The lab is open for business

As Loree reported, March was a wet month. We got 7.75 inches of precipitation in 31 days. We had snow, hail, and so much rain. I panicked that I hadn't gotten my big orders from Annie's and High Country Gardens in the ground and worked feverishly after work over two nights, digging in the pouring rain by porch light. In a perfect world I would have weeded, then worked compost evenly through this area, then carefully planned the layout of the plants based on color and size.

Instead it was dark, I was soaked (to my underoos, guys), and I just kind of threw plants down wherever felt good at the time. Nothing had been weeded. Even though I've been planning this stupid strip for a while, there was a still a lot of impulse buying and random last-minute adds. I was struggling to read the tags in the dark, wondering why I bought an eryngium and where had I planned to put it?

For better or worse it's done, aside from mulch.

Here's the breakdown of the plants:

And how they should play together:

One of these things in not like the other!

And the other half:

I'll probably have to move things around a little, still. I've realized that my approach was more madness than method and there are some shorter plants that should be swapped with taller ones. Good thing I like to move plants. And yeah, it can stop raining at any time and I will be a happy camper.

Oh thank goodness

Spring is here--the lady ferns arrived! I was so worried they would never show up. I have no idea how this lady fern took up residence with a sword fern. I have tried to extricate them from each other but they seem to be in love. So I let them cohabitate.

SINNERS!

In the summer the lady fern really takes over, just like a woman (ba dum shish!).

I moved a bunch of lady ferns in the side entrance last fall and they have yet to pop up again. I don't know if they're dead, pouting, or just traumatized. My wild ginger, which every book and website promised would take over this area, has sat like a bump on a log for two years, neither dividing nor conquering. But if you get very close you can see that it's flowering.

Asaraum caudatum

Of course, all the ginger I planted will have to be moved, since I had the cedar tree underlimbed and this area is no longer shady. I have to rethink this whole area and plant things that like dry, sunny spots (can you hear Loree's pulse quickening?).

The first tulips arrived! I honestly can't remember what these are, only that Greg wanted orange bulbs so I planted orange bulbs. What baby wants, baby gets (as long as it's tulips).

The tufted-hair grass (Deschamsia cespitosa) is growing by leaps. The common rush (Juncus effusus) sits and waits.

Mojiiiiiiiiitoooooooooooooooooosssssssssss!

My climbing hydrangea (Schizophragma hydrangeoides 'Moonlight') is leafing out but I hear it can take four years for this vine to really get going. So I have to be patient. Perhaps I'll make myself a cocktail to pass the time.

The leaves of this tiny trillium are not much bigger than my nail and I'm so pleased that the house painters didn't destroy them. I actively fretted about my stupid trilliums.

I moved a potted flowering currant here and I think the hot pink blooms are looking nice against the new paint job. So I guess it was worth all the worrying.

I cannot bring myself to trim my sedum 'Autumn Joy' of its summer seedheads. They are too pretty.

But you know what I should be doing, instead of taking pictures? Getting all of these in the ground.

My shipments from Annie's Annuals and High Country Gardens came this weekend while I was in California, helping my niece turn 8. I love my niece but do you know what torture that was? To know all of this was waiting for me?

Happy spring! For reals this time.

Oh boy.

I've been doing things in the garden, mostly a lot of getting tired and staring slack-jawed into the distance. Do you do this? I do it in full view of my neighbors, who already think I'm crazy because I'm removing parts of my lawn. I just stare and stare, usually at a spot in the yard where there are no plants. I think of it as "imagining the possibilities." Others might call it "gawping."

I also rigged up this little nightmare landscape.

Cryptomeria japonica 'Elegans'

Way back when it snowed so hard, my poor cryptomeria got all bent up top where it wasn't staked. I thought, "I'll just remove the nursery stake and put a longer one on!" I did that and the tree promptly fell over. And then it started pouring rain and I decided to half-ass staking it and instead use the recycling bin to prop it up. It looked super classy. And it didn't work. All of which is to say, this is a vast improvement! Really.

I've also been moving this euphorbia, which already gets moved twice a year. I can't seem to find a place where it looks quite right and it's starting to suffer for my indecisiveness. It's leggy and prone to falling over but I think the colors are so pretty right now.

Euphorbia 'Blackbird'

This weekend I spent the most money I have ever spent at one time on plants. I put in huge orders to Annie's Annuals and High Country Gardens (I had coupons!), then picked up the plants I ordered from the Audubon Society native plant party people for the rain garden out front. Then, for good measure, I took a trip out to Cistus and bought a fern and a vine but no agaves, which was stupid, stupid, stupid. Agaves were 40% off and I forgot to claim my Hardy Plant Society discount, to boot.

This time of year makes me feel panicky--must fill dead spaces! Everything is still below ground and I'm already worrying about how much blank space is in the garden. I am like a teenager who can't wait to be older so I can drink and smoke and vote and rent a car. My garden is young and it wants to be older. I've been so preoccupied with blank spaces (that probably won't be blank in two months) that I failed to notice that my pieris is really pretty right now.

Pieris japonica

I started clearing sod near the roses so I can plant my perennial lab. I hate clearing sod, even when it means getting rid of these crazy curves.

Before.

I really wish I had used a hose to mark out some gentle curves here. Now this is too straight.

I haven't finished because I got tired and I needed to stare into the distance. Maybe I'm just struck dumb because I caught a whiff of my daphne.

Daphne odora 'Goddamn it, why didn't I document the tag?'

Anybody have a sod cutter I can borrow?

Foster Botanical Garden

When we went to the big island of Hawaii we visited the Hawaii Tropical Botanical Garden in Onomea Bay. It was absolutely spectacular and it focused on understory plants. The place, a former dump site, was chockablock with gorgeous tropical plants.

The Foster Botanical Garden on Oahu is mainly focused on giant old trees, some dating to 1853. They were awesome.

Cavanillesia platanifolia

This quipo tree was planted in 1930 and its trunk was more than 10 feet in diameter. It was gorgeous.

Spanish cedar Cedrela odorata

This baobab tree was planted in 1940 and it has night-blooming flowers from which bats feed.

Baobab tree Adansonia digitata

Baobab tree Adansonia digitata

The fallen pod of an Encephalartos gratus fit right in, as this part of the garden is called the "prehistoric glen."

Encephalartos gratus

Ferrrrrrrrrns. I'm drawn to them. Except that I'm pretty sure this was a cycad, sometimes called "living fossils."

They are HUGE!

This is the be-still tree. It looks pretty normal . . .

Thevetia peruviana

. . . until you look up. So very beautiful.

Thevetia peruviana

So many of the trees had roots like this. They looked like shark fins.

Silk-cotton tree Bombax ceiba

This tree has a Latin name but I don't care what it was because, hello, that's the Sweetums tree.

Sweetums was always my favorite muppet. 

Corypha sp.

Kalanchoe Pumla

Queen Emma lily Crinum agustum

Flapjack plant Kalanchoe thyrsiflora

I thought this was a rose bush but it's a euphorbia!

Crown-of-thorns Euphorbia milii

They also had a greenhouse where they had all sorts of plants I loved that would never be hardy here.

Finger palm Rhaphis multifida

Anyone know what this is? It didn't have a sign and I WANT ONE.

Air plant Tillandsia funckiana

 

And three big boulders set just so. I really want to do this in my yard.