gardening: observing, planning, designing, and editing
April is the greening month. The earliest spring plants, which came up with not a trace of green, such as rue anemone and twinleaf, turn green. Other plants, such as crested iris and Pennsylvania sedge do most of their growing in these few weeks.
Continue reading “The Greening of Spring and Foreshadowing of Summer”
This is being posted in 2024. This post was drafted last year, but languished on my computer following an accident. I am dating this according to when the photographs were taken so that the posts land in the right spot in the timeline.
So much for August. August brought rain, causing some plants to sulk and wait for drier days. September is feeling more like August—a lot of dry, sunny days with pleasant temperatures.The Japanese anemones budded a little late, but bloomed the first week of September, as usual. They had—I kid you not—flower stalks that are pushing 4 feet in height. I did not have to bend over to get photographs of these flowers, which just started to bloom.
It is, but in early April, the most profuse flowers remain the snowdrops. Squirrels love to rearrange them, but they don’t seem to eat them, and neither do the rabbits, although they did cautiously nibble one last year.
We’ve had snow, icy fog with heavy frost, rain, and plenty of gloom. Dark days, yes, but I am not going to talk about the thick, dark clouds—they have no redeeming characteristics.
We have awoken to snow-covered plants and cars several times already. This is my kind of snow: pretty, and not sticking much to any pavement that would require shoveling.
I mentioned that I thought it was rather dry in my previous post. I was quite surprised when I checked the weather Monday night and discovered a weather alert—a red flag warning. I have several cities listed in my weather app, so I thought I must have somehow switched to Arizona. No! Not Arizona—it was my hometown, as well as the rest of southeastern Michigan. Due to high winds, extremely low humidity, and high temperatures, there was a serious risk of fire starting and then spreading very easily. A red flag warning means no outdoor burning.
I watered the hostas that I had rescued and replanted when I removed the Scilla bifolia ‘Rosea.’
Meanwhile, my magnolia has bloomed. The house, partially in deep shade in this photograph, was such a distraction that I photoshopped it into a uniform blur. These flowers really were dancing in the sun.
