Wednesday, March 14, 2007

The Best

Right now is, to my mind, the best time in the garden; not the most beautiful certainly... that probably is mid-May, when the azaleas are a riot of color, the Japanese maples vie for attention, and a hundred different shades of green provide a background for it all. Right now, though is my favorite; I love going about, brushing the fallen leaves back to see what's coming up. There are thousands of little bulbs scattered about willy-nilly; some by design, some by seeding, and I never am completely sure what is coming up where, so it's an absolute delight looking closely, and trying to figure out what type of bulb or tuber I'm seeing. There is also the pleasure of knowing the whole gardening year is in front of me: I tend to suffer minor pangs, for example, when all the daffodils go by, knowing I'll have to wait another year to see their shining faces lift to the sun. Perhaps the biggest thrill, though, is looking for the return of plants that are new to the garden and have just experienced their first Iowa winter; with more exotic or questionably hardy little woodland plants, it is just astonishing to see them popping up in the spring, as if nothing unusual had taken place, and they were still growing on a mountainside in Japan. There is, of course, the occasional small spot that stays bare, its white plastic label like a little tombstone, until I eventually sadly go about and gather them up... I have a box full of these humbling reminders that I garden in Iowa, not Honshu.
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// posted by IBOY @ 8:28 AM
Comments:
Every time I see a close up of your soil, I become very envious....Those daffodils don't know how good they got it!!
# posted by Blogger Sissy : March 14, 2007
 
Sissy... well, you know, that soil wasn't here when I started. I know, Iowa black topsoil and all of that. Unfortunately a lot of that topsoil is in the Gulf of Mexico now; I just had clay. The topsoil you see in pictures is all "manufactured" by me.
Don
# posted by Blogger IBOY : March 14, 2007
 
Sissy... well, you know, that soil wasn't here when I started. I know, Iowa black topsoil and all of that. Unfortunately a lot of that topsoil is in the Gulf of Mexico now; I just had clay. The topsoil you see in pictures is all "manufactured" by me.
Don
# posted by Blogger IBOY : March 14, 2007
 
My thoughts exactly! So far no signs of plant life up here-just thawing snow. I like when I remove the "tombstone" marker, only to have the plant mysteriously re-appear later. This happens to me a lot with wildflowers. especially trillium. Nowadays I leave the markers up 2 full years after the last signs of life, just in case.
# posted by Blogger lisa : March 15, 2007
 
Lisa... I often do the same thing; it's always frustrating to have a little plant pop up the next year, and no label (usually with something else now planted in the same spot).
Don
# posted by Blogger IBOY : March 15, 2007
 
Very nice post, Don.
# posted by Blogger Sally : March 16, 2007
 
thanks, Sally.
Don
# posted by Blogger IBOY : March 16, 2007
 
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