The new mini-bed of irises and prickly pear.

In keeping with my efforts to preserve all the plants I find around my yard, I volunteered to provide homes for any leftovers from the town’s annual plant exchange. I arrived home on Sunday evening to find bags of plants on the porch: bluebells, irises, prickly pear cactus, chives. The next day I cleared the grass from the front corner of the house to create a small bed that should get sun almost all day long. Into that bed, following the removing of roots and the mixing in of humus, I planted the irises. I love irises, and hope to someday have them all over the yard in various shapes, sizes, and colors. For now I will content myself with these refugees, as nearly all of the places I might plant irises, in particular the south facing wall of the garage, have several years to go before they’ll be suitable locations. Which is to say: they’re all completely overgrown with honeysuckle and the like at the moment.

Next to the irises, in some sandy soil that I did not enrich with humus, I planted a few pieces of the prickly pear. I look forward to seeing how it does there, and I hope that it won’t eventually grow so large as to prevent the gas company from reading the meter. I’m told they now have laser readers that can be used from a distance, but we’ll see. The chives I planted near the lavender at the corner of the porch, and the bluebells I passed along to my neighbor. We have bluebells in our yard already, and I’m still deciding where I’ll move them. I keep talking about moving them to the base of the maple tree in the front, but that seems like work, all that adding soil around the tree and digging up from around the rosebush and transplanting. At any rate, it hasn’t happened yet, and I decided that bluebell refugees I had aplenty. I also passed along some pachysandra, a ground cover of which another neighbor is very fond. So, our block did well from the plant exchange!

The clump of spiderwort that emerged from the swath of liriope last year.

One of the funny little surprises of our yard has been the clump of spiderwort that appeared last year seemingly out of nowhere. It’s not hard to believe that it’s been dormant under the carpet of liriope for years, but how many years is the question that fascinates us. Spiderwort appears to be native to this area, and I’ve seen it in beds around town. It’s not the most elegant plant on the planet—its spiky leaves flop all over each other and the somewhat delicate flowers get a bit lost in the foliage—but it’s a lovely deep purple and it blooms for a long time. I haven’t decided where I’ll move it; I suspect it’s destined for one of the many beds that live only in my imagination. In the meantime, I’ve cleared a little space around it and am letting it be.

The rhododendron, taking off this year.

Another plant that is creating somewhat of a quandary for us is the large rhododendron at the back of the house. On the one hand, we hate it. My partner is allergic to rhododendrons, so we’ve spent years developing a fierce dislike of the plant. Plus, it’s pink, and I’m already struggling to accept the roses, peonies, and azaleas in all their pink glory. It’s also smack in the spot that is destined to be the patio or screen porch: the one that also lives only in my imagination. As such, we’ve been trying to offer the plant to friends and neighbors alike to no avail. On the other hand, it’s a lovely plant and is likely nearly as old as our parents. After several years of neglect and poor weather—it allegedly used to be taller than the single-story addition—it’s growing and putting out all kinds of blooms. Having gotten no takers on our offers to pass it along to a yard where it will be loved and cherished rather and cursed and reviled, we’re starting to become fond of it in our own hateful way. It’s possible that when we do finally move it, it will be to another location in our own yard.

Our original peony plant, putting out all kinds of buds after having last year’s choking weeds cleared from around it.

Finally, the plant that has been the best gift of the yard is the peony. Tucked away near the back fence, it was completely choked with vines and weeds when we moved in. Last spring we cleared most of the weeds away from its base, and it produced quite a few blooms. We also received some refugee peonies from our neighbors down the road, and they seem to have mostly survived; I think we lost the smallest in the drought. It looks like we’ll get one flower from them, which is more than I expected, but they’ve all put up shoots and look to be photosynthesizing away.

It appears that luck is with me, as it will be raining for the next few days, creating perfect weeding weather: cool with nice soft soil. I am determined to make major progress on the backyard over the next couple of weeks, while it’s still arguably spring. I have no desire to repeat last year’s experience of trying to eradicate weeds that had settled in for the long haul at the height of the summer. I remind myself that we’re making enormous progress, and the photo record certainly helps to keep that clear. So, next week I hope to be reporting that I finally planted out those poor little crested irises I’ve had sitting on the porch for weeks!

Grape hyacinth in the front lawn.

One of the nicer aspects of restoring order to our neglected yard has been discovering new plants as we weed and mulch parts of the garden that had been completely overgrown by liriope and ivy. I’ve spoken about the appearance of new clumps of bulbs along the side beds, but even the ones I’ve known about are doing better this year. The two grape hyacinths in the front yard have multiplied, putting up four flowers this spring. I love the perky look of them against the grass, and plan to again avoid them with the mower. Looking back over my notes from last year, I see that I recorded their location as ‘just at the border of the grass’ and the bare dirt under the maple. I’m pleased to see that the grass has made inroads into that bare area, as the hyacinths are now a good foot or more into the lawn.

New azaleas in the front foundation bed.

After talking about it for a couple of years, this week was the time for actually clearing out the neglected foundation bed and planting two new azaleas. I considered camellias for some time, but none of the ones I’ve seen in our town have been free of brown frost spots, so I decided that the climate was just a little harsh for them. To keep the front relatively consistent color-wise, I chose white azaleas; the white azalea and pieris in the other foundation bed look nice against the brick. Our neighbor helpfully adopted the two big barberries that had been plunked by the porch — we are thinking of them as burglar deterrents along her back fence — which cleared up the space for planting. I spent a couple of hours loosening the soil and clearing a good lawn bag full of roots from that area and then prepped the whole space with generous additions of humus and peat. Per the instructions I found on the internet, I created two nicely aerated mounds for the plants and then covered the whole area with enough mulch to keep the water from sitting at the foundation. To finish off that bed I added the taller of the woodland phlox varieties I’d picked up at Behnke’s and planted out the lavender near the front step, after adding more peat and mixing some garden lime into the dirt.

I’m satisfied with the outcome and look forward to seeing the shrubs grow and the phlox spread out over the next couple of years. I have more plans for the front of the house, not least of which is to mow the lawn, but they’ll wait a couple of days. I worked to get the bare ground covered before the rain that was anticipated for this weekend, and that included moving a couple of hostas from the backyard to the north side of the house. I’d cleared a strip of liriope from along the foundation there, and once I had the hostas in place I mulched the whole stretch with pine bark chips (my mulch material of choice, as it has some color but doesn’t reek like shredded hardwood mulch). I don’t love hostas, but we have a couple of them in the backyard so I’ll see if they’ll take along the north side of the house. If so, I’ll move the rest and create a narrow foundation bed the length of the house.

Tenacious lilies-of-the-valley coming up along the back of the house.

I’ve mostly left the back to itself for the time being, relying on the clearing we did last year to hold us while I get the front tidied up. The leaf mulch seems to have been good for the bulbs under the dwarf cherry, as the lilies-of-the-valley are coming up like crazy. My plan is to move them to under the holly tree, on the south fence, and encourage them to spread into a nice ground cover there; this is also my plan for the crested irises I purchased. First, though, that area needs to be cleared of liriope and soil-treated; we — and by ‘we’ I mean my partner and his friend — got the space about half cleared last summer, and I plan to tackle it over the next week. Or so.

Today, though, I’m going to enjoy the fruits of my labor and watch the bees buzz around the new flowers.