Garden happenings

LOTS of rain this spring. Just sayin'.

May 21: iris poised to bloom, and allium looking good

May 21: baptisia starting to bloom, and poppies sending up buds

May 21: dianthus looking gorgeous, and lilac starting to fade

May 21: remember the weird allium that sent up only a bud, no leaves? It bloomed anyway! Small but sufficient.

May 21: Sweet pea seedlings direct-sown around the lower lamp post.

Today: front left. Iris looking great!

Today: front right.

Today 

Gutters

We needed our gutters cleaned, and I tried out Gutter Plumber for the first time, and was very pleased with their service. In particular, the responsiveness is unparalleled.

One of the upper gutters in the back, below the 3rd floor bathroom window, sags a bit and water pools there. One imagines delighted mosquitoes raising countless generations of their children there. Unfortunately, this was not something that the team was able to fix, so it may be worth trying a different service next time, but maybe this is something no one can be reasonably expected to fix.

The total was $240, and while that's a ton more than the $95 Reliant has been charging us, I will say I think they were quite a bit more thorough. They send "before" and "after" pictures. It might make sense for us to alternate between Reliant and Gutter Plumber, since we need someone twice a year.

Here are the before pics:

Gutter Plumber's notes, for my records: "Pitch is fine. What was affecting water flow was all the asphalt and muck as well as the bent screens [which we had them remove]. There was one area where we had to put in a new clip middle of house section but I found no pitch issues at all." We had "pounds of moist debris and muck and the water not draining that smelt like sewage.   We cleared those lines really good and they flushed out well.   The screens sitting down in the lines did bend the gutters slightly and that why we had to put 3 new clips on the  middle right side but honestly you should be fine now as long as you take care of the gutters in Spring and Fall."

Here are the after pics:

Failure bluebells

I planted a lot of Spanish bluebells last fall, and most of them performed nicely, but why not these ones, in front of the rock? Did they not like the hill? Was something eating them underground? It's a mystery.

Wave Hill

We visited Wave Hill, in the Bronx, today, with my dad who was visiting from Wisconsin. It was a lovely place and a lovely day. Some things that struck me:

This is the same bonsai viewed from afar, through the window

Love the bright green

The rhododendron in this picture is the one in the label above. It's a cool color.

I love lilacs. Love love love.

Might be fun to grow lupins?

This terrace was like a collection of fairy kingdoms

Garden happenings

I am sort of aching for my garden to kick into high gear, but progress is good.

May 6. Daffodils and Spanish bluebells in front of the shrubs directly in front of the house. The other daffodils are done, but these littler ones bloomed later.

These are actually in front of Emma's school, not my house. I took a photo because I liked that they looked good on May 7.

The rest of these were taken today.

I made this seed bed...

A week ago Emma and I transplanted what was left of our mini-greenhouse seedlings (none of which looked too robust; I would say we waited too long), and I threw a lot of random seeds into the garden just because a moment was here and would pass and they'd never get planted if I didn't take immediate action. I remember foxglove and poppy and pepper and sweet pea seeds but was overall just not worrying about documentation. Sometimes you just have to see what happens, because you don't have time for careful plotting and recording.

But now I spend some time every day staring at the ground and wishing things would appear, and I'm fuzzy about what I'm expecting. There's a lot of green stuff sprouting, but who knows whether they are weeds or seedlings? I made this (seed) bed; now I must lie in it.

In other news:

Perennial tulips wide awake on Apr 23

Perennials tulips waking up on Apr 25

This is actually the first time I have spotted a rabbit on my property, remarkably, even though I have occasionally seen them elsewhere in the neighborhood. Just another critter to eat my beloved plants. Sigh.

A more welcome creature: mourning dove with fluffed feathers. Note the allium getting taller on April 28

Last year, I got a free pot, and when I emptied the soil, I found mystery bulbs. So I threw the bulbs in other pots just to see what would happen, and two of the pots sprouted these things. Lilies? Random weeds not from the bulbs at all?

If you look at the photo below, you'll see our azalea being glorious in front of the house, but my new favorite part of it is this random branch that has grown back through the other shrubs toward the house, such that I can see it from the front window, though not from anywhere else. Lovely!

May 1

What the heck made this huge hole on the right side of the front garden? Was it something burrowing, or just a deer stepping into a soft spot?

Poor dianthus

Lilac, obviously, but also transplanted Shasta daisies on the left, in front of hydrangea. The daisies have been getting a little uppity on the left side of the garden.

In front of the street number sign, there used to be a thriving anemone - now it is just sending up a very few tiny leaves. Will it recover? Close-up below. Interestingly, this was the anemone that replaced the one that didn't make it after the first winter when we redid this front garden.

I think this shrub is pretty, in front of 14 Brookside Dr., in Maplewood, on May 2

Another view

I passed these pots in the city on May 3. Love the Columbine.

The cherry tree blossoms are now more on the ground than the branches, like a fluffy pink carpet surrounding each tree. This is in front of the library.