Garden Diary - April 6
I've spent a fair bit of time over the last three days, wandering through the garden. With highs barely hitting the mid 40's, rain and wind making it feel much colder... it was tough to want to be outside. I spent last week running my second conference of the year. Despite the exhaustion, all I really wanted was to be outside among the plants and the birds.
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| Photo of iris reticulata, from Wendy Roller, irisarian extraordinaire (GRIS) |
This afternoon, the sun appeared long enough that it warmed slightly. Taking advantage of the light and leaving the camera behind for the day, meant getting close enough to get dirty. A few weeds, here and there, were pulled. Easy stuff with the soil wet from the last few days of rain. I don't understand people who try to weed their garden when the soil is dry. Way too much like work.
In an attempt to leave myself some breadcrumbs for a yearly almanac of what happens in the garden and where... I hope to record a few of the standout things I saw today. More importantly, what else is happening alongside them. Plants tend to send up shoots or blooms about the same time relative to one another. My new word of the year was: Phenology. Leto explained how lilacs were planted to help farmers know when to plant corn. I was taken completely by surprise. That was not something a kid from Miami was ever taught.
So, of course, I had to look this up. Here's what I found: "Phenology is the study of plant and animal activities and when they occur each year. Phenology is a real science that has many applications. In farming and gardening, phenology is used chiefly for planting times and pest control. "
The common lilac has become a cornerstone for phenological observations, particularly for comparing one year to the next. First leaf, first flower, and full bloom are three life events frequently observed with the common lilac. There is also a common lilac observation program in the eastern United States and Canada that is used by climatologists to study global warming. from https://hort.extension.wisc.edu/articles/phenology/
It was strangely heartening to find out that other folks' observations and record keeping was in line with my observations and theories on when things should occur. Then again, I could have just read Facebook and watched as the people with the same plants south of us started posting their pictures in succession. My fear, and probably a shared fear by other gardeners, is that winter killed my favorite "fill in the blank" plant. Winter can be a bear or it can be a dove. Both cause issues... and both have benefits. Snow is the great insulator from the cold. We were very lucky to have snow cover when it was hovering around zero degrees this winter.
All of which leads me to my favorite sign of spring that I found this afternoon: little tiny shoots of baptisia australis (and the hybrids) popping their tiny purple shoots just barely through the soil. My big fear was that the new seedlings might not make it through the winter. I've read about how difficult it can be to get seedlings of baptisia to survive their first winter because there isnt much nutrient storage in their tiny roots that first year. I even spoke to a couple different baptisia hybridizers to ask about techniques that might improve their survivability.
Finding that many of my little baptisia seedlings survived the winter made me so excited! In 2023, I tried overwintering baptisia seedlings in pots. The thought then was that they weren't large enough to survive in the soil over the winter. Turned out (at least from what I can see so far) that the ones planted into garden soil this past summer did considerably better! I have found a few where the roots have even been pushed out of the soil through frost heaving, but with the soil still very moist it is easy enough to give them a gentle push back down.
I am also trying to keep track of the plant tags this time of year too. Squirrels and fierce winds have played havoc with our tags. I use cut up vinyl window blinds as plant tags, either writing on them with wax pencil (China marker) or printed labels from our Brother label-maker. Finding a plant tag twenty feet from where it should be is disconcerting. If it belonged to a rare plant, a gift from a friend or a new seedling... it can make finding the offended plant very difficult. Sometimes reconnecting the two is impossible. When it comes to named varieties of irises for hybridizing purposes I use metal tags that are stuck 8-10 inches into the ground.
One of the plants that was new to me was the iris reticulata in the upper image. With much finer and thinner petals, in rich dark purple, these were very different from the modern hybrids we have purchased over the last decade or so. The bulbs came from a fellow iris grower in Rochester, Wendy Roller. Wendy is a Master Judge for the American Iris Society and has an incredible breadth of knowledge of all things iris related. When she gave me the bulbs, she mentioned that they were an old variety but she couldn't recall the name... so I am in search of the name of the variety! One of the best things about joining our local iris society (Greater Rochester Iris Society) was finding more folks growing irises... and learning what specials tips they could offer us. https://www.facebook.com/groups/498667348542840
The other thing I was noticing today was that most of the other iris reticulatas have been flattened by the winds and rain. Same is true for the crocuses. There are a few late emerging crocuses that are just coming up... which should fill in the gaps until the other bulbs begin. Daffodils are just starting to see their buds swell. There is one clump in the very front of our yard, near the fire hydrant, planted in the lawn, that comes up before all the other daffodils. There is also a clump in the farthest back corner of our yard, and they bloom at the same time. Completely different varieties, different soil types... and yet they bloom in sync. Go figure.
Some of our hellebores have started blooming. I was concerned because we had to dig them all up a few years back and they lived in pots for two years. I am sure some of them resented the move. A few of the varieties are looking less than thrilled but I expect that given another year or two, they will rebound. I would love to find some local sources of other colors of hellebores. They are such a great addition to the shaded areas of the garden.
One of my biggest surprises this afternoon was finding that my elderberry plants have started breaking bud. The variegated sambucus nigra 'Instant Karma' and the sambucus canadensis are both putting out tons of new leaf buds all up and down their stems. In both cases, we had cut them back severely a few weeks ago, in hopes of getting more stem growth to come up from the base and to encourage bushiness.
The last thing I noticed as I was heading back inside was the tiniest of buds from one of our early hostas has started coming through the deep wood chips. It had been buried under over a foot of woodchips after our arborist sprayed that part of the bed as they were creating an enormous pile of chips from our downed trees. Pulling the chips off a few weeks ago has encouraged new growth, which gave me a sigh of relief.
I took a few cuttings from our Sambucus nigra a few days ago. The branches were in the way as Leto and I were removing an enormous old spirea... and the last thing I wanted to do was break any branches on the sambucus. Pruning them preemptively meant that we might have a few to move around the garden, but it was also insurance in case this plant fails to thrive in the partial shadow of the solar panels. I'll be very curious to see the difference in how these cuttings behave compared to the sambucus canadensis that were taken at the same time. Supposedly they both root incredibly easily. We shall see.
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