Brrrr....

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Good Grief! It’s minus 23 C. (with the windchill factor).

Put out seeds and crumbs for the sparrows, doves and squirrels.

Everyone is happily munching…

It is a marvel to me how, every spring, the perennials emerge from the snow blanket and suffer the fickleness of April. I know I’m ahead of myself by a couple of months, but I’ve been reading garden books and some of the blogs from those lucky enough to garden in the UK (where daphs are already up and blooming) and reading posts from a friend in Australia whose summer is winding down…and muttering about living in this frozen wasteland…hahaha. Guess the secret is learning to appreciate the joys of anticipation…

So…back to those perennials under the snow blanket…
the ones like aegopodium..which some call “thug”, but I personally love, because that’s what it needs “tough love”. I just yank it out by the handfulls…and snip off the seedheads, the flower isn’t why I plant it..so I just remove it. every season it emerges energetically and tries valiantly to enlarge it’s foothold.
I keep it where I want it with a lawn mower. (have to use the mower somehow; don’t have much lawn left.) It is a terrific plant for darker corners and does well as a foundation planting on the north side of my house, where it shares space with Virginia Creeper. Yes, another beloved ‘thug’. Wouldn’t anyone rather look at the varigated leaves of the aegopodium and the shiny green leaved, purple berried VC, than a parged foundation wall?
Next to that, under cover of the Russian Olive and beside my fence is another survivor…it escaped from my neighbours garden into mine and year after year it’s canes bear lovely raspberries as payment for being allowed to stay. it emerges from the spurge that I planted under my trees (RO and crabapple) and is trying to give the spearmint some competition. I will have to move the hostas this spring, because they should have a better spot closer to the shaded back part of my garden. To continue with my list of tough plants, just beyond the raspberries and near the base of the Serbian Spruce the oregano holds sway and across a very small strip of lawn, I have to do the tough-love thing with the lemon balm. Under the Maple, along with the ever spreading spurge is a spreading mat of purple violets. It’s a good thing that the sparrows seem to like the seeds of these little beauties..because if every seed they produced grew into a plant there would be room for nothing else!. In a bed with my delphiniums and peonies is another of this ilk, Echinops. They produce lovely blue orbs which the butterflies like and the birds demolish. From one small 4 inch pot it has spread to the point of crowding the liatris, which is almost a wildflower too. So I think it will have a new site elsewhere this summer.
See my point…I like to fuss about something exotic or new but for the most part I love those plants that just get on with it… they are strong and prevalent and I like that.

I’ve ordered my seeds and the flats await them…potting up my callas and canas and wiring up the grolights.

Enough musing for now.

• 28 Feb, 2008
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