garden : pleasant surprise!

It appears that our pieris plant may actually be a native! I had just assumed that it was the Japanese variety and hadn’t even really registered that there is a regional alternative. The other day when we were sitting on the porch I noticed that it was covered in bees of all sorts. So we looked it up again and identified it as a “Forest Flame” pieris, which is (as far as I can tell) a hybrid cultivar.

Over the past few years I’ve been vigilant about cutting out any damaged sprigs and the new growth is starting to fill out the shape of the plant. Once we removed the struggling evergreen on the north side of the pieris there was more room to grow in that direction. With the addition of the oak leaf hydrangea, that shady section of acid-loving shrubs with white flowers is now complete!

garden : pleasant surprise!

garden : going native

I have vowed that this will be the year we make progress on converting the yard and garden to native plants. This means saying goodbye to the orange daylilies, forsythia, dwarf almond, lilac, and crape myrtle sprout (the large one can stay for now). Wait wait, you might be saying: most of these are popular, non-invasive, flowering garden shrubs. Yes, most of them are. However: I am allergic to forsythia and my partner is allergic to lilacs, and both of these are scrubby plants in less than ideal locations, which is also true of the dwarf almond. I do plan to dig up and give away the lilac and crape myrtle, and I suppose I could do the same for the other two (if anyone wants them). Certainly there will still be plenty of opportunities to see forsythia, lilacs, and myrtles just on our block, let alone in the neighborhood as a whole. Also true of the daylilies, which are best categorized as an invasive weed despite their cheery profusion. We are keeping the ornamental quince, as it produces fruit that the local wildlife like (yay, possums!).

So, yes, going native means replacing some perfectly decent shrubs. Replacing being the key word, and where the fun starts. I have been longing for more bird-friendly shrubs ever since we moved in. We are doing well with the trees, as the yard includes: native black cherries, American hollies, dogwoods, red maples, mulberries (which are destined to disappear in a later phase that involves actually hiring people), and a sweet gum tree (technically in the neighbor’s yard, but along our property line). With the addition of some wildlife-friendly shrubs, I hope to see more nesting species or migrating songbirds and fewer insects. I’ve been using the American Beauties website and the notes of a dedicated wildlife gardener to sketch out a plan for the yard that I hope will also add some winter structure (which the front in particular is sorely lacking).

The first thing I did to further this plan was replace the dead rhododendron in the shady foundation bed. I had already decided that I wanted an Oakleaf hydrangea; I went to my local nursery planning to just look at the options and (of course) came home with one. In a rare instance of planning and action, I planted it out before the maple tree leafed out and the day before the spring rains started in earnest. It’s happily leafing out and I’ve left it plenty of room to grow.

My plans for the rest of the yard are not firm, but they involve a couple of major changes. We really need to grade the side yard the property line to address the downhill flow of water to (and through) our foundation wall, and I want to use that project as an opportunity to replant that entire space as a mix of new shrubs and the perennials I already have in other spots in the yard. I’d also like to add a shrub or two into the sunny foundation bed; as much as I like the perennials, the winter landscape looks too lopsided with the shrubs and tree on the right and nothing but scruffy seed heads on the left. I’d also like to add some woody herbs (rosemary, sage, another lavender) to the sidewalk bed, along the top of the bed that’s currently a row of (clumping) daylilies; I plan to move those to replace the row of invasive orange ones.

So, what will all these shrubs be? At least two will be varieties of Winterberry, as a male is needed for good fruiting. I’m thinking that one (or maybe two, depending on size) will go at the end of the sunny bed next to the porch to provide some screening once they reach full height (I’m planning to put the male in the backyard, beside the stairs to the basement and underneath the sassafras and dogwood; hopefully that will be proximate enough for fertilization). I’ll add at least one more Oakleaf hydrangea, and possibly two; probably another large specimen to replace the forsythia and a shorter variety in the side yard or at the end of the sidewalk bed. At least one Clethra will go in the sidewalk bed and possibly also in the sunny foundation bed as a complement to the other butterfly-attracting plants there. Native viburnums are the other category of shrub to be worked in. I need to do some more research, but I’m thinking a small variety like Arrowwood for the side yard and a taller variety like Blackhaw for the other corner of the back wall to replace the dwarf almond. (The stretch in the middle of the wall is going to become a raised bed, planted with herbs or for use by the kid in future years or both.)

Again this year, I’m not planning anything for the rear yard where the fence needs to be replaced, so the focus is on the front. The goal is to increase the aesthetics, add some winter structure, and last but most important, increase the cover and food for birds and small wildlife. I would love to see more migrating birds stopping in our yard, particularly songbirds. I’ve spotted several varieties of vireo and warbler over the years we’ve been here, and I imagine many more went unnoticed. Attracting them to shrubs closer to the windows would be great!

garden : going native

garden : first spring flowers


Purple crocuses.


White and purple crocuses.

After several years of hoping, my crocus bed is now full of crocuses! It’s nice to be greeted at the sidewalk steps by perky little flowers when returning from our walks. The daffodils are budding, and we have the first flower along the side of the house. I’m going to do my best to map the types we have this year in order to better group and arrange them in future seasons. That requires brain power, though, so don’t hold your breath.


First Ice Folly daffodil with a very cold, possibly dead, bee on it.

In making the inspection of the front beds, the biggest casualty was the lavender. I suspect that most of the stress actually happened last year during our two blizzards when it was buried under feet of snow and ice. Nonetheless, the die-off this year was bad and I had to prune nearly half the plant. (It probably didn’t help that I failed to appropriately prune it in the fall.) That was sad, but what’s left is healthy and I’m hoping it will bush out again this year. The front sidewalk bed is in decent shape, with everything coming up green. I’ve decided that this is the year I am going to really move ahead with converting the yard to natives and a select few non-invasives. More about this in a later post, but what this means for the sidewalk bed is bye-bye orange daylilies. You’re cheery and hardy and send up green shoots nice and early, but you are one of the devils of the Southeast and you need to go!


Healthy lavender sprig, post- massive pruning of dead bits.


Sedum growing into phlox.

garden : first spring flowers

is this thing on?

Not only is it already March, but the month is nearly half over. Yikes! I got sucked into a black hole of sick household members and even less sleep than before that led me to not be able to type anything coherent but instead simply stare at the computer screen and try not to drool whenever I’ve had a couple of free moments to myself. I’ll try to do better.

What have you missed? I took the lazy man’s path and stopped doing the Dark Days Challenge when the host became unable to keep up with the round-ups due to circumstances in her own life. We continue to eat locally, I just am not making any effort to be creative or branch out from our regular recipes. I did plan to post about the soup I made in the summer that we recently ate from the freezer, and the recipe is this: make leek and potato soup, dilute with a bit more water, add pre-cooked chopped kale and a can of white beans at the end (and probably more salt; I use the mushroom seasoned salt that we get from our farmer). It’s good, and makes for more of a meal than regular leek and potato soup. I also made macaroons, since I was craving the ones I’d had in Portland with dried apricots, pecans, and a dark chocolate bottom. The macaroons were delicious, and I managed to make them last a whole week (!) by putting them in the freezer. I need to remember that option for future cookie cravings, because I love to make them but really don’t need to eat quite so many at a time.

What else? I managed to get outside and clean out the garden beds in the front of the house, so now the daffodil sprouts can actually see the sun. The crocuses are up, and I’m looking forward to seeing which daffodils bloom; you never know which ones will survive both the replanting and the hungry squirrels. I’ve been working on my garden plans for this year, but they really deserve their own post. (Stay tuned!)

Finally, politics are driving me a little nuts these days. On the local level, I was heartened by the way our surrounding neighborhoods embraced a rally in opposition to the Westboro Baptist Church (my favorite sign said, “Thanks for bringing the community together!). On the national and state level things are pretty sucktastic, as I don’t need to tell you because you’re an educated person who reads the news, right? Local delegates tried to play politics and sank Maryland’s equal marriage bill: I hope no one votes for anything those two people support for at least a decade (because I’m sleep-deprived, and that makes me surprisingly petty). All the money we have left after donating to NPR, Planned Parenthood, and the unions is being squirreled away so that we can live during the impending (Freudian slip: I nearly typed “impeding”) government shut-down. After using my energy taking care of the sprout, I have absolutely none left for filtering or using polite language: it’s gotten a little sailor-ish around these parts. Thank mother nature for oxytocin, I cannot imagine how much crabbier I would be about all of this without the mama hormones. (Of course, I’d have orders of magnitude more uninterrupted sleep, so maybe it would balance.)

And now: back to thinking about spring and daydreaming about the garden!

is this thing on?

birds : Philadelphia Vireo in the backyard

I just spotted a new life bird, a Philadelphia Vireo, moving through the trees in my backyard, a gift of both the fall migration and the weather being cool enough for me to open the blinds while I sit at the computer. It stayed long enough for me to make it outside with both the binoculars and the book and confirm the identification; two windowpanes and a screen introduce a fair amount of uncertainty into these things.

I had just the other day been trying to determine if I had the oomph for any kind of birding, as it’s something I’ve missed this summer what with the heat and the not being able to walk very well and barely being able to open my eyes in the early hours which are ideal for birding. Now that the migration’s on, though, I could probably make it to the lake around 4pm at least once and just see what’s around. Or, I could continue to just look out the window and let the birds come to me!

birds : Philadelphia Vireo in the backyard