Port Potager

In addition to the orchard damage from the ridiculous Winter of 2015 , I am also planning a more complete damage report on the other areas of the garden that got trashed by all the snow. But it can wait. Because, I mean, look what happened today: That, Dear Reader, is an open window.  (There's also a rhododendron with a pretty big hole in the middle thanks to some branches broken beneath the weight of the snow, but never mind that for now.) It got well and truly warm today. Warm enough to do the garden chores (feeding the chickens and gathering sap at this time of year) without a coat on.  And warm enough to notice that the garden is finally starting to grow.  Tulips have broken the soil. They seems to be growing more quickly that the daffodils so far, but that might just be a function of where the snow melted first. Even more exciting, this tiny Siberian squill is starting to show actual petal color. Woo hoo! But best of al...

Ok, so Patriot's Day was last Monday. We were away , and things were unbelievably crazy while we were gone , but I wanted to share something beautiful from an otherwise terrible time here in Masaschusetts: We came home to our perennial border full of daffodils and tulips. To my surprise, the tulips came back even stronger than last year . It looks like the ones I salvaged from the squirrel-led replanting  last spring are now solidly in place and doing well: You can also see a bit of the blue Siberian squill that is hanging on: This year it's been nice to see the color combination I was building really come to life. I may have to add some more daffodils to a section that looks a little sparse, but other than that, this is one thing that turned out just as it looked on paper.

The snow hasn't completely melted from last week's final-day-of-winter storm , but look what I found in the perennial border this afternoon: That is one small Siberian squill that has opened. Lots of others have popped up in the border, and by Easter we should have lots of these friendly little blue faces to remind us that spring is here. At last. And that is all.

Happy Easter! Here are the blooms we have in the perennial border to celebrate the day: The fortissimo daffodils developed their orange centers, even though I was worried about the first few that opened . They are doing well, and contrast with the blue squill just the way I had hoped. This weekend our first orange emperor tulips opened as well. They also work well with the blue squill, although you'll have to imagine how all three of these bulbs work together for now since the ones that are blooming are kind of far apart from each other. In addition to the flowers here, you can see shade of the summer's red color scheme to come. Above are heucherella and emerging peonies. In the back corner you can also see red stems and leaves of the climbing roses. Red leaves continue around the front with more peonies and stonecrop in the foreground. Even though temperatures have cooled back down to a normal range, it's definitely spring around here!

I haven't had much luck so far this year with getting the kids to help out in the garden. Sure, they love to eat from the garden, and they are happy to show it off to their friends and talk about it at school, but when it comes to actual work … not so much. A possible exception to this trend was Tiegan's flower picking yesterday: She made a very tiny but pretty bouquet of … dandelions. It won't last long, but it looks very nice (and I like her addition of the ribbon around the vase). In addition to underscoring the need for a bona fide  cutting garden , this little bouquet actually does help us out with the garden. The more dandelions that get picked before they go to seed, the fewer dandelions we will have to worry about in the lawn and garden. I'm not too hyped up about digging every root out the lawn (they are green, after all), but last spring we had a field full of dandelions in our back yard before the Bobcat came , and I'm not anxious to see tha...

A week ago , I was kind of excited about the crocuses that were popping up in a few spots in the perennial border. It's hard not to get excited about such an early bloomer — they command an out-sized portion of attention for their size since there's nothing else around to look at when they open.  Now that I've moved beyond my initial, culturally ingrained cooing response, I've been able to focus more clearly on the problem with these crocuses. First, they are messing up my color scheme: In this picture you can see how the random assortment of white, purple, and purple striped crocuses clash with the blue Siberian squill to the right of the photo. This might look ok if there were lots of shades ranging in that cool zone of blue and purple, but my plan was to work with yellow, orange, and blue. And the beauty of all those little squill bulbs is that they are a real true-blue. If you are at all a fan of flower gardening, you know how hard that is to find. And...

So it turns out those rogue crocuses are varying shades of purple. They are pretty, and welcome in the spring, but not exactly part of my ever-so-carefully planned spring color scheme . Since they are up at the same time as the squill, I'm mildly concerned about a color clash. The squill is much more blue: If you look carefully, you can see how the ribbon of blue is starting to fill in, with its curve echoing the curve of the brick path. These should naturalize pretty quickly, which will hopefully fill in like a little blue river along the edge of the border. In my original plan, these were supposed to be blooming along with the daffodils, which obviously isn't happening (although I think it  should —  I saw it in action last spring). I'll give it another year to see if the timing is off because of the warmth, or if those crocuses will forever clash by blooming at the same time as the squill. In other news, our apple tree has broken its buds: So ...

It is 61 degrees this afternoon in Newburyport, and tomorrow it is supposed to be even warmer. Spring! It's sometimes hard to jump into gardening tasks in just the couple hours of daylight I have left when I get home from work (especially when there's an activity to drive a kid to in the middle of that time period), so today I just took a quick tour around the garden. Tomorrow I should be able to actually get something done. In the meantime, here's what there is to see: Our fruit trees are starting to bud! This is one of the apples, but they are all looking good. As you can see, there is a bit of snow from last week left in the yard, but I expect that to be gone tomorrow — it's not supposed to drop below 40 tonight. In the perennial border, we have our first official flower: a little Siberian squill. Only one of its several flower buds has opened, but I say it still counts.  I also came home to an open cold frame. Good thing Kirk remembered to open...

Earlier this month I got a giant box in the mail. The fall-planted bulbs arrived! Here in all their un-planted glory are 100 tulips, 250 daffodils, and 300 Siberian squill. That's a LOT of bulbs! For a refresher, you can check out what the flowers will look like when they come up in April here . As excited as I was to get these in the mail, it was hard to motivate myself to get them planted. The weather was actually too good to do it over Columbus Day weekend — we were out enjoying ourselves doing other things. On Monday of the long weekend, though, I finally made myself get out there and start digging, with the help of Kirk and a young friend of Jonas' (who was a quite interested and very helpful). Daffodils need to be planted about 6 inches down, so that means driving the spade or hand trowel to the hilt. I am too cheap to buy a special bulb-planting tool that won't get much use, so this was pretty labor-intensive and kind of hard on the hands. After many bulbs ...

Today after work (sigh-inducing side note: summer vacation is over and I have to admit that I am not actually a full-time gardener), I put the finishing touches on the perennial border design. The summer plants are all in and doing well, but in the fall I need to plant the bulbs that will come up first next spring. This is actually a great time to get this done, because the perennials are all still quite compact in their first year, and that allows me to see very clearly all the spaces in between them to tuck tulips and daffodils. The idea is that these bubs will come up in early spring, and then their dying (but unclippable) leaves will be covered over by the perennials that are just coming up. I may have to fill in some of spots left by no-longer-flowering tulips with some annuals like pansies or snapdragons, but that will be a game-day decision in May. Anyway, I don't have any photos to show yet, but I can show the website photos of what I am buying from the Netherland Bul...