Are You Running Out Of Room in Your Garden?

Oxalis adenophylla

Have you ever run out of room for new plants in your garden? Or have you just not had the kind of location the plant really needed? I suspect it is a common problem amongst gardeners.

Elizabeth Lawrence wrote in an August 18, 1957 column for the Charlotte Observer...

“This year I indulged in a bulb of the celebrated N. ‘Kings Court’, which is considered the best yellow trumpet for exhibitions. I had been watching it since 1948, when it was fifteen dollars, and for the first time it was down to my price, a dollar and a half. But the saddest thing happened. There are no longer choice spots left in my garden for choice flowers, and I had to put N. ‘Kings Court’ in the background. And then, with everything in bloom at once, I couldn’t find it. When at last I tracked it down, under the Japanese apricot (Prunus mume), the flowers were all faded. And now I shall have to wait.”

When I’m out buying new plants, I think I have plenty of room for them, but when I get home, I find myself doing that waltz around the garden trying to figure out where to stick the new plant.

Mine is not always a space problem as much as it is choosing the right spot the first time.

Wait, I do have a space problem when it comes to shade-loving plants. I don’t have enough shade on my suburban lot, yet. This lack of shade ensures I am attracted to hostas, astilbes and other shade loving plants when I'm at the garden center. I still buy these shade loving plants, but I end up putting short ones behind tall ones, planting some too close together, or worse, planting them in part sun locations where they suffer a bit. And yes, I’ve misplaced a few along the way, and outright lost some of them.

But I do have room for sun loving plants.

Last fall, I was looking for a place to plant Oxalis adenophylla bulbs, which are pretty small as plants go, and I ended up planting them in places where you have to look to find them among other foliage and groundcovers. In fact, I had to look around for quite awhile before I finally found them.

That’s too bad, because they have a pretty bloom. So I’ll be moving them to a more suitable location at some point. The big decision is… move them now when they have foliage or wait and dig up the bulbs in the fall and move them then.

If I wait to dig up the bulbs, I probably won’t find them or I'll forget about them, so I think I’ll move them now with foliage. They’ll be perfect in the miniature garden, with all my other miniature plants.

Do you have any misplaced flowers hiding in your garden?

*****

The quote above is from the book Beautiful at All Seasons: Southern Gardening and Beyond with Elizabeth Lawrence, edited by Ann L. Armstrong and Lindie Wilson, chosen to be the April-May selection of the Garden Bloggers’ Book Club. All are welcome to join the book club by reading this book or any book by Elizabeth Lawrence and then posting a book review, your own insights on her writings, etc. on your blog before May 31st. Then I’ll publish a “virtual meeting” post on May 31st with links to all the relevant posts.

You can look at the virtual meeting post from March 31st to get a general idea of how the book club works.

I hope you’ll join me in reading some of Elizabeth Lawrence’s writings before the end of the month. Many gardeners who have read her writings agree that if she were alive today, Lawrence would likely be a garden blogger!

If you post a review, please let me know via a comment or email, so I can find it and include it.

Great Experiences of Gardening

It seems fitting that on the last day of my gardening holiday, the lilacs should bloom. As I worked around the yard, carrying newly purchased plants from the front porch to the back patio, I made it a point to walk on the side of the house where the lilacs bloom so I could smell them over and over again.

This has been an outstanding year for lilac blooms, one of the best that I can remember.

I think lilacs are one of the great experiences of gardening where the winters get cold enough for them to live. In a way, it is a reason for living where there are cold winters.

So what are great experiences of gardening? They are those events that make even a busy gardener, one who moves about the garden purposely and quickly trying to get everything done, stop for a moment to enjoy the experience.

Here's what makes me stop and enjoy the experience. I wish all gardeners (and other people, too) could experience these things:

1.The taste of a home-grown tomato, still warm from the sun, eaten while standing in the garden.

2. The sweetness of an ear of sweet corn, grown in your own garden and cooked within minutes of being picked.

3, Fresh peas from the garden.

4. Fresh anything from you own garden.

5. The smell of lilacs in the spring.

6. Living and staying someplace long enough to sit in the shade of a tree you planted yourself.

7. Watching a night-blooming cereus bloom on a hot summer night.

8. The silence of a garden completely blanketed in snow.

9. Seeing a flower bloom in the snow.

10. Getting a special passalong plant from a friend or family member, a plant that has a history of being passed along and isn’t one of those invasive, ‘take all you want’ kind of plants.

What experiences would you add to this list?

Shopping for Plants

Supposedly, you should never go grocery shopping when you are hungry because you are likely to buy more food than you need.

And you are supposed to write up a grocery list while you are still at home and then stick to it at the grocery store to avoid over spending.

Please note that these "rules of shopping" do not apply to shopping for plants.

First of all, after a long winter, your appetite and hunger for new plants can't be satisfied until you go shopping for them.

And lists? It's fine to have a list for the "staples" of the garden that you might need, like tomato plants, but it is pretty limiting to stick to a list when you don't know what new and exciting plants you'll find at the garden center.

What a fuddy-duddy of a gardener you would be if you saw a plant that was different, that you'd never seen before, that you wanted, and then you checked your 'list' to see if it was on it. And then seeing that it wasn't on your list, you didn't get it.

Of course it wouldn't be on your list, you didn't know about it until just that minute when you saw it. But that shouldn't stop you from getting that plant you just fell in love with.

(Disclaimer here... what might stop you from getting a new plant is if you know absolutely nothing about it, such as is it invasive, how big will it get, is it really hardy in your area, etc. If you know nothing about a plant, ask some questions before you buy, and the more expensive the plant, the more questions you should ask. When my sister sees a plant she likes but knows nothing about, she calls me. If I don't know anything about the plant, I look it up in one of my books or on the Internet, while she is on the phone, and then tell her yes or no. Sometimes it is "yes, and get one for me, too". Sometimes, unfortunately it is "no absolutely not, and don't come whining to me when that plant takes over your backyard." You might set up a system like that with one of your siblings or a gardening friend when you are out shopping for plants...)


The Exotic Impatien, 'Glow Improved', pictured above was a plant I didn't know about until I saw it at one of my favorite places to buy plants. I was there on Thursday and they did not have these plants. Then I stopped by on Friday afternoon to get just a few more plants for some containers and there they were. Yes, they had just gotten them in. Yes, I should have one or two or three. Yes, I got some.

Which reminds me that they say you should limit your visits to the grocery store to avoid impulse purchases. I do the opposite with garden centers. I like to stop by frequently, especially in the spring, because they might have some new plants that they didn't have the last time I was there. And I wouldn't want to miss out on them.

So my advice is don't shop for plants like you shop for groceries. Give in to your inner gardener and splurge a bit at the garden centers. After all, spring comes only once a year.

*****

For those living around Indianapolis, one of my favorite places to shop for annuals and perennials is a local greenhouse called Court's Yard and Greenhouse. Courtney, the owner, grows a lot of what she sells with the help of her mom and what she doesn't grow, she gets from other local growers. They are located at 609 W. Epler Ave, across the street from Adrian Orchard and during the month of May, they are usually open from 8 AM to 8 PM. If you go, tell them you found out about them from this blog.

Thank You

What a day yesterday was here at May Dreams Gardens. I'll be putting a big green star next to it in my garden journal so I won't forget in years to come the feeling of gratitude for all the good things that happened on May 15, 2008.

I am thrilled and grateful to be the recipient of five Mouse & Trowel Awards for Innovation in Garden Blogging, Garden Blogger You'd Most Like as Your Neighbor, Garden Blog Post of the Year, Best North American Garden Blog, and Garden Blog of the Year.

Thank you to Colleen at In the Garden Online for organizing this awards event once again. Congratulations to all the other winners, too, and thank you to everyone who was a part of the voting.

At the risk of you all hearing the orchestra in the background signaling "get on with it", I'll just leave it at that and not go on and on about how grateful I am and start listing all the bloggers who have given me inspiration through their own blogs, wonderful comments, and behind the scenes advice via email. I won't start talking about April 2008 again and all the fun many of us had meeting one another in person. Or go on about how many mis-steps I took in the beginning when I was starting this blog, at one time actually deleting it and restarting it. It would be a long post of gratitude and thank you's if I tried to include everyone and thank them properly and it might get kind of mushy. (I don't do mushy very well.)

So I'll just say a simple Thank You to all who read, comment and support me here at May Dreams Gardens.

And many thanks (I know the music is gettting louder) to all who posted about what is blooming in their gardens yesterday. I'm still working my way through the comments, virtually visiting each person who took the time to upload their photos, hunt up botanical names, and share their gardens through their blogs. I'll get to everyone eventually but, right now...

The sun is shining after a rainy week during my gardening holiday, and I have a porch full of annuals, perennials, and even some new shrubs waiting to be planted, so you'll understand if it takes me a little longer to get around to visiting your blog to read your bloom day post. I'll get there as soon as I can.

Now the music is very loud, the sun is bright, and I can smell those lilacs as they start to open, so let me just say one more time...

Thank You for your votes, your support, your wonderful comments, the link love, your participation in bloom day and the book club, and our shared love of gardening.

Carol, May Dreams Gardens

Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day - May 2008

If there is one word to describe my garden this mid-May of 2008, it is anticipation.

It seems like I am anticipating more flowers that will soon be blooming than I am experiencing flowers in bloom right now.

In fact, when I look back at my May 2007 Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day post, I confirm my suspicion that many flowers ARE blooming a little later this year.

But I do have some flowers in bloom here at May Dreams Gardens, if you'd like to see a few of them. Above is a picture of 'Blue Tower' columbine, a nice double flowering columbine that I grew from seed years ago. I also have a pink version called 'Pink Tower'.

The blue dogbane is blooming, more or less on scheduleIt's probably the bluest flower in my garden, in any season.

Hey, how did a picture of the vegetable garden sneak in here?There isn't much to see right now in the vegetable garden, but you can tell I am anticipating planting it soon, maybe this weekend, maybe next weekend. It is one of the last things I plant in the spring as I want to be sure there will be no more frost after I plant my precious tomato seedlings out there.

The tulip bed out front still has some color in it.It's interesting how this was a big mix of colors earlier and now just the purple shades are left.

Nearby, Snow-in-Summer is making a nice show, though it isn't summer yet!Once this is done blooming, it is a bit of a scraggly plant, so I cut it back hard, and it still comes back every spring.

I was hoping the peonies would be blooming for bloom day but they are all still tight buds.I'll post pictures of these later when they do bloom.

And while the Syringa meyeri are blooming on the other side of the fence right now, these 'Miss Kim' lilacs are still just buds like the peonies.When these start blooming, I might just drag a chair out there next to them and sit a spell breathing in the sweet smell of lilacs.

Now some lists, for all you record keeping types out there....

First the buds. Many of these plants were in full bloom at this time last year, but this year, they are still buds.

Allium karataviense
Lilac (Syringa patula ‘Miss Kim’)
Blue False Indigo (Baptisia, ‘Purple Smoke’)
Blue-Eyed Grass (Sisyrinchium bermudianum)
Creeping Veronica (Veronica repens ‘Sunshine’)
False Forget-me-Not (Brunnera macrophylla)
Grapes
Japanese Iris
Spiderwort (Tradescantia ‘Blue and Gold’)
Spiderworts in various shades of purple (Tradescantia virginiana)
White Solitary clematis (Clematis integrefolia ‘Alba’, a shrub type clematis, but it does need support)
Woodbine Variegated Honeysuckle Vine (Lonicera periclymenum ‘Harlequin’)
Coral Bells (Heuchera ‘Petite Pearl Fancy’)
Geraniums (Geranium x cantabrigiense ‘Karmina’ and ‘Biokovo’)
Mockorange (Philadelphus ‘Buckley’s Quill’)
Peonies (passalong plants from my Dad and a friend at work, plus one I bought called ‘Shirley Temple’)
White Flower Carpet Rose
Spirea ‘Limemound’
Lady’s Mantle (Alchemilla mollis)
Daylily (‘Stella d’Oro’)

All buds!

Just starting to bloom

Daisies (probably Ox-Eye Daises, Leucanthemum vulgare)
Geranium (Passalong plant from my sister, variety unknown, but they are pretty)
Chamomile
Dead Nettle (Lamium maculatum ‘Aureum')

Actually in bloom

Bleeding Heart (Dicentra spectabilis, a passalong plant from one of my sisters)
Drumstick Allium
Candytuft (Iberis sempervirens)
Blue Dogbane (Amsonia tabernaemontana)
Chives
Snowball Bush (Viburnum opulus ‘Sterile’)
Lilac (Syringa meyeri)
Lily of the Valley (Convallaria majalis)
Miniature Iris ‘Smart’, plus ‘Flaming Embers’, newly purchased
Snow-in-Summer (Cerastium tomentosum)
Strawberries
Variegated Kerria (Kerria japonica ‘Picta’)
Columbine (Aquilegia ‘Tower Blue’ and ‘Tower Pink’, plus Aquilegia canadensis)
False forget-me-not (Brunnera macrophylla)
Thyme (growing up in the cracks between the bricks of the patio)

Still blooming from April

Lenten Rose (Helleborus x orientalis)
Tulips, mostly the purple ones

Last year by mid-May, my peas were blooming, but not this year. No blooms yet on the peas, so I suspect I'll be harvesting them later than last year, too.

On the bright side, the best is yet to come here at May Dreams Gardens, with so many flowers still just buds.

Is anyone else noticing that spring is taking its sweet time passing through?

Nothing wrong with that as it is a favorite time in the garden for many of us. Soon enough summer will be here and we’ll all be complaining about how hot it is and wishing for more rain than we’ll likely get. (Hey, aren't they already doing that in Austin?)

What’s blooming in your garden in mid-May? We would love to have you join us for Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day. It’s easy to join in. Just post on your blog about what is blooming in your garden, then leave a comment here so we can find your blog and come and virtually visit your garden and see your flowers.

No special invitations needed. All are welcome to participate!

“We can have flowers nearly every month of the year.” ~ Elizabeth Lawrence

Cultivator Review: Does It Make Gardening Easier?

Two of the hardest jobs in the garden are breaking new ground and cultivating existing beds to get them ready for planting. Every gardener seems to be looking for new ways, better ways, to make these jobs a little easier.

I’m fortunate to own a roto-tiller, which did make life easier when I originally dug most of my flower beds and tilled up my vegetable garden every spring, before I switched to raised beds and spring tilling became a part of my past.

I bought the tiller, a Troy-Bilt 3 HP ‘Tuffy’, in the fall of 1992. Such freedom it gave me! It was at the time the smallest tiller they made, but with two extra weights added, it still weighed a whopping 135 pounds. It is about all I can handle in a piece of power equipment.

So I don’t get it out just anytime I want to cultivate the ground. I save it for real honest to goodness ground breaking work. And even though the last real ground breaking work I did was probably eight or nine years ago, I still keep the tiller and start it every once in a while, because someday I might want to dig some more beds.

But the tiller is too big and too heavy to drag out when I just want to cultivate a small area somewhere. For that, something smaller is called for, so I tried out a garden cultivator, compliments of Troy-Bilt.

Here’s my assessment after trying out their 4-Cycle Garden Cultivator, model TB144, in my own garden.

Overall good things about this cultivator:

- It is light enough that I can carry it around easily.
- The handle fold downs, making it easy to store.
- You don’t mix the gas and oil. I hate mixing gas and oil for anything.
- I was able to start it, which isn’t true of many pull start gas engines.

How it worked in my garden:

- It did a good job mixing in compost in an area of my garden that had previously been overgrown with ribbon grass.
- It also did a good job cultivating in the area where I had dug up forsythia, turning up all kinds of small root pieces, so I guess I didn’t get all the roots out of that area.
- It just dug in one place when it came to the raised bed vegetable garden and was hard to move forward. Those beds are never walked on and remain pretty friable, so I suppose cultivating them wasn’t really necessary. I just wanted to try it.
- It didn’t do much when I tried it to ‘break new ground’ in the lawn. Honestly, I don’t think it was designed to do that, so I wasn’t surprised. For future ground breaking I’ll either use my tiller or the lasagna gardening layering method.

A few things I didn’t like about it:

- It’s loud. You should definitely wear earplugs when you use it, as should anyone working with you.
- When you start it, with the throttle control held up against the handle, the tines immediately start turning. You can release the throttle control and then the engine is just idling and then the tines aren’t turning. I think it would be safer if there was a way to start it without the tines starting to turn immediately.
- It has two back wheels, but when I tried to pull or push it on the wheels, it seemed off balance and would fall over on its side. I ended up carrying it from place to place.
- It didn't work well for me as an edger. It was easy enough to remove the cultivating tines and switch to the edger attachment but I was not able to control it as I tried to edge along the driveway. It wanted to pull to one side and I ended up with the edger blade skittering across the driveway a couple of times.

Some advice if you use any tiller or cultivator.

- Wear ear plugs.
- Wear heavy shoes, those tines are turning fast. I always wear heavy shoes when I use a roto tiller, and I think that would be the safe thing to do when using a cultivator.
- Wear eye protection. Any cultivator can kick up a rock or other flying debris unexpectedly.
- Concentrate on what you are doing while using it. When a cultivator hits up against something it can’t cultivate, it will “jump” a bit and you have to be ready to keep it from going where you don’t want it to go. The same is true if you are using a roto-tiller.

Troy-Bilt also makes an electric powered cultivator, and you can read a review of it on A Gardener's Notebook. After reading his review, I wonder if I would have preferred the electric model instead of the gas powered model?

If you have any other questions about this cultivator, I’m happy to answer them, just email me at the address on the sidebar or leave a comment.

Five Glorious Minutes

For five glorious minutes, I am going to focus on what I have accomplished in my garden so far this spring, and not on what I still need to do.

I have…

Cleaned up the grape arbor bed, which has been an eyesore for several years.

Dug out the nasty Forsythia x intermedia ‘Arnold Dwarf’, which has been a poor performing shrub ever since I planted it.

Removed all the ribbon grass, leaving a nice area to plant new perennials.

Weeded and prepared the vegetable garden for planting.

Kept up with the mowing and trimming of the lawn.

Weeded allthe flower beds and kept up with deadheading the flowers as needed

And last fall, I straightened up my retaining wall bed, and dug out all the English ivy I foolishly planted there.

For the first time in a long time, I feel like my garden is under control, that there is no area that needs major renovation or extensive weeding or that I would be embarrassed for someone to see.

So I’ll take five glorious minutes to just enjoy this feeling and smell the lilacs. Ahhh… the smell of lilacs in the spring.

Yes, there are weeds sprouting behind my back and more flowers that will soon need to be deadheaded. And I still have much to do in the garden this spring, mostly planting, and ideas for more garden beds to be dug.

But that doesn’t matter right now, I’ll think about that tomorrow. These five minutes are about just being in the garden, enjoying it and resting in it.