Happy Bloom Day!!!

It's Garden Bloggers Bloom Day - woohoo! This is a fun tradition that I only learned of today, and I certainly will mark my calendar for next year. We garden bloggers are supposed to blog about what's coming up in our gardens on this date so, ever suggistible, I promptly went out to have a look-see. Since I live just south of Rochester, NY and we only just got rid of our season snowfall total of (I believe) 120", the pickings are a bit slim - but not for much longer. My half-acre here in zone 5 contains the following:

winter aconites, 1 snowdrop ('S.Arnott'), 1 patch of bright orange crocus, 1 light purple crocus and some pussy willow stems

The hellebores are all budded and just waiting for a few more mild days to open up. Daffs, tulips, glory-of-the-snow, striped squill, more snowdrops, hyacinths and other crocus are pushing up by the day. Peony tips have begun to emerge. There's no stopping it now, baby - spring is as good as here, no matter what the calendar says.....

Idiocracy and Partial Redemption at the National Arboretum

Now that the world and I are coming out of winter hibernation, I was giving some more thought to a couple of columns I wrote for my local newspaper on the azalea garden at the National Arboretum in Washington, D.C. For anyone who may not have been aware, late last fall a dastardly plan was uncovered (and outed in the blogosphere) in which the entire azalea and boxwood collections at the Arboretum were to be destroyed. Yep, the shrubs were to be cut down wholesale and the stumps drenched with herbicide to kill them. We're talking about thousands of azaleas that were the hybridizing work of one man, Benjamin Morrison, in his quest to extend the northern hardiness range of large-flowered azaleas. We're also talking about a boxwood collection that is acknowledged to be the most complete IN THE WORLD. Not something you rip out on a whim. Back then the Arboretum officials gave all sorts of lame excuses for why it needed to be done. I won't go into all of them, but my personal favorite was that the azalea display created too much traffic through the Arboretum at bloom time, and they couldn't handle it. Well, they've been handling it quite easily for the last 20 or so years, with shuttle systems and adequate restroom facilities - and since when, in a bum economy, is an excess of people spending money at a public garden a bad thing?? There were like excuses and weak explanations, and the opposition got up a good head of steam. All right, I'll put out another of the more lame stories - that the azaleas just weren't all that important. Now, bear in mind that one woman has been curator of the azaleas for 20 years now, and because the area had been neglected, she and volunteers were cleaning it out and identifying and cataloging the collection. I imagine she was mightily surprised to learn that she'd been pissing away the last 20 years for nothing! Even other public gardens jumped into the fray. Magnolia Gardens in Charleston, S.C. announced that they had received permission to come up and take massive amounts of cuttings from the azaleas (and the boxwoods as well, I assume). Their intent was to grow them on and then parcel the plants out among other botanical gardens nationwide to ensure their survival. Long story short, the plants have all gotten a temporary reprieve. All the furor inspired some anonymous, generous soul to make a $1 million dollar gift to save them. And a new executive who came on board announced that the plan had been tabled for the time being.

The plot did continue to thicken, however. About the same time that the plants got their stay of execution, it was announced that the Arboretum would be adding a new Chinese garden, in partnership with the Chinese government. They'll provide the plants, statuary and other accessories; the Arboretum will provide site preparation and staffing. Now, this is interesting on several levels. First of all, another rationale for the whole azalea fiasco was that funding for two staffing positions had been lost. Sounds to me like those people were simply transferred over to the Chinese garden. And it seems that more people would be needed to maintain a newly planted garden than an old, established area. But what really arouses my suspicions is this: obviously, this new garden area has been in the works for some time. Did the Chinese want the azalea area for their garden, and did the Arboretum go ahead and promise it to them, figuring it would be easier to ask forgiveness than permission? I wouldn't be surprised, seeing that we tend to kiss China's ring at every opportunity. And what really makes me angry is that we're talking about the NATIONAL Arboretum, meaning it belongs to EVERYONE, not just the bureaucrats. They bloody well should have asked the owners' permission first! It will be extremely interesting to see future developments........

Planting the Seeds for Next Year's Garden

For several weeks now, the seed catalogs have been arriving in the mail. First to show up was old reliable Thompson & Morgan, followed quickly by most of my other standards: Nichols Garden Nursery, Pinetree Garden Seeds, Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds, just to name a few. Because of the Christmas rush, they've been stacked up in the conservatory. There they sit, speaking softly but persistently, just waiting for the holidays to end so that I have whole days to wallow in them.

And wallow I always have, unfortunately letting what my husband refers to as the "gimme-wants" dictate my purchase lists. There at least, I've been able to exercise some discipline. It's a ridiculous exercise, but eventually it works. I go through each catalog, damn the torpedoes, and put everything that catches my fancy make the initial list. Then, I go through a second time and whittle it down considerably. Once round two is done, I start comparison shopping, making sure to get the best price I can on everything I want. Only then do the orders get placed. Regrettably, my garden record-keeping skills have been lax over the years. However, I finally got tired of wasting time and money buying seeds that a) I didn't need or b) didn't perform as well as I would have liked, so last year I got serious about documentation and now I'll be able to order wisely. In fact, I got so serious last year that I gave my husband a good laugh one morning - he saw a list on the conservatory table that was captioned, "DO NOT PURCHASE THESE SEEDS. NONE. NOT ANY." I told you I was serious.......

Seaon's Greetings!

All I have to say is this:

"Holly and ivy, box and bay
Put in the church on Christmas Day"

-15th century Christmas carol

A Merry and blessed Christmas to all, and a green New Year as well!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Where do I begin? So many things to be thankful for (in no particular order):

I have FINALLY finished all the outside work. All that remains is cutting back and covering the roses.

I rediscovered the healing power of a soaking bath, and I no longer crawl around in pain for days at a time after a marathon gardening session.

I was able to go outside here in zone 5, on Thanksgiving Day, and pick my own lettuce and herbs for our meal.

The voles seem to have vacated the premises, for now at least.

My husband still seems to be crazy about me after 25 years of marriage.

The seed catalogs have begun arriving in the mail. No rest for the wicked.

Have a Happy, everyone!

Winding Down

This has been a most annoying autumn for me. I'm trying desperately to get all the outside cleanup work done before winter finally hits, and I just can't seem to catch a break on this score. Whenever I've had free time to work outside, it's been rainy/freezing/windy/all of the above. Whenever I'm tied up elsewhere, the weather is stunningly beautiful. Like today - we finally had a sunny, windless day with temps in the low 60's, and did I have time to work? Nooooo. If I could have had today, I think I could have gotten most, if not all, the remaining chores done. Now I'll probably have no choice but to freeze my hindquarters off, working outside, in a race to beat winter to the punch. Bitch, bitch, bitch.....

Voles - More Tales from the Dark Side

They're baaaack.......
One day last week we had some very mild weather for the end of September, so I decided to eat my lunch out on the patio with my fountain turned on to provide a soothing background. Well....the minute water started to bubble up in the urn, a really nasty stench permeated the air. I can only compare it to an ad I saw on TV a few years back - I don't remember what the product/service was, but a guy comes out of what's clearly a bathroom, waving a newspaper behind him and saying, "I think we can consider this wing of the house closed!". That kind of odor. The kind that means the voles have returned to use my fountain's catch basin as a toilet. My comments ran along the lines of "!@#$%^&***"!!! I then unplugged the fountain, waited for the aroma to die down, and consumed my lunch in gloomy silence. At this point in the season, I saw no reason to go to the trouble of cleaning out the catch basin for the third time this year; I'll just wait a few more weeks and do it when I dismantle the fountain to put it away for the winter. Sigh.