Getting on with the job… From sturdy, sensible commentor Mousebumples:
Plants are just starting to bloom and sprout in my garden. I thought I’d send these along.
We have daffodils and tulips, bleeding hearts, a cherry tree, a violet bush, and a neighbor’s crab apple tree (I think – not my tree).
I’m looking forward to (hopefully) raspberries and strawberries and nasturtiums this year in the garden.
Hoping to plant some pumpkins and squash, though we haven’t gotten to those yet. The asparagus are already coming up, though!
***********
Here north of Boston, there’s still a plethora of white daffodils along the north-facing back fence, but this week the front yard has been an explosion of blue-and-white columbines. All the ones in pots have been opening gradually, and the ones in the dirt are finally setting blooms.
Our various lilacs, including the two-story foundation bush that’s one of the reasons we bought this house thirty years ago, are starting to bloom as well — the front yard smells delicious, which makes the toil of cleanup & transplant somewhat less burdensome.
And we’re beginning to get the first dark-purple generic and dwarf iris blooms, too… those used to be almost the first color every year, sometimes even as the daffodils were starting, but they’ve been lagging this year. (Probably because most of the clumps need separating, along with the daylilies they’re crowding.)
What’s going on in your garden(s), this week?
MagdaInBlack
I love Bleeding Heart, thank you for those. I potted the Rosemary I bought to replace the one I managed to kill this winter. That’s my gardening update.
I’m going back to bed. Because I can 🙂
Mousebumples
@MagdaInBlack: you’re very welcome! I have more bleeding hearts on the north side of my house, but they weren’t flowering when I snapped these shots.
My MIL has much larger bushes, it almost feels, of bleeding hearts. I’m wondering if they’re a different plant, or if I just need to let these grow a few more years..
P.S. Semi-related, we cut down an ash tree a few weeks ago. Old, half dead (eg no leaves on about half the upper branches), and probably with the ash borer. A neighbor across the street took theirs down a week or so later. We still have the stump, but a walnut tree planted itself nearby, so I’m just going to let that one go. 😊
Princess
This is a good chance to ask the collectivity what to do about groundhogs in a very small urban garden. We think their burrow is below our deck (which is at least partly sitting on a concrete pad — we can’t get below it). Is it worth trapping and removing them? Or will others just come to take over the burrow? I realize they’re generally solitary — we had one, then I saw two large babies that might have been booted already. Also, do they eat dahlia tubers?
OzarkHillbilly
And dandelions! Everybody forgets to mention the dandelions. It hurts their feeling.
@Mousebumples: My bleeding hearts are about 2′ tall. Some were the first things I planted here 14 years ago, others a few years later. That’s about as tall as my sister Peggy’s ever got.
OzarkHillbilly
@Princess: Groundhogs can do a lot of damage, real quick. I’ve never been able to live trap them as their butts are just too big for the trap door to fully close. I suggest you call a pro, but some have a propensity for using poison. I refuse to use that. YMMV.
Raven
@OzarkHillbilly: This is a video I shot when Bohdi was a pup. It’s way too long with Spirit’s Groundhog Day as the soundtrack but the part where he goes after the critter is really fun!
https://youtu.be/X6PPjVCmIzU?feature=shared
Gloria DryGarden
@Mousebumples: do you know the name of that deep pink tulip? I would love some that color. Fabulous!
evodevo
The wild blackberries on our farm are going absolutely NUTS this Blackberry Winter. I don’t know if it’s due to all the rain we’ve had or what, but this is the biggest bloom in years. We’ll see how many set fruit, but the birds and critters and my husband will be harvesting them in July fer sure. Our black locust tree bloom was also heavy this year – wasn’t much of anything last time. And it was a week early, too.
Princess
@OzarkHillbilly: No, we won’t use poison. And I’d definitely call a pro. My concern is I think they’re endemic to this neighbourhood and I’m not sure there’s a point.
OzarkHillbilly
@Raven: Heh. Back in his younger days Percy actually caught one. I could not figure out what he was making such a racket about in that brush pile.
evodevo
@Princess: if you can get to the burrow mouth, fill it with concrete, and consider concreting the area around it. Another woodchuck will be happy to move in if you just leave it. Our varmints all disappeared around the time coyotes moved into our area of KY in the ’90’s, and haven’t really recovered until just lately.
OzarkHillbilly
@Princess: Where there is one… There generally is just one. I’m not a GH expert but I suspect they are fairly territorial, or at least solitary. The only times I have seen more than one in a location was when there was a litter. I have one take up residence here about every 3-5 years. Once I take care of them, I’m GH free for a while again. You being in an urban environment may have a different experience, can’t say.
Regardless I’d get rid of this one.
Geo Wilcox
@evodevo: Or something more exciting like a skunk. That happened to our neighbor.
Mousebumples
@Gloria DryGarden: lol, unfortunately no. I’m trying to remember if I bought the bulbs specially or if they were some spring bulb collection.
A quick Google brought me to this mixed collection – https://www.brecks.com/product/van-eijk-tulip-mixture
I probably picked up a bag of bulbs at Costco, but someone else might have a more detailed suggestion.
Trivia Man
@evodevo: my groundhog moved on when i started disposing used cat litter down the hole. I guess they just moved on to someone who probably trapped or killed bur I didn’t think of that at the time.
OzarkHillbilly
The cicada emergence is in full swing here. Plenty of exoskeletons on structures and plants. Plenty of the bug eyed little freaks too. I have to be careful where I sit. The dogs haven’t shown any interest in them yet. We have the 13 year cicadas here, the 17 year cicadas are to our south and east. We aren’t supposed to get them
Even tho they’ve been out for better than a week, they just started “singing” in the past couple days. I suspect it’s been cooler than they like. The sound is much more subdued than I was expecting.
Ken
@Geo Wilcox: One of my most “oh sh*t” moments was on an evening walk, where I got about ten feet away from a skunk before noticing it. Fortunately we parted amicably.
I had a similar run-in with an opossum recently, which wasn’t as scary except I find something very alien about their heads.
Ken
“WHAT?”
“I SAID, THE CICADA EMERGENCE IS IN FULL SWING HERE!”
Jeffg166
So vibrant.
It’s been a good spring with lots of rain. Everything is lush.
Van Buren
My yard looks like the western front, because I have yards and yards of fencing around baby plants to protect them from the rabbits. Looking into renting a pack of grayhounds.
Gloria DryGarden
@Mousebumples: when I started, I got mixed tulips at Home Depot. Then I started refining, to only get the ones that come back every year. Those bulb catalogues are such temptation
a few shops in town had some decent selections of named varieties and species tulips. My favorite places closed their businesses a few years back.
Mousebumples
@Gloria DryGarden: if it makes a difference at all, I’m in Wisconsin and we have clay heavy soil. So it’s possible even if we knew what that tulip was, it wouldn’t love your yard or climate.
evodevo
@Geo Wilcox: Yep…a friend of ours had a skunk with a litter under her house – made for some interesting times LOL
OzarkHillbilly
@Ken: My biggest “Oh SHIT!!!” moment came when as a kid (12? 13?) I was walking around a campground on a moonless night w/o a flashlight (I’ve always had excellent night vision). I could here up ahead somebody putting trash in a trash can. I was about 5 feet away when I realized it was a bear.
“I think I’ll just cross over to the other side of the road.”
oldgold
Spring has sprung here in the garden twilight zone, where the weather is so creepy that it cannot be assigned a traditional garden zone number.
This Spring, with my successful planting of several thousand pounds of glechoma hederacea seed, to my joy and my neighbor’s horror, the expansive lawn of my estate, West of Eden, is festooned with small, bluish-purple, bell shaped flowers. The remarkable abundance of these purplish-blue bells carpeting West of Eden would undoubtedly send Emily Bromte’ into a state of bliss over these “sweetest of flowers.”
The County Weed Commissioner, Charles Crawl, stopped by to inquire as to what I was going do with the invasive infestation. I assured him I was going to work diligently to remove the few spears of Kentucky blue grass that continue to sprout in the cracks of my driveway. He was less than amused.
Eric S.
My first-year tulips are about done blooming. From what I’ve read I need to clip the seed pods next.
I put in some ground cover yesterday to fill out the tulip bed space so it’s not a dirt pit the rest of the year.
I bought enough tomato and pepper plants yesterday that I’m forcing myself to build the raised bed. I’m not looking forward to digging up that part of the yard.
Eric S.
@OzarkHillbilly: I don’t think the cicadas are out in Chicago yet. None in my ‘hood and none by my mother’s suburban condo. I recall some story about their emergence being weather triggered so you’re probably right on that score.
MagdaInBlack
@Eric S.: None here in the NW suburbs……yet….
kalakal
Desperate for rain here, haven’t seen a drop for about 4 weeks.
MagdaInBlack
@OzarkHillbilly: My father ( an old farmer ) told me they sing louder when its hotter. And the sound of cicadas always seems to me to be a high summer heat kind of sound.
Jeffg166
@kalakal: A few years back there was a drought here. One day we had spotty showers that officially dumped 4 inches of rain. I got a quart inch.
Gloria DryGarden
@Mousebumples: Denver, heavy clay, dry, zone 5
kindness
It’s hitting the 90’s here in N. Cal’s Central Valley. I drove up to the city (SF) Friday and was saddened to see the green gone from the hills over the Altamont. Just the tops of the hills still had green. The rest is typical (for 8 months a year I mean) California ‘golden’. Really it’s dried up grasses and tan/brown but I won’t quible. Our spring was February/March. I love it when everything is green out here. I love it the rest of the year too, but since the green is such a smaller slice of the year, it’s extra special.