The Spring Hunting and Buying Season Begins

The buds on the trees are starting to open, and this is the time when we see a million shades of green. Even now, at 7:40 PM as I write looking outside at the dying light, I can see so much life.

On the way home from the WAPL Conference in Stevens Point, I got a chance to stop at one of my favorite garden centers. I don't even know the name, but it is about a half mile west of the conference site. Some way, almost every spring, I find a way to drive through there and shop. They have so many unique specimens. Today I found a new Clematis that I've never seen before, called 'Blue Light'. It is supposedly hardy to zone 4, so I hope it will work on the east side of the house on the new arbor. Also found a 'Blue Bahama' Passiflora, sold as "Passion Flower". We had a very persistant passion flower vine on the south side of our house on Green Bay Road - one of Gaga's favorites. I'm not crazy about the Christian symbolism this plant is burdened with, but it is a beautiful, complex, unusual flower and I connect with it because of the part it played in my childhood.

Also found a new Thyme plant and a new Sage plant. For some reason that I don't really get yet, these two herbs that I've had forever didn't make it through this winter that should have been easy for them under all that snow. A new Rosemary rounds out todays perennial and herb purchases.

It seems too early to pick up the tender annuals, but I may not get back to that greenhouse again this season. They have the best selection of hybrid Sun Coleus around, so I picked up a few of those as well. And also a nice starter pot of just sprouted Basil. The Coleus and the Basil will remain in the house for awhile, but the rest went out to the temporary greenhouse.

The Light is Growing Stronger Every Day

It is almost light out when we are awakened in the morning, and we have more than an hour of daylight left when I get home after work. This is really the best time of the year for me - all potential, no disappointments yet. It has become impossible to document all of the new growth, all of the things beginning to grow in the yard as there are so many. A walk around this evening revealed more tulips, primroses, the Lime Ricky Heuchera looking as though it has been growing under the snow all winter, bachelor's buttons, swelling buds on the magnolia, sprouts of daylilies under the dried dead leaves from last year, and numerous other signs.

The ice went out of the pond on Sunday, just a day after the neighbor's cleared and we thought ours would be another week at least. As the water clears, it appears that the water lily has survived yet another winter. The water is filled with dead leaves and will no doubt smell bad in no time. We will need to drain and clean the pond, and this year do a number of repairs to the stone edge which have begun to fall and tip in. We are thinking about expanding the pond, maybe just digging a new one. But I still have an attachment to this one, and find it hard to consider abandoning it. That, and the fact that the goldfish downstairs really need to get out of the aquarium and into nice oxygenated water outside.

Most of the snow piles have gone. I told Bill this weekend that I was betting that the pile in the front yard would last until the first of May. That may have been overly pessimistic, but it is still at least 3 feet high and 6 or 7 feet in diameter and it will take some pretty warm days to melt it. We are expecting warmer days for the next week or so, so maybe...

I brushed the old dead foliage from the chives out in the garden today and cut some to put on the cottage cheese I had for dinner. A good feeling to begin using the outside herbs again. The Tarragon is starting to come up, the three different types of thyme are all still alive, and the sage is beginning to sprout. No mint sprouts yet, but no worries there. Still too early for the seedlings of dill and cilantro, and way too soon to put basil out. But summer will come.

Winter's Toll

Back what seems like forever ago, for the first post to this blog, I cut some sprigs of rosemary and sage knowing that the plants that seemed to be thriving would be taken by the cold and snow. rosemary in particular seems so hearty and strong that I have a hard time cutting it down in the late fall and believing that it will succumb. But it has - as this photo shows. The rosemary is brittle and brown, the sage is also, and the tarragon behind is totally dried up. Sage and tarragon will spring back once the weather warms - the tarragon from the ground and the sage from buds all along the seemingly dead stems. But the rosemary has never survived the winter in my yard and I will likely have to buy another plant for next year.

Once I tried to dig up and bring a rosemary plant in for the winter. But it wasn't fond of the dry indoor air either, and by January it had become scraggly and was infested with whiteflies. So each spring I invest in a new plant. And all winter I have to do with dried leaves from the previous summer to season our food.

Winter seems to be coming soon

It snowed this morning. Not the first snow this year, but the first that I was home to see. The cats went out anyway, Kate reveling in her freedom. Leaves aren't completely down from the trees yet, and we'll probably have to cut the grass one more time to mulch things a little more. But not today.

Today I cut some shoots from the Rosemary and Sage plants in the herb garden outside the kitchen window. I wish I could just let them be, and continue to harvest as needed - they both grow so well. But I know that when the really cold weather sets in they will go, so now is the time to make sure there is some for the winter.