Category Archives: Gardening

Encroaching ever closer upon our half-century mark, Suzie celebrates her birthday today, and I’ll honor her standing as a proper lady by not revealing her exact age. (I will state for the record that she is almost three months older than me, so I’ll always be the younger one. Obvs.) The birthday parties she had in our childhood were outdoor affairs, which usually found us on the shaded side yard of their statuesque Victorian home, involved in three-legged sack races or other such childish games.

At some point during those parties, I would find a way to sneak off to the gardens on the other side of the house, where I could follow a rickety set of stone steps that led into a secluded little section of the yard blocked off by trees and a white fence. I was more interested in the gardens than participating in any reindeer games, I don’t care if I could blow a gum bubble faster than anyone else after eating a saltine cracker. 

At the edge of the driveway, and all along the stone steps leading down into the garden, vast swaths of these perennial cornflowers (Centaurea montana) bloomed. They were irresistible to bees, who buzzed and danced among their blooms, lending a bit of danger to the path into the garden. One had to cross the busy byways of these buzzing sentinels and risk their stings in order to access the garden. It was always worth it to me, and to this day the sight of a cornflower in bloom brings me instantly back to Suzie’s birthdays, the way peonies bring me back to that very same garden. 

After all these years, Suzie still embodies the warmth and safety and comfort of that garden, the same place she shared her grape taffy beneath a grape arbor dangling with unripe fruit and flanked by beds or irises and hosta. Suzie and summer will always be happily entwined in my memory, and on this day I wish her a very Happy Birthday as she embarks upon another year’s journey around the sun. 

One of the very first things I planted when we first moved into our home in 2002 was a climbing hydrangea. I placed it at the base of a towering old pine tree that was bare for the bottom two-thirds of its enormous trunk, leaving ample room for the antics of this not-so-social climber. Like many vines, this one adheres strictly to the following schedule:

1. The first year it sleeps. 
2. The second year it creeps.
3. The third year it leaps.

Let’s talk about that first year. Soil preparation is essential, as this is an investment that may last a very long time. I dug as deeply as possible, amending abundantly but carefully so as not to run the risk of burning the roots with too much manure. Then I watered, and kept watering, even when it seemed like nothing was happening. The first summer of a climbing hydrangea planting should never be dry. It rewarded me with little to no growth, but I had faith, so I kept at it, pampering and caretaking despite lack of any visible growth. 

The second year I applied an early spring amendment – a half bag of manure worked into the top of the soil, then a heavy mulch to keep things cool and moist. And then I kept up the watering schedule. There was a bit more growth – the creep had begun. Branches leaned into the tree, finding comfort and footing on its rough bark, sending out some aerial roots for stability and support. The tree itself seemed a bit happier to have such a companion, as its roots were getting all the excess nutrients they would have otherwise gone without. 

For that second summer, while there was some additional growth on the top, it wasn’t robust or substantial, so it was important to keep up the watering even without much to show for it. This sort of blind faith is the key to success for many a gardener. We amend and prepare and work for something that may not produce any visible result for years – and such lessons have been incalculably valuable in bolstering my patience and working towards things that don’t come with immediate rewards. 

The third year there was indeed a leap, but it was a leap of foliage and branches, devoid of flowers. Starting with such a young specimen means flowering may not commence for several years – something that isn’t explained or explored in the nursery rhyme of growth pattern. I didn’t really mind (ok, I may have minded a little) but mostly I was just happy it was doing well and finally climbing several feet, lending the previously barren tree trunk new life and prettiness. Again, I worked organic matter into the surrounding soil and kept it regularly and well watered, especially during dry spells. 

It was the fourth or fifth year that the first flowers appeared – their lace-caps delicate and airy, their perfume light and sweet – and then the true magic began to happen. As it climbed vertically a couple of feet each year, it also began to send out branches that extended outward from the trunk, and they arched and dangled flower heads up and down the entire length of the vine. The rewards began at the half-decade mark – a waiting period most people today scoff and deride as impossible, but one that seems to me a rather small wait for something so gloriously beautiful. 

Today this gorgeous specimen stands at a towering thirty to forty feet in the air, perfuming that entire corner of our yard. At twenty-one years of age, she is older than this website by one year, and will probably outlast it as she shows no signs of letting up. I don’t pamper her as I once did – she no longer needs it, providing a hefty bit of shade to keep her own roots cool and moist. Every few years I’ll do a thick top-dressing of manure to keep her roots happy and well-fed for all the beauty she has provided us. All this time later, we are still taking care of each other. 

This has been a good year for our peonies. A couple of years ago I revamped the decades-old clumps in front of our home, which was much more difficult than I realized. As impressed as I was by the size and depth of their roots, I also understand that would mean some difficult digging. It was a two-day affair, undertaken in late summer, to get them back in with newly amended soil and divided portions to gain some traction before that fall. It took a couple of years, and now they are back just as big and floriferous as before. In fact, they could probably stand another division in the near future, but that will not be my near future, as that is one task which would prove too much for this season. Besides, they are beautiful as they are, and this is a year of appreciation. 

It takes a great many lily-of-the-valley stalks to make a bouquet that’s going to leave an impression, but it’s always worth it to bring their sweet perfume indoors. Currently we have a couple of colonies of this beautiful, if slightly invasive, groundcover, and they are lending the spring air a delicious fragrance, mingling with the remnants of the American lilac as their bloom comes to a close, and heralding the start of the Korean lilac season.

Lily-of-the-valley was a favorite of my grandmother, and it retains an old-fashioned element that is well-deserved due to its hardiness and insistence on spanning the generations. I’ll let the flower spikes go to seed, as any diminishment or weakening of the swaths we have going is not a bad thing. The brilliant red berries that remain are a treat to find in autumn when color is more rare.

Bruises, scrapes, cuts, sunburn and a blister line the outer layer of skin on my hands and arms. Above my knee, a patch of soreness aches from where I broke bunches of stiff stalks. And inside, muscles I haven’t exercised since the last spring clean-out groan with hurt and unaccustomed exercise.  This is an exquisite pain though, one that comes from a week of working outside and performing the physical acts of cleaning the yard and filling forty lawn bags with the remnants of another winter’s wreckage.

The cleaning goes a little slower these days. At 47 years of age, the body doesn’t allow for such brutality and relentless drive. I’ve thrown out my back in years past by not being careful with how I bent down for hydrangea pruning, and I’ve ruined the first week of sunny weather by not guarding against a nasty sunburn. Having learned these lessons the hard way, I know now to be more careful with how I move (bend at the knees and squat, and never make a right angle by bending forward) and how I protect myself (long-sleeved shirts no matter how hot, to protect from sun and scratches). 

Even with such precautions, there are war-wounds, but all the aches and bruises make me feel like I’ve done a good day of work. The exhaustion makes for a good night of sleep. And the exertions make for a nice start to the summer to come. 

Prior to this one, every year I would think of taking a before and after photo of the clump of fountain grass – a full clump of thick, bamboo-like reeds that is nine feet high and just as wide – and this year I finally did the modern day version of it in time-lapse GIF format. It was so much harder than it looks.

This song, the classic ‘Beautiful Dreamer’, gets a jazz-inflected revision filled with the anticipatory excitement and delicious tension that informs these early days of the season. We are almost a month into it, and with 80-degree days, we seem to have skipped a beat or two. The rain and cooler nights return next week, but for now I’m indulging in the beauty around us, such as these Scilla blooms, and the radial wonder of a Crown Imperial Fritillaria. 

Work in the yard continues – I’m about fifteen bags into the process, which is almost halfway there. In my older age, I find things going a bit slower, but also a bit more peacefully. Hours spent outdoors in the spring are therapeutic in a way that no other hours are. 

Speckled with a slight spattering of mud from a spring shower, these early daffodils, likely a relative of ‘February Gold‘, are the first little blooms in my parents’ yard. We just have the smallest start of color in our Scilla bulbs, but no buds on the Narcissus here yet. Micro-climates are a real thing, and it’s interesting to note that in downtown Albany and downtown Amsterdam all the daffodils are in bloom, while a mile or two up on Albany-Shaker or Market Street, the show hasn’t even come close to starting. What a difference some elevation makes.

As for the mud marring the beauties seen here, it’s a marker of the courage and bravery that these little blooms have against the harsh and unpredictable world of mid-April. We should all be so bold.

My memory is officially shot, and I can better answer questions on what went down in 1997 (it was probably me) than what happened just ten minutes ago. Case in point: I recently took my daily regimen of pills at night, then promptly took another bunch just half an hour later because I couldn’t remember if I’d taken them before (luckily I’m only on baby doses of blood pressure medication and the rest are just allergy and Vitamin D and other nonsense). Yes, I would probably do well with a weekly/daily pill box for more than vacations now. But I digress, another sign of aging and forgetfulness, and the real purpose of this post was to examine the crocus you see so beautifully in bloom here.

It’s a bit of a surprise because I didn’t remember planting this corm – and in all fairness to me, it was a package of about 50 crocus corms, only one of which actually survived the hungry animals burrowing in the topsoil of our backyard a number of years ago. Yes, one out of fifty, which is why I don’t bother much with bulbs anymore. 

As seen above, it is almost completely hidden in the brown debris of winter’s end, even with its striking purple coloring. I actually missed it the first time I walked by, only catching it on my return trip, and the reward was handsome. A few days later, the bloom was gone, eaten by the usual culprits, and another heartbreaking reason not to bother with certain plants at certain times of the year. 

Thankfully, I captured it when it had just opened, and the fleeting nature of such beauty adds to its allure ad appreciation. A welcome sign of spring.

The glories of spring blooming bulbs are striking and many, but there are drawbacks too which keep me wary. Even the hardiest and most stalwart among them – the Narcissus and pictured Muscari for example – last for a bit, but eventually die out instead of multiplying as they are supposed to do. I’m not sure why, as they are allowed to go brown and fortify the bulbs until the foliage dies away, and I feed them during the growing season and allow them rest in their dormancy. Whether it’s the critters (lots of underground work by chipmunks and squirrels and rabbits) or the soil, bulbs simply don’t do well in the long run in our yard, so I’ve tended not to grow them. 

That doesn’t mean I don’t love seeing them in bloom everywhere else, especially in the first flush of potted and pampered specimens as seen here. The local markets and greenhouses are filled with spring bulbs now, taking pride of place and leading the Easter bunny brigade. It’s a happy end to winter, a promising start to the new season, and I am here for all of it. 

Behold, the pussywillow! These furry little harbingers of spring harken to some happy childhood memories. When I see them on offer in the market, I know spring is at hand. As their common name suggests, these are a member of the willow family, with all the magical properties that tree carries. 

How the pussy willow got its name is the subject of differing stories, most of which put kittens in peril, so read about them here (there are all happy endings). 

A simple vase of them is enough, though they make wonderful vertical accents in bouquets. I like to keep them to themselves, where the interesting features can be inspected without competition with more colorful scene-stealers. There will be time enough for them in the coming months – let’s begin slowly, and softly… 

Our yard is not that big or extensive, but even its small expanses make for a daily walk that recharges the soul as needed. Such a luxury is not available year round, and winter makes it less than hospitable for the most part. This particular winter hasn’t been as vicious as others, but I still hadn’t made it out until this week.

I wasn’t expecting to find much, but once again the garden finds ways to surprise and delight. A few small patches of moss rested on the bare ground, little irregular circles of green, while the only major splash of green was the evergreen of the Lenten rose – a stalwart performer when winters are mild, as this one has been.

Much of the yard is still covered in snow and the brown layer of leaves and debris from fall and winter. That monotonous backdrop is a benefit when looking for things that are out of place structurally, or, in the case below, of an evergreen that had sprouted and established a decent start over the last year, but had gone hidden beneath a grove of ostrich ferns.

A juniper provides its silvery, blue-green beauty as a refreshing foil against the brown of the ground and the weathered gray of the fence behind it. This and the row of Thuja are reminders of the importance of using evergreens when an entire season is spent in dormant winter doldrums. Too many of us, myself most decidedly included, go for the brighter and more dramatic growth and color of the deciduous varieties, but the slower-growing and year-round foliage of evergreens will end up forming the backbone of a garden and landscape.

As I finished up a brief stroll around the backyard, I was surprised to see the early emergence of a couple of daffodils. They don’t typically show up this early, but here they were, bravely poking forth through the layer of leaves that once laid hidden beneath the snow. As happy a sight as this was, it did give me a bit of consternation. There will be more snowstorms to weather before any bit of spring is in serious sight. The risk of rising too early is great in these parts, when a long freeze could stunt or outright stop a bloom in its tentative tracks. But new life rarely listens or heeds the wisdom of older life, so we will hang on and hope for the best. Besides, it’s hard to stay mad at the hopeful.

Even before the first shift in birdsong that I noticed this weekend, the houseplants were telling us the road to spring was just ahead. The mirrored re-flowering of the Christmas/Thanksgiving/Easter cactus happened a couple of weeks ago, meaning that there was similar light to the late fall when it last bloomed. Then there was a burst of flowers from an orchid (which is too spectacular to share outside of its own featured post to come) and a new batch of leaves on the Audrey ficus.

A new crop of bright chartreuse leaves on the traditional weeping fig also signaled that spring was on the way. Their young forms are thin and delicate, with a dewy shine that stiffens and ripens into the deeper mottled form that the rest of the leaves eventually grow to carry. I love this contrast now, and I love that we are almost halfway through the last full month of winter. Hang on like these little leaves – the journey is just beginning…