OK Spring is here and it's time for me to get back to blogging on a regular basis. Hibernation is over and the work in the garden has started in earnest. This was taken about 10 days ago when we had our snow/ice storm. Witchhazel is such a wonderful thing in the spring. Besides being pretty and cheerful and colorful, it makes the whole yard smell good. I also like that it doesn't much mind the cold or snow unless it gets below zero and really windy. The one thing that ends its quite long (sometimes 2 months or more) bloom season is heat. Early springs do it in quickly. It is not too quick getting big, but will eventually make a large shrub. Full sun is best, though some of ours get a little shade. I've tried to add a lot of new pictures of ours to the photo gallery section of the website since we've added so many new varieties in the last few years. There are still a couple which haven't started blooming yet this year and those will be added shortly. We typically don't have them for sale at the nursery because they are past their bloom time by April when we open and just another leafy green shrub by then. We can point you to great sources, though, if you suddenly find the need for one in your yard.

Winter

I've been really lazy about writing lately. I could blame it on hibernation or some such, but in reality, with the number or warmish days we've had, there's been a lot of gardening happening around here. I did stack wood, a lot of wood really, but we've also been weeding out those nasty winter/early spring weeds, adding gravel and wood chips to paths, mulching beds and doing lots of pruning. We've even managed to transplant a few things. There's also the seeds starting in the greenhouse, some to plant and some things to sell. My biggest project has been to rehabilitate the garden over across the street by the parking lot. Last year it got pretty well neglected in the early spring and then with the drought and other priorities, it just got weedy. Now I did plant a few annuals and they were pretty, but on the whole, it was a mess. I am working my way through the whole things mulching the beds with cut leaves and doing the paths with wood chips. There will be a lot of annuals put in in the spring in addition to the trees, shrubs and daylilies and irises. I even managed to get a bit of poison ivy working on it. Almost always happens at least once during the winter. It was a warm day and I was working in a t-shirt, so despite the fact that I was wearing gloves and didn't get it on my hands, it did get on my arms.

I'll try and get caught up on things here now. The days are getting longer and spring can't be too far behind.

Pumpkins in a Tree

Not totally garden related, but I thought I'd post this picture of one of the silliest things in the garden this season. Just behind the house is an elm tree. A vine started growing and I can't ever resist letting volunteer plants grow just to see what they are. This didn't seem to be doing much, but then started crawling up the tree. Since it wasn't going to be crowding out other things, I just let it go and mostly forgot about it. In late summer we noticed that pumpkins had appeared and by the time I took the picture they had turned orange. They finally fell down a few days ago, and despite my thought that I would probably be underneath when they did, they missed me. I always have a few pumpkin/squash/gourd things come up here and there, both from seeds from other pumpkin/squash/gourd volunteer things and from seeds that come up in the leaf mulch the city of Athens brings us. You never know just what will come up.

Hamamelis virginiana

Fall blooming witch hazel is a nice thing. Just when most blooming things have been frosted and are asleep for the winter, here comes this small tree/large shrub (probably not more than 10 feel tall and wide) just covered with lemon yellow spidery blooms. It's such a surprise when you're out. You just don't expect a blooming tree this time of year. Not as fragrant as those which will start blooming in January/February here, but just by its uniqueness is a wonderful addition to the garden. Grows in sun or light shade. The only drawback I can see is that it has a tendency to hold its leaves a little too long sometimes and will still have some when it starts blooming, but that is a problem with hazels in general, not just this variety.

Gaultheria procumbens

Wintergreen is, as it's name implies, green all winter. It also has red berries for most of the winter unless they get eaten. It is not the easiest plant to grow, but if you find a place it likes, it will increase and provide you with a little bit of color when everything else has gone away for the winter. Occasionally rabbits will eat it, but not always. It must not be their favorite. Gaultheria likes part sun and seems to like well drained spots. The one in the picture is growing in a nook in a stone wall. We also have them just in the garden beds. Before the berries form, there are white flowers. There are several other types of wintergreen, but this is the only one that has been dependable here.

Salvia glabrescens

This one wins the award for absolutely the latest first bloom of the year in the garden. Hope that sentence makes sense. This salvia is lovely and green all summer. Somewhere around mid September you see the beginnings of buds. If you're lucky (and if you cover it every cold night) you will get to enjoy the lovely pink blooms. It is perfectly hardy here, just very late to bloom. I have also found that it doesn't like drought conditions very well and had to water it almost every day (just a gallon or so) to keep it happy this summer. It's quite an unusual color for a fall blooming plant. Ours likes partial shade here and lives under the edge of a clove currant.

Ginkgo biloba

Keeping with the theme of great fall color, here is a picture of one of our Ginkgos. They just light up with their lemon color WHEN they color up. It is more of an iffy thing with them. They are late to color compared with some others, and at the first frost simply drop their leaves. If like this year the first frost is late, they have plenty of time to color up and are just gorgeous. Ginkgos are one of those fossil frees along with Metasequoia which were thought to be extinct until found in China not all that long ago. Despite its appearance, the ginkgo is a conifer and should be listed as such in catalogs, though it usually isn't since by appearance you'd never guess it. The only pest we have problems with in the ginkgos are voles. They are very selective about what they eat - hostas being one of their most favorites - and will bypass what would seem like yummy things to get just what they want. One year Hank leaned on a ginkgo and it just fell over. The voles had eaten every root off and it had nothing left under ground. We now use castor oil or other mole repellents around things they are likely to bother.