Thanks to commentor Jeffery:
4.6.2021. Philadelphia, PA.
This year’s tulip is Spryng Break.
***********
Breeding mostly weeds out of my dead land, dammit. Okay, the white / pink / apricot daffodils are finally in full bloom, but the forsythia seems to be giving blossoms a miss this year, and for whatever botanical reason, an unusually mild winter seems to have promoted a lot of winter kill among the perennials. Lilacs aren’t looking great, either.
But I got my first plant shipment of the year… one of you monsters master gardeners inspired me to order a couple of daphnes from Edelweiss Perennials… so the annual Rejiggering of the Pots has officially started.
Speaking of looking great: You guys want Sunday photo posts, y’all gotta send me photos!
MULCH IS HERE pic.twitter.com/FnabpuoWIO
— Stuart Feiner (@StuartFeiner) April 6, 2021
What’s going on in your garden(s), this week?
Spanky
April is the crullers month? Now I’m jonesing for some pastry.
rikyrah
Good Morning,Everyone ???
Spanky
And I was just lying here calculating what a god-aweful number of mulch bags I’ll need, and switched over to cubic yards. I can get a couple into my trailer.
Carolina Wrens are bellowing, I’d better get up …
satby
@rikyrah: Good morning!
satby
WTF was that video?!? Too early in the morning for screamers.
BUT, we finally got a decent amount of rain with more due later today*, so I’m able to mulch my flower beds tomorrow. The mulch has been patiently waiting in its bags since last fall.
*The weather system over the IA-IL border looks like a spiral into tornados could happen too. I am not a meteorologist but wow.
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
satby
My friend knows of my inclination to create mini greenhouses all over my yard for vulnerable plants, so she sent me a cute hack she spotted on Pinterest last night: open dollar store umbrellas with the handles cut off used as greenhouse domes over plants. Must be clear or light translucent colors; guess who’s going to the Dollar Tree this afternoon ?
WereBear
The joy of mulch!
My favorite this time of year, as I wait for the leafless trees to bud, is “April’s first green is gold.”
rikyrah
@satby:
How smart!!??
Zinsky
Spring gave us a little hint in Minnesota a couple of weeks ago but now we seem to be locked into a gloomy, cloudy constant 50 degree day cycle that gets very depressing….
BTW – the BJ website seems to be kind of unstable this morning. It failed and reloaded three times before I could post this comment…
OzarkHillbilly
After 3 days of rain in the last 4 we are going to see the sun every day this week. Temps are gonna be lower with highs in the low to mid 60s which is the heart of my comfort zone. By Tuesday I should be able to get back to work in the veggie garden. I have only some Brussels’s Sprouts in the dirt right now, with red cabbage and broccoli starts waiting.
In the meanwhile, I need to clean out the ‘pond’ so I can start up the zen garden fountain. I need to harvest a bunch of moss from around and about the place (I have acres of moss here so no worries about over harvesting) and plant it around the flagstones in the new walkway I built. I also need to transfer my tomato starts into larger peat pots.
Looks like we’re heading down to NOLA next wkend to meet our newest grandbaby and it would be nice to have all that and more done before we go.
PAM Dirac
Finished all my spring pruning in the vineyard. I love this time of year in the vineyard, everything looks so orderly and and tidy. It always seems like everything can’t help but go according to plan. Someone likened it to right before the opening day of the baseball season: a brand new season ready to go with all promise and hope, but none of the failure and disappointment to come. I’ll take any optimism I can get.
I also have some really nice looking tomato seedlings going. I got my seeds this year from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds and I think it has made a positive difference. We’ll see how things go when they get in the ground.
Mousebumples
Got daffodils up, crocuses are done, and lots of green sprouting up. Need to mulch but with work and rain, that probably won’t be until next weekend.
Ten Bears
Interestingly enough, I have three daffodils blooming in the hanging basket I bought at the Farmer’s Market this time last year and has hung out there all winter.
For the record, I never touched it …
OzarkHillbilly
@PAM Dirac: I’ve been getting seeds from Baker Creek for years. The only times I’ve been disappointed is when they stopped providing a favorite of mine. :-(
debbie
@OzarkHillbilly:
Sounds like a really great trip!
Josie
I am trying out growing my vegetables in grow bags this year since I no longer have a yard. Today is for mixing potting soil and repotting eggplant, peppers, tomatoes, Italian basil, and Thai basil. I’m getting a small two tiered plant stand to put out on my tiny patio, and I’m really excited about that. It’s the little things in life.
SFAW
Trying to start tomatoes indoor. Burpee says 80 percent germination, I’m getting barely 50. Eggplant should have produced at least a few seedlings so far, but getting none (although I haven’t hit the far side of the “10-21 days” yet).
My father swore by — not at — Burpee, but the last few times I’ve used their seeds, I’ve been disappointed. Maybe it’s me.
OzarkHillbilly
@debbie: It will be too short. If my wife can get both requested days off (early indications are she will*) we will leave at midnight Saturday morn, and return on Tuesday.
* her company is short staffed and she’s been working 10 hr days for the past 2 months, so… fingers crossed.
moonbat
Planted the new shade bed in our community garden yesterday with ostrich ferns, blue hostas and pink flowering lamium. Mailman is supposed to deliver lungwort and my companion blueberry bush for the one planted last fall. Getting excited about the garden this year.
Eagerly awaiting mulch delivery, but maybe not as much as that guy.
MagdaInBlack
Those tulips are gorgeous, thank you ! ?
OzarkHillbilly
@SFAW: Are you using a germination mat? Eggplant really need the extra warmth.
Anonymous At Work
The opening picture could have at least been lilacs…
Gin & Tonic
@OzarkHillbilly: How closely should I place drywall screws?
Dorothy A. Winsor
@OzarkHillbilly: Fingers crossed your wife gets the time off. NO and the baby!
satby
@SFAW: Be sure it’s warm enough. All those seeds need soil temps of +70° to germinate. A sunny window is hit or miss, I even had to use a seed starting heat mat under the AeroGarden this year to keep the water warm enough. Nothing germinated until I did that. And I used mostly Burpee seeds this year too.
MagdaInBlack
@Anonymous At Work: We’re saving those for May. That’s when I see them in northern Illinois.?
Falling Diphthong
The first daffodil of spring has shown its head, following on the first crocus a couple of weeks ago.
This is especially meaningful this year as I did nothing in the garden last year (cancer treatment) and so this is just the doughty perennials going on about their business regardless of what I do.
The iris seem to feel really optimistic about things, but some years that’s only making leaves.
randy khan
Any report on our garden is mostly a report on my wife’s efforts, as I am the person designated to haul stuff around and dig holes where I’m told to dig holes. So I can report that the daphnes she planted a few years ago are doing very well, with flowers in lovely complementary shades of purple. I highly recommend them.
And I finished hauling all of the debris from her annual cutting down of the dead ornamental grasses to the compost pile. Now they can grow back unimpeded.
OzarkHillbilly
@Gin & Tonic: If you are hanging it horizontally, 5 screws equally spaced over the 4 foot (6 if hanging stretch board) starting and ending an inch or so from the edges. IIRC you decided to hang it vertically, in which case you put *2 screws* in every 16-18″ or so, 2-3 inches apart with a single screw in the top and bottom plates.
The idea is to have the total number of screws over 8′ = 12 with one each at top and bottom. Double screwing just reduces the time spent finding the stud.
p.a.
Lowgrowth, ground cover thyme spreading into my ‘lawn’*, and I don’t give a fuck, it smells nice when I mow and I don’t go barefoot so no worries about stepping on bees when it flowers. I suppose I’ll have to get things straightened out when I sell (about 5 year timeframe).
*It’s green but not necessarily grass. It’s a mess but I’ve chosen to call it xeriscape.?
satby
Thanks to Dan B, I’m now a huge fan of daphnes too. I have two little sprigs that I’m attempting to root, and they’re looking good. I’ll have to grow them in pots, so that’s the plan. My Cavendish banana is now over 6 feet tall and I can’t WAIT to get it out of the house.
Note for daphne fans, turns out that the entire plant is toxic, so if you have plant nibbling cats keep it in an area they can’t access.
Ken
@Ten Bears: My only guess is that a squirrel dug up the bulbs and hid them in the hanging basket. If so you will be missing rather more than three from the flower bed.
NotMax
@OzarkHillbilly
Phrasing!
:)
MomSense
Yesterday was gorgeous. Moved the deck furniture and fire pit outside and started cleaning up the yard. There are a few crocuses, but that’s it. Today is cold and cloudy so I’ll turn to inside chores at some point.
Not sure why I’m so tired this morning, but it may take awhile to get started.
Suzanne
Soooo I am not a gardener and have no plans to become so. But I am having a new planting bed and plants and a tree put in next month. I am very excited about it, as it will really improve the appearance dramatically. HOWEV I have one concern. In all honesty, I am not going to do a lot of maintenance/cleanup. I will water and sweep, but I am not a plant person and I want hardy, easy-care species. Landscaper suggested a suite of plants and sent me links, and I feel like I am on board except for maybe this lily plant he suggested. Do lilies drop lots of petals and leaves and pollen and messy stuff?
So coming from the southwest, there is a lot of bougainvillea there, and it makes the biggest freaking mess. Petals E V E R Y W H E R E. I really want to avoid that.
Suzanne
ALSO, Mr. Suzanne won’t be reading this…. his birthday is next week and I got him one of those Big Green Egg grills. I am soooo excited for outdoor living! We refer to it as PORCH LYFE.
debbie
@Suzanne:
My brother loves his!
OzarkHillbilly
Me and my ‘she shed’: women on the joys of their garden retreats
Move over man caves! Now women are discovering what a life-saver their own private sheds can be
Geminid
Yesterday my friend brought out a couple bee packages and installed them in two hives she put up a week ago. I watched from 30 feet away as she attached the screened capsule containing a queen to a frame, put the frame in the hive, then shook the container full of bees into the hive. A lot of them started flying around. Then she repeated the process. Debbie will come out Tuesday to see if the queens and their helper bees have chewed their way out of the capsules. She says the process allows the 10,000 bees in the package to get accustomed to a strange queen. She will also renew the bottles of sugar water with lemongrass extract she left at the hive entrances to supplement the bees’ foraging.
The tips of three apple trees my landlord planted last weekend were chewed off by deer. He put chicken wire around them, but evidently not high enough. Hopefully they’ll still produce blossoms, and the bees will pollinate the two old apple trees nearby. Bill planted hundreds of apples when he put the orchard in forty years ago. I was glad to see him out planting again.
It is a beautiful sunny morning here in Greene County, Virginia. I will chip away some on various flower and vegetable garden projects. I’m not going to get much done, though, until I get past a patio project I am doing for some folks in town. That will take another week. Then I hope to take a gardening staycation.
Suzanne
@debbie: My cousin adores his and helped me pick it out. Super $$$. But he got shafted in the gift department last year due to our move.
MomSense
@OzarkHillbilly:
I want one so badly. I am constantly looking at them online. A dear friend of mine has a dedicated craft room and a she shed and I covet. I covet so much.
Gin & Tonic
@OzarkHillbilly: Thanks for the advice
ETA: Is there an appreciable difference between regular and “ultralight” if they’re both 1/2″?
MomSense
@NotMax:
LOLOL!
Gin & Tonic
Also a good place to ask: I had a lot of tree work done, both last August and this February, as a result of which there’s quite a bit of oak sawdust on a lot of areas of my lawn. Now I’m not a lawn snob, but I’m wondering what the chemistry of that will do, and if I have to counteract it somehow. I call it “sawdust” but it’s chain saw debris, so coarser than wood-shop sawdust, but not as coarse as wood chips.
Gin & Tonic
@MomSense: FYI, I’ve been in contact with Fred and will probably plan on a trip to visit him later in May or June – he has some designs/prototypes I can try out. Thank you *very* much for the info.
SFAW
@OzarkHillbilly:
Germination mats? Not familiar with them, so I guess I gotta do some more work.
@satby:
I kept them mostly warm, but I can’t guarantee they were always above 70. Maybe not even above 60, 100 percent of the time.
So, as I surmised: it’s me, not the seeds. Thanks very much for the pro tips!
My father was in his early teens at the start of the Depression, which is when I assume the family started gardening. I don’t recall if he ever started his tomatoes indoors, or just bought plants. But either way, I should have paid more attention.
OzarkHillbilly
@Gin & Tonic: I don’t know, I never hung the ultralight stuff. Either it came out after I retired 7 years ago or my last 6 years building barracks for hopped up, testosterone filled young men returning from war zones required the stouter stuff.
Geminid
@Gin & Tonic: The bacteria that decompose cellulose suck up a lot of nitrogen, so you might do well to topdress the areas with some aged manure.
A big oak tree was cut down where I now live, and the branches were run through a chipper. A previous tenant used the wood chips as mulch near the house. While weeds generally run wild here, the weeds were sparse and scrawny where the wood chips lay. I think they were starved for nitrogen.
MomSense
@Gin & Tonic:
That makes me so happy! He’s such a cool guy. He talks two miles a minute and you will enjoy every minute!
Not sure if his tomatoes will be in the ground when you see him, but he has the coolest tomato growing set up. The kind of thing only an engineer would dream up.
If Five Islands Lobster Co is open, it’s definitely worth a stop.
Denali
@Suzanne:
If your area has deer, I am sorry to tell your that deer regard lilies as super tasty. Also hostas. Don’t ask how I know.
OzarkHillbilly
@Gin & Tonic: I wouldn’t worry about it too much. It might raise the acidity level a bit but that’s all. What is more likely is that it could act as mulch and block things from growing.
Jay
@Gin & Tonic:
yes, the ultralight is lighter. Screw positions don’t change. Only your back will thank you.
laura
the orange tree is still bristling with bees, butterflies and hummingbirds and the petals rain down as soon as pollination occurs to start next years crop. We are having a handful of vaxed friends come by this morning to enjoy the scent of orange blossom. We’re going to stand around the backyard for an hour or so eating ham on biscuits and sip a mimosa or bloody mary. The raft of poppies are putting on a show until the annuals get on up. Milkweed has doubled each of the last few years so I’m cautiously optimistic for Monarch Butterflies. We are getting a backyard landscape plan started in a couple of weeks – and there will be a she shed/adu/quiet spot/party pavilion built out behind the garage in phase II. After 19 years of waiting, we’re rushing headlong into “nice things.”
Jay
@laura:
yay!!!!!!
satby
So before while he was still Mayor Pete this deal was struck:
The city worked out an agreement with Notre Dame in 2016 to take over its long-unused federal permit to operate a hydroelectric facility on the river because it didn’t have the resources to build, let alone maintain, the more than $27.1 million facility.
Also ND is funding a million $$ rehab of the park above the dam complete with an educational display about the hydroelectricity produced. Pete was a good mayor.
LivinginExile
@OzarkHillbilly: I lived in the French.Quarter on and off for years. My wife is from Algiers, across the river. We met in a dive on Toulouse.street called Molly’s Irish Pub, almost 40 years ago. Our main hangout was Molly’s at the Market, on Decatur.street up by the French Market.
Ken
@satby: Nice, though it seems a little strange that the city can’t afford to build and operate a power plant, but the university can.
satby
@Ken: It’s a small rust belt city that lost its manufacturing base a long, long time ago. Just in the almost 5 years I’ve been here I’ve seen a lot of resurgence. But it took some creative thinking and push back against the predominant conservative mindset in Indiana.
Jay
Geminid
@satby: With a few exceptions, most cities are more or less poor. On the other hand, Notre Dame likely has an endowment large enough to easily finance the hydropower system. And the public relations people are probably writing articles for the alumni magazine and other media showing how the University is such a good South Bend and global citizen.
oldgold
Now that my right arm has been punctured twice with the vaccine, I have been able to interact in person with the second watered-down (thankfully) reiteration of my DNA.
Yesterday, these bundles of energy and inquisitiveness arrived unexpectedly at my door just as I was admiring Augusta gardening. I suggested we watch the Masters. An idea greeted with the same enthusiasm as when I suggested here that Pelosi retire!
Surrendering to reality, I agreed to take this gaggle of ornery young Gold Specks outside to West of Eden. In the pockets of my jacket I placed 3 balls of yarn – red, blue and yellow.
Hiking up to West of Eden I explained the plan. They would each cut dozen or so 18 inch strips of yarn, each being assigned a color, and hang them on the plethora of withered weeds still standing in the garden.
In unison they cried, “Why?” I said, “Think about it.” They did. They were providing bird building materials they could later easily spy in my micro-arboreal forest.
Jay
@oldgold:
nice.
StringOnAStick
@oldgold: Such a good idea, and they can spy “their” nests all summer. Good move, GD!
Elizabelle
@LivinginExile: When you mention your wife was born in Algiers, I hear Lucinda Williams singing a cover of Memphis Minnie’s “Nothing in Rambling.” One of my favorites.
Happy Sunday, jackals. Gorgeous weather. A bike ride calls.
White & Gold Purgatorian
@oldgold: Do be careful with yarn or string for birds. We have had two birds tangle themselves in string used in their nests (which we did not supply) and die. It is so sad to find a dead bird hanging from a nest and the little ones would feel terrible if it happened in your woods.
StringOnAStick
@White & Gold Purgatorian: Maybe cut it into much shorter pieces?
StringOnAStick
I’m restoring/changing a long neglected landscape, and that means having to move bulbs while they are actively growing. So far no apparent serious die off, I guess next spring will be the real test. Can’t be helped, it has to be done.
germy
I like that “Mulch Is Here” video.
Peaceful Sunday morning gardening… EXTREME!!
Glidwrith
@OzarkHillbilly: How does one harvest moss without killing it?
germy
I’ve got an issue that’s probably familiar to many of you.
Large shrubs that have turned into mini-trees and sent branches through the top of a wood fence.
I need to saw back the limbs before they hit my neighbor’s house, but the limbs have grown inside the top part of the wood fence. No way to remove them without destroying the fence. So I cut around them, and these weird stumps remain.
I’m too cheap to replace those sections of fence.
Maybe two weeks after my second pfizer dose I’ll have the courage to explore my retail and/or contractor options.
oldgold
@StringOnAStick:
Given your nom de plume, how can I not listen to your suggestion?
The yarn will be circumcised forthwith.
Gvg
@Suzanne: a lot of plants are called “lily” but aren’t actually in the genus lillium. They generally have nice flowers, but other than that, they behave very differently. What is the actual scientific name of the lily? It makes a huge difference in answering your question.
oatler.
It was 90 and dry in AZ yesterday. To me “April” is the name of the surly checkout girl at Circle K.
Suzanne
@Gvg: This is the one he’s proposing.
Kay
@Suzanne:
One way I think about it is people who don’t want to garden but want a pretty yard should focus on trees and shrubs. Get away from the idea of a garden as a strip or border filled with “plants”. One could have a flowering “garden” composed entirely of trees and shrubs, with ground cover to fill in and keep the weeds out. You could plant spring blooming flowering trees and shrubs and then have a succession by putting in summer blooming trees and shrubs. Ground cover of hosta or pachysandra and you have two season bloom with no maintenance at all. Pick the right trees and shrubs and you can get three seasons- fall color. It’ll be uncluttered with plenty of color and interest and just all the shades of green and texture of the foliage in between.
Your whole yard is the “garden” and something like a crabapple (tree) or viburnum (shub) or rhodo (shrub) are the “plants”. Kind of take the scale up.
Kay
@Suzanne:
I think you’re around Pittsburgh, right? Perfect place for this. Pittsburgh is almost lush in the spring and summer. It’s a place with 8 foot shrub roses growing on abandoned lots. Plenty of water. Prepare the ground, put in good quality, larger shrubs and trees and groundcovers and stand back. They’ll grow in spite of you :)
Geminid
@Kay: Calycarpia,”beautyberry,” is another good medium sized shrub, and looks especially nice in the fall. Blueberries are pretty also. Blueberries come in a variety of sizes. They like acid soil.
Suzanne
@Kay: So our yard is mostly a steep slope, with a level spot right in front of our front porch, which is where we want this planting bed. But yes, the landscaper’s general idea is what you just described, mostly textural green with a couple of “knockout” roses and hydrangeas for color (these plants grow like crazy here). These lilies just seem kinda not right to me. Too delicate and again…. don’t want messiness!
WaterGirl
@Suzanne:
Go with your gut. Ask for some alternatives. Trust your instincts.
Doug R
-3.6C(anadian) here last night and the prediction is below zero lows for a few more days.
But it’s predicted to hit 20C here just after that, so I think I’ll chance it then
Geminid
@Suzanne: Periwinkle (vinca minor) is a groundcover that stays green all year long, does well in semi shade, and once established holds own against weeds. It shows pretty flowers from spring into summer.
Kay
@Suzanne:
I love Pittsburgh’s lushness- how everything just grows like crazy- but the “valley” sense I get there doesn’t suit me. I prefer a cold, flat expanse as far as the eye can see :)
My daughter no longer lives there but she said when she moved there “why do I feel like I’m in a hole?” Because she’s accustomed to flat places!
You’re an architect so this is going to come easily to you. Spend some time on really choosing the small trees and shrubs. There’s a lot and you have to ask for them, specifically, by variety. They’re the “flowers” in your garden. Say “Prairie Fire” crabapple rather than “crabapple” if deep pink is what you want, etc.
I bet she’s recommending “day lilies” which are not the lilys you’re picturing but are absolutely fool proof. I don’t use them because I don’t like them, but they will be there 100 years after we’re all dead. Look at hostas. You get a lot of beautiful foliage for no work and there are like 50,000 varieties.
TerryC
My garden is basically a nearly 20-acre private Arboretum. I focus on trees. This year we are planting purchased bare root 50 Sycamore, and 25 each of bald cypress, loblolly pine, Ohio Buckeye, red Buckeye, Kentucky coffee tree, and more, can’t remember them all.
We are also either transplanting seedlings or planting cuttings for a bunch of Sugar Maple, red cedar, various willows, and Poplar.
germy
There’s a photo of me, aged 3, standing next to a small evergreen shrub in front of my house.
Sixty years later I decided to examine the property on google street view. The shrub is still there. In better shape than I am.
mrmoshpotato
About the mulch – is it here? ROFLMAO!!
Geminid
@TerryC: That project sounds like a lot of fun, hard work. Are you planting any black walnuts?
MomSense
@Suzanne:
Talk to your garden designer. The lilies may have been chosen to provide color when other plants in that bed are not. There are probably options.
J R in WV
Moss is pretty sturdy, actually. You just gently peel it up from where it is, roll it up or just put flat layers into a “flat” from the garden center that you saved back when.
Then you carefully trim it into a shape that fits where you want new moss, and tuck it into place… then you water it gently periodically until it looks like it has taken root.
Another way to transplant it is to put chunks into a blender with buttermilk, and gently buzz it to smaller bits. Then you spray the green moss buttermilk mixture onto the surfaces where you want new moss. The Buttermilk is what makes it stick where you spray it. Then you keep it a little bit damp, without washing it off. We have a ton of moss on boulders and old tree trunks laying on the ground.
There’s at least one old tree trunk that the resident woodpeckers have totally demolished into fragments. Pileated Woodpeckers can tear up an old tree trunk in no time, going for carpenter ants, which is a large part of their diet. They also come to suet feeders, and are really flashy around the yard.
FelonyGovt
Anne Laurie- just sent you some photos for the garden chat.
Gin & Tonic
@J R in WV:
You’re making this up, right?
rikyrah
@oldgold:
So smart?
J R in WV
@Gin & Tonic:
Nope. Read about it somewhere online when I looked up moss… Will admit I haven’t tried it yet, but have heard about it from people who have done it.
Another Scott
@J R in WV: There’s a “Home Town” episode on TV where the host woman did that with a couple of concrete lion statues. She didn’t make or apply enough so they looked skraggley, but it did work.
Cheers,
Scott.
The Lodger
@Elizabelle: Funny, I hear “Midnight at the Oasis.”
Gvg
@Suzanne: ok, that is a real lily. I don’t consider them messy, but your taste seems to run very unfussy so…after the flower is done, it drops the petals and they take a week or so to decompose. I am fine with that but I think you may not be.
I have three I planted last year that are almost done flowering. I took pictures and sent them to my mother. I grow lilies from seed because I like them so much. I would not plant them near a pool where any litter is a nuisance but out in a garden they are fine.
Kristine Pennington
Expecting freezing night temps here in Denver metro area mid week – so plan on covering any tender lettuce and spinach shoots – it’s always something with the crazy spring weather here….