosing my admiration for that plant. It just looks dead half the year- from heat especially it suffers. I mulched the two young arborvitae- they're actually doing well! Dug up and moved a few pulmonaria, and dug up and moved (divided also, to spread it out) the calamint  that was in front right by the porch (an azalea has taken its place now). I put it along side bed 4 in the garden. Except- there was something else there growing up new sprouts already. I don't remember what else I took cuttings of and stuck in the ground here. Wild geranium?

Broke up the bottom end of last year's leaf pile- the thick mulchy stuff that's (just like my compost pile) full of tree roots. I did a rougher job of it, this just for feeding plants. Gave plenty to the black-and-blue salvia (two bucketfulls), a bucketfull spread around the new redbud out front, and half a bucket each to the young trees on the larger sideyard (redbud and japanese maple hybrid). Also fed one rhodedendron, the smaller forsythia, spicebush, all the plants I moved around in the front, the larger established beautyberry (I had to prop up trailing branches off the ground- it's going to need a good cutback later this winter!), the row of boneset, the oakleaf hydrangeas, and my three surviving ferns in the way back. There's maybe two bucket's worth left to break up and decide who gets it.

I also cut back seedhead fluff off the larger 'chocolate' joe pye plants and the boneset, and scattered in places where I would like more to grow.

Sorry no pictures. Maybe I will get some tomorrow to add in.

how some things are doing

out there- these are some of the newer plants, from the last swap I went to, months ago. Coreopsis on the narrower side yard did okay- at least, it bloomed- but flopped over into a tangled cluster. Pretty sure it ought to look a bit more tidy?

The Liatris spicata has made interesting spikes topped with purplish-pink flowers- but they're so straight and tall, the few in the front bed feel out of place. And this one's leaning.

I'll move them to join these on the side later

The obedient plants are unimpressive- just greenery. So is the boneset, but it's grown so tall and healthy looking, actually done better than anything else I planted in that spot back near the fence yet. I would like to get another boneset, maybe an earlier-flowering one . . . 

I've got a volunteer baby evergreen back here, too- that escaped my attention when it was smaller (I usually pull them when just a few inches high)

Here's that dusty miller I always thought would die- it survived and grew a little more. I think because I've started pulling out and cutting back all the yellow salvia around the panicle hydrangeas. They're spreading and it's too much.

Still love my false indigo plant, and it has these odd, fat fuzzy gray-blue seedpods now

Black-eyed susans have spread to the other side of the walking path. So bright in that corner. My kid likes picking them.

My milkweeds are tall, tall! But no monarch caterpillars still. I'm disappointed at that. They've got heavy hairy seedpods on them now (not pictured) and quite a few are flopping over- I think probably because growing near the remnants of old maple stump under the ground, which might thwart the roots of new plants still?

Last of all to note, here's one of my redbuds that survived the deer so far (because I fenced it in). Funny, this is supposed to be an understory tree, but all the others which grow in shade are much smaller than this one, which is getting full sun more than half the day.

plant swap!

This was great. Local gardener's plant swap was today. Here's what I took to give away: two young tomato plants, three pots of sorrel divisions, a half dozen coleus, one african violet, a small pot of miniature geranium cuttings, three pots of jade cuttings, 

a pot of tradescantia 'bolivianus', some rooted spider plant babies, one pot of cuban oregano cuttings.

And here's what I brought home! The obvious: another ostrich fern.

Two Lysimachia Lanceolata var purpurea. They have purplish leaves, and will bloom yellow.

Four strawberry plants

a sad-looking handful of lamb's ears

Salvia lyrata (I think I got this plant before from swap, don't think it survived, hope to do better)

Red Monarda 

And what makes me most happy: some young trees and shrubs! American Persimmon:

Two Spicebush:

One Pawpaw (!!) (I think- it wasn't labeled)

and seven little Redbuds (!!!)