Bun Balls and a Bud

It's still February and I have finished almost all my spring chores. It was just so nice and pleasant and after I spread mulch and prepped some new planting areas, I went out one afternoon and cut back the perennials.

I left the one Japanese forest grass alone, though. In winter it is tawny and dried, but still full of grace and movement. I'll cut that one back much closer to actual spring.

I also left the Blonde Ambition grasses uncut. They too are attractive in winter and almost the only thing to look at out there.

The three blue fescue grasses in the red pots got cut back though. I did not shear them in prior years and they have gotten overgrown and floppy in their pots. Two did not bloom last year. 

So this winter I sheared them right down to little rounded bun balls.

My plan is to take them out and plant each in some spot in the ground. They are big and mature and should add some structure and cool blue tones to areas of my gardens.

Most advice is to simply rake out dried grass fronds but not to cut back these cool season grasses. Other sources say to cut them completely down to a few inches. Maybe either approach is fine? Let's see what they do in spring.

And here's something - one of the two Spanish Flare hellebores has a big fat bud. I want more of these, but I'll wait to see how they look in summer when they go dormant.

Key points regarding summer dormancy:

• Appearance: Leaves might look tired, brown, or flat, but it is normal, they bounce back when cooler weather returns.
• Watering: Reduce watering in the summer, they do not need as much moisture while dormant. Overwatering in summer can lead to issues.
• Maintenance: Avoid cutting back foliage during this time, as they need it for energy. The best time to remove old, tattered leaves is late winter.
• Sun Protection: They prefer to be in shady areas, which helps manage their summer dormancy. They will resume growth and produce new foliage once temperatures drop.

Well, Why Not

On Sunday I spread 5 bags (2 cu. feet each) of bark mulch to cover the new areas where I had put down cotton bur compost and topsoil. I don't want it to dry out in the sun and blow away in the March winds.

Then I came in, showered and made myself a gin and tonic. Just like summer.

Why not -- it felt like summer, my body was tired from the work, the sun was lovely and after a warm day outside working hard I like to treat myself to a gin and tonic.

But that's always been a refreshing summer ritual after a day in the garden. A hot weather indulgence.

This is still February.

After the half inch of rain it warmed up again and I got the moist soil covered. And because the new mulch is chunky and light colored, I had to spread more of it over existing areas to match up and look cohesive.

I continue to marvel at the fact that I can still do this. I am 76.

I work slowly now but I get it done. Rock moving, mulch spreading all of an afternoon, and when the time comes in spring, digging and planting. 

With all these pleasant February afternoons and with new soil and fresh mulch I am ready for the digging and planting right now! My gin and tonic reinforced the summery garden-ready vibe and I despair to think we have two and a half months to go before I can make my garden vision come alive. That's 10 weeks at least.

Oh well, it's nice now. And my sparkling drink was so restorative after all that work.

 

Winter Rain

It's felt like summer on so many pleasant afternoons this month with hot sun, nights above freezing and little breeze.

Now it feels like refreshed spring. We got half an inch of rain overnight. 

Everything is dormant of course, but still, the soil and the air seem restored and clean. Especially the areas of fresh compost and topsoil that I had just put down along the rock borders and in the new strip of garden along the fence.

I even brought out the pots from the garage to give them a soaking and then let them warm up in the sun after the rain.

The rain barrel is capped for winter, so water just poured off it all around it.

This is so unusual. It's still deep winter!!

Fertilizers and Compost

Last year I had poor flowering on several mature plants that should have been much showier. 

The Rose of Sharon in particular bloomed sparsely, and the butterfly bushes weren't great. 

The caryopteris in front (which might be in too much shade) looked skimpy. 

Major Wheeler honeysuckle (also in too much shade perhaps) didn't produce much and I never even got a photo of it last spring.

The Venosa violacae clematis has always been spindly and it produces only a few blooms, even after six years in my garden.

Other plants were better -- the Cascade rose and the Kintzley's Ghost plants flowered well enough. The peony is okay, it had brief blooms. Sweet Summer Love clematis bloomed well.

I did rejuvenate prune the caryopteris and butterfly bushes this winter but I want to figure out how to get better flowering on the Rose of Sharon, the clematis and the Major Wheeler honeysuckle. 

I applied bloom booster fertilizer on most everything last year: water soluble fast acting Tiger Bloom 2-8-4 and Jack's 10-30-20, so they were both lower nitrogen fertilizers with higher phosphorous. Apparently New Mexico soils are usually ok for potassium but the phosphorus is locked up and often unavailable.

Nitrogen contributes to overall growth and foliage. 

Phosphorous supports roots and blooms. 

Potassium assures disease resistance and hardiness.

I do notice when I dig up a newer plant the root development is always poor. And it takes three or four years for my new plantings to grow at all. So I need to keep using the bloom and root booster fertilizers I guess.

4 pound bag

** But extra water and high phosphorous fertilizer did nothing for the mature Rose of Sharon.

This year I'll try this:

Dr. Earth Exotic Blend (for hibiscus) granular fertilizer. It is highest in potassium, low in phosphorous, with medium nitrogen. NPK 5-4-6.

Most sources give generic plant advice for Rose of Sharon to apply a balanced fertilizer 10-10-10 and add compost. But a couple sources have said that hibiscus, both the tropical and the hardy althea, wants higher potassium. So I'll try it.

And the delphiniums in the dining room window garden want high potassium too. Use this on those plants as well.

Also, I did some tip pruning on the Rose of Sharon this winter -- to create fuller branching.

The caryopteris and the Major Wheeler honeysuckle both need more sun, though.

(Yes, I should get a soil test done. The extension office is nearby at the fairgrounds, easy to get to. I just need to get the forms and dig up the dirt to do the test. But the test doesn't address a specific need, like that of hibiscus needing higher potassium than most plants, does it?)

Why doesn't mine look like this, planted at Newman's parking lot ---

3/4 of a Cubic Yard

On these warm almost summery February afternoons with still air and sunny temps near 60° I have been doing more spring chores.

Cotton burr compost

I got ten bags of soil amendments at Newman's, each one 2 cubic feet (so three quarters of a cubic yard combined). 

Five bags were soil builder mix, which is cotton bur compost, and five bags were topsoil.

I'll mix them together to build up the areas I want to plant around the newly arranged moss rock borders. 

Note:

Cotton bur compost does not have much NPK -- nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium. It does have lots of trace minerals from the inputs to cotton growing, and it adds structure for moisture retention. It helps mitigate alkalinity a bit.

I had used mushroom compost to plant around the circle garden, and I'm reading now that it may not be a good choice -- too high in salts and it adds alkalinity which I don't need and it's too fine to support soil structure. 

Could that be a reason I've had trouble getting things going there? As a small amendment to existing soil it might be good, but as a planting mix not so much?

The cotton bur amendment is much better for planting (and not just as touted by sellers, it gets high marks in independent reviews.)

So I used the cotton bur mixed with the topsoil and filled the new planting bed, then added a bunch of just the cotton bur compost around a bunch of established plants. 

I watered everything well to keep it from blowing away (actually hooked up the hose, it was like being out there watering in summer).

I need to get bags of bark mulch to cover the bare soil now. 

I schlepped all 10 bags to the yard and it wasn't even that hard. I'm a little amazed at how easy all my chores and rock moving and tree transplanting and now toting and spreading bags of amendments have been.

Of course, it's the luxury of doing things very slowly over many days and well in advance of the spring rush. 

And in cool winter weather -- although it feels summery, the air at 60° is cool enough for working outside comfortably. And I only do a little bit each day, with months ahead to get it all done.

Hot Afternoons

After a cold snap, winter has turned warm again. In fact the past several afternoons have been hot. In February!

The nights are below freezing, but the intense sun heats things up and when the air is 60 degrees with little breeze and no shade, the afternoons are almost summery.

I spent several afternoons in the garden, working slowly and getting almost all my spring chores done. I got pretty hot and actually sweaty and it felt good.

I even transplanted a small tree and it wasn't too hard and it reminded me of the pleasure I always get setting a tree in the ground. I'm still at it . . now 76 years old.

I dug up the serviceberry and put it in the center of the kitchen courtyard where the sundial had been. I watered it in and then made an AI image of what it might kind of look like in leaf. 

I will need to keep it narrow and limbed up to walk under it from gate to kitchen door. It's an experiment to see if I can do that. If it even lives through this winter transplant. But boy did it feel fine to be planting a tree. I played with images of how the courtyard might look . .  before and after.

(Whenever I dig in this little courtyard area I am confronted with roots. They aren't from the perennials I've planted there, they are much too thickly congested and woody and hard to dig through. The long gone aspen roots? The cottonwood's roots reaching this far over? The mature butterfly bush? There used to be roses planted, are their roots still thick in there?)

Here's what else I got accomplished over several hot February afternoons:

✔ Cut back the Karl Foerster grasses (always a messy job)

✔ Trimmed the boxwoods (more is needed for shape)
✔ Pruned lower branches of the crabapple (the start of a many year project)
✔ Trimmed the rose to go over the fence (some canes are long enough to reach the door canopy but I can't figure how to attach them, and damaging ice falls on that side anyway)

✔ Chopped down the butterfly bush in the kitchen courtyard to rejuvenate it (I hope) 

✔ Clipped tips of the fernbush (for fuller shape, blooms on new wood) 

✔ Cut down the caryopteris just above ground (a lot of dead stems, hopefully this will rejuvenate it) 

✔ Lightly trimmed the yellow butterfly bush in front (for fuller shape and maybe more blooms) 

✔ Cleaned up the dining room window garden (most stalks can just be crumbled by hand) 

✔ Took down clematis vines (hard to get Sweet Summer Love untangled from the slinky) 

✔ Tidied up the peony (an easy job)

I also rearranged the newly installed rocks along the fence line and I like the slight change of the shape of the rock border better.

I can't wait now to put some plants in there and soften the rock edges. I will need to get bags of soil to raise the hollows along here and along the upper rock border too.

After I took out the serviceberry I moved the spiral tower to the newly empty spot and dug up the struggling clematis and put it there. There are three emitters right there.

But the clematis rootball I moved was pretty nonexistent, so I may have to simply get a new Jackmanii plant and start over in this spot. A.I thinks it could look pretty nice.

When spring comes for real I will dig up the few remaining heucheras (Weston Pink) that are now behind the fragrant aster and put them where the clematis had been. 

It's an empty spot in front of the bare stems of the Peggy Martin rose and there are emitters there.

They grew well in the potting bench curve. The flower stalks are tall enough to be seen above the amsonias in that corner. 

I took them out of the potting bench curve during one re-do when they didn't fit my plan any more, but they had been nice clumps with visible and long lasting flowers.

Only a few survived the move but I'll move them again to fill this now empty spot.

Opuntia . . Or Pigs Ears?

I love the strongly architectural look of the rounded paddles of prickly pear, especially when a nice mound is tucked in among other plants, peeking out from between them or in back of some lower plants.

They add such a distinctive form and contrast.

But the spines . . 

← This is cacanapa ellisiana, a spineless opuntia and if I ever planted one in my small garden, I'd want this. It's a smaller version at only 3 feet high, but it can spread out to about 6 feet.

Many opuntias are very winter hardy, such as the Opuntia humifusa that is native to New England and all the way up into Canada, but this spineless one is a zone 7 plant.

I have some zone 7 sages in my garden, and technically could grow this opuntia here. My garden is now zone 7.

But where would I put one? A container would be ideal, so I could move it where needed and bring it in the garage for winter. But the plant is so much more interesting as it spreads out in irregular shapes.

Planted on its own as a specimen, it isn't as interesting as it is tucked in with other plants. But the orange flowers are great. I love this color, especially as I use orange where I can in the back courtyard.

I could plant one in combination with the cholla out front, with the fernbush and butterfly bush. This shot shows how it looks with other things, including a cholla.

But I probably won't. I like the half circle of what is there now -- the cholla, the fernbush and the butterfly bush. It would seem stiff and crowded to add the opuntia perhaps. And in winter the prickly pear looks pretty awful. Not what I want in the front yard.

I'd really like to add the opuntia in the back garden to see the orange blooms and to have it tucked in with upright sages and agastaches. But there simply isn't room.

I had Opuntia humifusa in Connecticut. It was still a small plant when it succumbed after a couple years to winter wet or too much summer rain, I forget which, but it went. 

It looked great in summer but a mess in winter. I loved it until I didn't.

I keep coming back to pictures of the spineless cacanapa ellisiana prickly pear and I keep trying to think of ways to use it here.

One alternative might be a much smaller plant:

Cotyledon orbicular, or red edged pig's ear. 

It's just a small succulent and won't have the landscape impact of a spreading prickly pear, but it does have the cool blue round pads and I could plant one or two somewhere where I'd see them up close.

It only grows about 6 inches high and a foot wide at most.

High Country Gardens has this and I think I'll order it. I'll figure out later where to put one or two.

The flowers are odd looking, little bells held on high stalks but downward facing, looking goofy.

Here are some examples of pig's ears I saw in January at the Heritage Gardens in California at Pam's development.

It blooms in mid summer. But I'd grow a couple of these for the almost opuntia looking foliage pads, but in a much much smaller size. Maybe even tuck some in along the rock border when I add creeping sedums and speedwells.

Plants added by A.I.

Here's a sort-of idea of how that might look as Gemini A.I. thinks it could look.

Hellebores

I got a 'Spanish Flare' hellebore as a free bonus in a Bluestone Perennials order last year and ordered a second. I didn't know what to expect or what to do with them other than providing a shady spot, so I planted them at the back of the potting bench curve where it is shadiest in summer.

They want shade in summer, but good winter sunshine. Sources say they are drought tolerant but here that means I have to keep them irrigated. Both are next to an emitter. 

It's hard to find a picture of the plant -- most images are extreme close ups of a single flower. The few images of the 'Spanish Flare' plant that I could find show a lovely little plant with sweet flowers, just a single upright clump.

Mine have not bloomed yet (hellebores take two to three years to bloom, and in this climate likely longer) and the plants are still small but the winter foliage is a nice green. The first summer planted they crisped pretty badly but now both look good. Here they were in January:

I'll have to wait a season or two to see what they will look like full-grown, whether they'll survive without crisping in summer, and whether they will even bloom well. 

But they're in a spot I never see. The redtwig dogwood will eventually grow too large in front of them, although the winter combination of bare red stems and rich green hellebore foliage behind will be nice. 

The back edge of the potting bench curve is just not a part of the garden anyone really sees. 

I'm transitioning it to a more open space with just redtwig dogwoods for filler and Biokovo geraniums for ground cover. 

Here's an example of a naturalistic swath of hellebores in winter wandering through a rock bordered area. 

That might be nicer than just having a clump or two. 

If I add several more under the aspens, in winter an evergreen ribbon of foliage might add groundcover interest, especially mingled with the semi-evergreen geraniums.

So I thought about ordering more 'Spanish Flare' hellebores to the two existing. But I'll wait.

I'll see how the two plants I have perform, especially in summer, and I may want to keep that section of shady back garden under the aspens more open and shrubby.