Where to start?

The Henryi Clematis.

On Saturday, we spent a good six hours in the yard working on several different projects. We started the afternoon with some weeding (I could weed every single day right now and I still wouldn’t be on top of all the weeding that needs done) and my husband pruned and shaped the curtain of our grapevine and also got all our peas sorted onto their individual supports. We had a gaggle of peas all trying to climb the same twine support, but they all have their own, so he worked to get everyone onto their own line. Three days later, they are all staying on their own lines and we even have a handful of flowers on them already.

Another big task for the day involved emptying a large ceramic planter we had tulips in this spring. We then moved it into the pear tree bed beside our front stoop. I refilled it with fresh potting mix and planted out our Henryi Clematis. Unfortunately, the pot raises it up a bit higher than I’d like, so the roots aren’t getting as much shade from the front stoop as I expected. I mulched the top, but am still getting drooping leaves at the top of the vine on hot days, so my plan is get some spray roses to plant out in the front of the pot (there’s a good bit of real estate in there to cover) and hopefully that will give the roots enough shade.

My husband then set about anchoring screws into the mortar on the exterior of our house for setting up a wire grid system for the clematis to climb. The Henryi can grow upwards of 15 feet tall. Unfortunately, we don’t have the right kind of drill for that job, which made the task difficult, so after getting in two anchor screws we decided to hold off until we can pick up a hammer drill which is designed for such tasks. In the meantime, I’ve got a trellis for it to climb.

Throughout the day, I also worked on cleaning out all the flowerpots that still had tulips and daffodils. Most are starting to yellow and I wanted to get annuals in the pots now that’s May, so I dug them up and placed them in brown paper bags, leaving the foliage hanging out of the bags, and set them in the greenhouse where the bulbs are shaded and the foliage gets sun. I plan to leave them there until they all completely die back. I feel like Monty Don did something similar with his potted bulb plants, so hopefully I have the right of it and this isn’t going to stunt them from growing next spring. I still have one planter box and two pots left to do, but I got five pots emptied and replaced the potting soil in the three planters I plan to use out front.

Around 6:00, I was eyeing up our cottage garden corner of the lantana bed. It’s basically the endcap of the flagstone retaining wall and, because we had a redtip tree in there, it’s mostly shallow planting because the stump and roots are still there. The raised bed in that area is only about two feet across, then it dips down and just becomes grass alongside our driveway. I noticed that our one creeping phlox wasn’t doing well and I had it sandwiched up against the redtip stump. I don’t think it had enough space to establish deep roots, so I needed to move it, but still wanted it in the cottage garden. So I looked at the retaining wall blocks we had leftover from the terraced bed in the backyard and asked my husband, “Do you think you could build the back of this up a foot?” He looked it over and, as an engineer does, said, “I should be able to.” We ended up only having enough blocks to make it eight inches tall, but just giving it that depth will make a world of difference for planting in that corner.

(before) Cottage Garden Corner.

(after) Cottage Garden Corner.

Once the wall was built, I relocated the creeping phlox to a deeper section of the bed and I planted our ‘Bonfire’ dahlia. I used a vole/mole proof cage on it and, when I dug out the hole for the dahlia tuber, I found a vole tunnel. I can’t say if it’s an active tunnel, but I know it wasn’t there in early March when I planted out a couple daffodils in that area. The voles could still eat the top of the plant, but hopefully protecting the tuber will be enough since I haven’t (knock on wood) seen above ground damage to our plants from voles.

On that note…

Vole Scram Update

Since the application, we haven’t observed new vole activity in the backyard and all of our plants in the terraced bed, near where we applied the granular treatment, are all doing good. One hosta hasn’t grown much and I don’t know why, but I haven’t seen vole activity around it and fingers crossed it stays that way.

Plants, Wine, and a Flowerpot

Sunday, I tinkered by myself in the garden as my husband had to work, so I continued my endeavor to clean out the daffodil and tulip pots and I also planted out a macho fern (a rescue plant from Lowe’s). It has new fern fronds, so it looks like it should get on okay. It’s now part of ever-growing potted fern garden that sits just off our deck in the backyard.

I also put eight or so phlox seedlings that I had potted up into biodegradable pots into a long trough planter that sits on top of our railing. This will give the seedlings more sun.

I then looked at our pineapple, which was in a small plastic pot, and it just felt wrong. Earlier this year, we potted up the lemon tree into a beautiful ceramic pot and it just radiates joy. The pineapple, by contrast, looked sad and neglected. This prompted immediate action—I changed into my shopping clothes and the engineer took a break from work so we could go to Williamsburg Pottery. I got a beautiful huge red ceramic pot there last spring when we attempted to pot up a half dead tree in our backyard. Potting it up officially killed it, but we’ve got a lot of mileage out of that lovely ceramic pot. Anyway, we headed back to Williamsburg Pottery where my intention was just to buy a nice pot for the pineapple, but I saw plants and then I had to look at the plants and I can’t not buy a plant, so I picked up: two quart-sized marigolds; two red-hot pokers (which will go with the one we have in the redbud bed); and two more catmint plants to add to the newly expanded cottage garden corner. To make the title of this section not completely random, I’ll note that we also picked up a bottle of wine because Williamsburg Pottery sells more than just pottery.

We then headed home, and I got back into my yardwork apparel. I filled three pots with my newly purchased yellow marigolds and the three Surdiva White Improved (that I purchased weeks ago from one of our local greenhouses). I’m excited for the Surdiva since it’s supposed to be tolerant of our hot summers. I also planted the rescue begonia (Solenia Light Yellow) in a pot with one of the Surdiva. This has officially made me decide that my annual flower colors this year will all be white, yellow, and pink. Pink because our perennial lantana is yellow, orange, and pink. Obviously, there have to some exceptions, like the dramatic red zinnias I sowed back in April, but, if I have the choice from here on out, it’ll be those three colors as much as possible in the front yard. I’m not really looking to purchase too many annuals for the backyard this year, but I can’t resist fuschias and coleus, so there will definitely be fuschias and coleus out back in any and all manner of colors.

Sowing Seeds

I’ve been meaning to sow more zinnias for weeks now and I finally got to it yesterday and today. I did a tray of Jazzy Mix zinnias and two trays of zinnia seeds that we harvested from our own plants last year. We actually didn’t get many seeds because the gold finches ate most of them, but I’m happy to give them up to the birds because we really don’t need that many seeds.

A Tale of Woe: Forget-me-nots and Alyssum

It’s officially been a month since we direct sowed our forget-me-nots and alyssum and while you can see a dozen or so of each, they aren’t doing much at all. I think this may be due to the topsoil we used to build up our raised beds. I thought we had a good mix, but after it rained, we learned that the mix likely has way too much sand. The sand sits on top of the surface and makes the top of the soil hard and crusty. I’m extremely disappointed because I worry how it will impact our veg garden, even though I did top each of those beds with a raised bed mix.

Today, I ran out before the storms hit and used what we had left of the raised bed mix on the pear tree bed around the forget-me-nots and alyssum. I need one more bag, then I’ll be topping it off with mulch and, if nothing comes through the mulch in a few weeks, I’ll likely buy established alyssum plants and shop around for something to grow in front of the spirea (which has started to flower!).

Harvest

We’ve been enjoying our lettuce and herbs for weeks, but just within the past week we’ve also harvested and eaten two strawberries—so delicious!

What’s next?

It’s May and I’m getting anxious that we don’t have tomatoes, cucumbers, and peppers in the ground yet, so that will be remedied this week. I also have a list of annuals I want to look for, but I’m trying not to buy too much because we still have a lot to plant out that’s sitting in the greenhouse. For instance, I have ten annual lantanas waiting to go out into the weeping redbud bed. That bed needs to be cleared—sod and all—in order for us to get the rest of our plants in the ground, so that will likely be the priority this weekend.

What’s doing and blooming?

• Redtip trees are covered in white flowers.
• Summer phlox, irises, poppies, bluebells, and foxgloves are in bloom in Colonial Williamsburg.
• Azaleas are losing their blooms and leafing out.
• Our lavender is starting to flower already.
• Spirea is flowering.
• Sugar snap peas have blooms.
• Our trumpet vine is blooming, which means the hummingbirds should be coming around soon.
• Clover is plentiful in lawns around town.
• Our knockout rose is covered in blooms and buds.
• Some late blooming tulips are still hanging on in Colonial Williamsburg.

What’s blooming? Our Double Play Doozie Spirea (left) and our Sugar Snap Peas (right).

That’s a wrap for this week. More to come next Tuesday, May 11^th. Enjoy the rest of your week and happy gardening, all!

~Kate