Cutting Back and the Garden in Transition

Achillea Apricot Delight

My garden at the front of the nursery is heavy on spring bloomers because that is our busy season and it makes sense to have it that way. At least it does in the spring, because, well, it’s the second week of June and so much needs to be cut back that it’s a dilemma. The dilemma: I don’t want the garden to look like a bomb went off in the middle. Now at the moment there is a beautiful golden Tansy and yarrow ‘Apricot Delight’ next to each other, they make a stunning combination. The only problem is that they are next to so many plants that need to be cut back. First there’s the veronica ‘Georgia Blue,’ and then there’s the Dendranthema (cold hardy mum) we discovered (I call ‘Raspberry Thursday’ because it has raspberry colored flowers and I found it on a Thursday). Next, Catmint ‘Joanna Reed’, Penstemon ‘Huskers Red’, salvia nemorosa ‘Caradonna.’ I decided to cut back a few and leave a few to cut back later. Not too harsh, it’s working out well.
 
With some plants, cutting back isn’t enough. I took out and moved two very big baptisias because in the three years they had been in, they have gotten way too big for the space. So there are more holes in the garden to be filled, more decisions to be made. I am waiting for inspiration to strike as to what to put in those spaces, and how much to cut back. For now the space holders are a few of my mixed container pots. I kind of like that, mixing the pots in the garden, but I need to plan it a little better than filling large dirt spaces with pots because that’s what it looks like, and it’s not very memorable.

So what do I put in there? These are good summer bloomers to help my one season garden:

1.Phlox paniculata: I have had this in my first garden next to the old retail area. Years ago I put in my favorites ‘Nicky’, ‘David’, ‘Laura’ I tried to choose mildew resistant cultivars, and over time they crossed with happy abandon. The few that showed the most promise (mildew resistance, good color) I dug up and moved to one of the empty spots in the new garden.

2.Cone flowers (echinacea): Now, I love the new colors and have used them in the garden but I have noticed that echinacea magnus and ‘Ruby Star’, and all the old varieties attract so many more butterflies and bees. It has to be a pollen thing. The new varieties were bred for beauty not helping nature; eye candy I guess you would say. Which is fine just be aware of the difference.

I have also learned that both of these plants do much better with some space around them. I have put some of the newer varieties of echinacea like ‘Sun Down’ and ‘Harvest Moon’ crowed together with everything else in my garden and they disappeared after a year or so. George has some in his garden which are not crowded and they are beautiful three years later. I have found it is the same with phlox, which are prone to powdery mildew, when planted too close. Choose cultivars that are mildew resistant and give them some space. Consistent water also makes all the difference in how they look and perform. I am also using annuals, which I do every year, to help the garden transition from one season to the next. OK that’s it for now…time to water again.

Smelling the Garden

I walk outside and I smell honeysuckle. I come out of the grocery store with no apparent honeysuckle and I smell it. It is in the air everywhere. It’s one of the first things I remember about moving east: spring honeysuckle. Taking walks in the evening and being overwhelmed with the smell. Yes, I know it is a terrible invasive, but at least it smells good. I love plants that smell good. Few new plants seem to have fragrance these days, not high on anyone's preference list. It seems people are more inte.rested in the color of the flowers and the bloom time then if it has a fragrance.

We still have a few, Clove Pinks or Dianthus, lots of the phlox family are native and otherwise are good smellers. Some cone flowers are very sweet smelling, Moonflowers on a summer evening... yum. Nicotinia. Some of the old roses. Heliotrope with it’s baby powder fresh scent, even catmint: not quite what I would call sweet but still pleasant brushing up against it. Me and the bees think it smells grand. The blue Wave petunia smells great, too (no other color that I have found). Angles trumpet...well OK so I could go on and on. All of the herbs, of course...

How many smellers do you have in your garden? Not what we think of when we go to the local nursery these fragrant plants. Anyone ever asked the sales person “what do you have that will make everyone remember my garden because it smells nice?” I for one have never said that. But when I pay attention to fragrance it makes the garden so much more interesting and memorable, even something I enjoy working in more. It's not just something to appreciate with my eyes. In fact, if I close my eyes I can still smell the garden. It’s like a fresh cut lawn in summer, something we remember forever. If I take care to add plants with fragrance, the garden is more memorable for me. Just like smelling that old invasive honeysuckle: sweet spring. Next time we'll talk about herbs that smell... hmm . They all smell. How about my favorite scented herbs? Until then, night all.

Nature's Symphony

Peonies

When I walked up to the house this evening the cacophony of sound was unbelievable. Are there birds that sing in the evening?? And the peepers have migrated all over the yard I hear them from every corner (either that or there is a weird echo thing going on). I never remember hearing anything like it. The plants are feeling the same; they are going gangbusters. I am so excited about all the different kinds of Peonies we have this year. Watching the buds swell and the color start to show is just so darn much fun.
Everyday I thumb them to see a little more of their color. They are my flower children. 
 
This evening along with nature's symphony I loved seeing the shadows our weeping willow branches make as I pass under. We have so many different kinds of willows on the property and for sale I can’t keep up but George knows them all. I do know the Rosemary willow I put in my first garden so long ago. It now shades my tree peonies and blows gloriously in the wind, just as I intended. With willows it doesn’t take a life time to become mature and beautiful and that’s a good thing because I hate to wait too long for anything in my garden. Joyous spring everyone.

Spring

This evening the old spring ritual of potting up perennials in the gloaming began. Garrison Kellier on the radio and potting mix under my nails, a time honored ritual. George swears he heard spring peepers at the pond the other day but I think he is dreaming on that one, although in one of the many puddles in the rain garden I did see big fat pollywogs. 

Looking at all of the green shoots emerging out of the pots in the greenhouses makes my soul sing. The miracle of barren roots turning into healthy plants and then sighing into flower gives new meaning to the phrase "love what you do" (plants do seem to love what they do, too). Our dear friends Hilda and Clara, who come every spring to pot up our plants have come and filled up a greenhouse with George's seedlings and cuttings. 

We have so much great stuff now! I can’t wait for the show to begin. Here is a small list...four different carexes with names like Red Rooster, Prairie Fire, Indian Summer, and Toffee Twist...bronze and copper and brass. Origanum ‘Kent Beauty’ which I love, love, love because of it’s pendulous pink to green hanging flowers; everyone notices this one in bloom. We will have Achillea ‘Saucy Seduction’ and Eupatorium ‘Chocolate” with names like that they have to be great. We will have strawberries and rhubarb this year and oh so much more. And you know with the advent of warmer weather this week maybe we will hear the peepers. Come on spring, we're ready.

Spring Update

It’s been the darndest weather this spring: Cool-misty, cool-rainy, cool-cloudy, and then really hot all in the same week. The plants in the greenhouses and in the gardens certainly recover faster than I do. There is also no denying how the weather has made everything lovely this year. The gardens have had enough rain, and the world looks green and lush.

We are doing well at the nursery this year; we had no idea what it would be like. I appreciate the love and support from friends and strangers alike. I guess we are becoming known for peddling beauty to everyone who stops by. Yesterday a young family came down the driveway in the late afternoon, I smiled and said hello and they said they were just looking. They gave the the display gardens the once over before getting back in their car and heading out the driveway. Thats what I want our place to be: a respite from all of the hustle and bustle of everyday life. I believe the people who make their way here feel that as well.

Finally, next week we are putting up a shade area attached to the retail greenhouse just for sitting and relaxing (something we all need to do more of). When the breeze blows through, it will be like heaven. The new sitting space will also afford a great view of the gardens, which are now showing off false indigo, golden spiderwort, and catmint, among others things. Come and join us and talk gardening anytime.

Happy Digging!

Preparing for Spring Opening

The stage is set, the lights are coming up, and it’s almost show time.

We are rushing headlong toward our opening. It is coming so fast, as fast as the green shoots emerging from the ground all through the gardens. Our Morningside calendar has filled up with wonderful classes, check them out in events.

This year we are going to be adding a small herb cutting garden for fresh herbs. George is going to be taking some to the market and if people who come here would like fresh herbs we will go out into the garden and cut some. Of course we have to put the garden in first. We do have the spot picked out, we just have to amend the soil, figure out how many of what to put where, and plant them. Hmm Karen, and when is this going to happen? I am a firm believer in miracles, and as miracles go, this one doesn’t seem so out there. Herb cutting garden? Just make it so. Check back later to see if anyone was listening.

I also want to start including a few recipes on these pages and in our class. I love to cook (nothing fancy just what I would call good country fresh food, and the way to get fresh food is from your own yard). So we are putting in our first extensive veggie garden. That should also be fodder for a few laughs here as my small efforts with tomatoes and peppers has been spotty at best. Ornamental gardens I can handle, but the kind of garden I can eat out of, well it is my experience other things want to eat out of it as well. Fences don’t keep blister beetles out of the garden. I learned about crop rotation the hard way last year. This year I hope to fool the little suckers with a new garden location.

George is still working on his rain garden, which is coming into it’s own. He is working on a living willow fedge, which is a cross between a hedge and fence. It is an experiment, but exciting if it works. Our fascination with willows continues...they are cropping up everywhere here. I was thinking next year of having a pussy willow day so everyone who wants to can enjoy them also. Honey bees are enjoying them at the moment. Willows are good bee food as not much else has pollen at the moment. I also love to bring big bunches of all the different kinds of willows (we have about 6) into the house. Happiness is spring, fresh food and willows.

Happy Gardening!

The Call of Nature

Kumson

I think yellow is the color of early spring. It seems to be everywhere: the daffodils, the forsythia (‘Kumson’, right) blooming in pots, and the big yellow twig weeping willow. Even the finches get into the act by changing from their dull winter browns to neon yellow. It catches the eye and lifts the heart with the thought and hope of spring.

As rocky as the economy gets, gardens and gardening will always be just what it always has been, we can count on that. Garden ups and downs can only come from, say, the weather or garden-eating animals or my unwillingness to do the work I know needs to be done. We can adapt our gardens to almost all of these conditions to ride out the rocky times. Plant drought resistant plants, deer proof plants, be more diligent with weeding. In gardening we can be pro-active and take control of our gardens; we have so much control. We can make them as big or as small a garden as we feel like working in. It doesn’t have to be an overwhelming task. A beautiful container at the door is a garden.

This spring, thanks to a very good friend Clara’s suggestion we are going to have two classes that speak to the ability to put a garden anywhere. The first will be an English trough class and, in the next, we will be making a fairy garden in the troughs. Fairy gardens are those petite magical gardens that a fairy would love to inhabit. Gardens don’t have to be the size of Versailles to stop the heart and make you sigh. Sometimes being here at the nursery I am struck by people who like the idea of gardening but think it’s too much work The problem is just semantics. Maybe we could call it "earthly meditation" or "communing with plants" instead of "work." Remove the old idea of toiling away in the hot sun with a hoe, and replace it with the idea of a quiet time to hear the call of the natural world again. You can be anywhere, in a city on a balcony, or in the country, the natural world is always calling we just have to be quiet enough to hear it. And if we listen close enough, we might even hear one of those fairies.

Happy Spring!

What's Ahead as the Weather Warms

Days are getting longer...sigh. I can say it for sure now: our gardens are receiving more light to warm up their sleeping hearts. Sure, I'm writing this during a cold snap, but I feel spring is really on the way and the days of intense cold are on the way out. Our first greenhouse is full of herb cuttings and all of George's perennials are raising their tiny heads above the soil of their birth. We are going to have all kinds of "new-for-us" plants this year, along with some of our old favorites in smaller amounts so we can offer more variety. I will pass on a few every time I write, either new or undiscovered by most gardeners.

One of my favorites from last year that we will have again is Digitalis purpurea heywoodii "Pink Champagne." If you were one of the lucky few who bought one last year I would love to see it this year, because we forgot to keep any for ourselves! Heywoodii has beautiful silver foliage with blush pink bells.

Lonicera sempervirens 'Major Wheeler'

A new one is Lonicera sempervirens 'Major Wheeler' (right) which flowers heavily from spring through fall. It's 3 - 8 feet tall with a 1 - 10 foot spread and has crimson-red trumpet-shaped flowers. The long flowering time makes this special, who wouldn't want something that flowers from spring to fall?

Another new plant for us is Aspen Sunflower (Helianthella quinquenervis). It is a clear yellow without a hint of orange or gold. As a member of the sunflower tribe, it is a great food source for birds in fall (I love natural bird food plants).

Moving on to our display gardens: last year we were establishing a grass and sedge garden and Geo's rain garden. The whole property will soon be one giant garden for everyone to enjoy. We want customers and friends to wander our home and take whatever ideas fit for themselves. One of the best parts of this place is how it keeps us in touch with our gardening community. We hope our reach goes beyond our 4 1/2 acres and our love of gardening reaches into your heart, too.

Happy Gardening!

Garden Pigs: Worth the Oinking

The sun is moving higher in it's arc across the sky and that's good news for us gardeners. My own gardening time is limited now, but as I walk by the garden my mind is at work. What can I do with the half hour I have to share with my garden today? Some of the plants in my garden are plants that I call garden pigs. Plants that, years ago when we first made the garden, were just right for the place we put them are now, 6 years on, all over the place. Their piggy behavior, while tolerated when I had more time to garden, is just too much for me these days.

These piggy garden thugs are creeping all over the garden and I think the oinkers have to go. My beautiful summer garden phlox that I love are coming up everywhere, seeding and spreading out like they own the place. Euphorbia, lamium, and those great old garden mums are also popping up in any open space they can colonize. My daylily bed, already thinned just 2 years ago, is just too much daylily again. Now that I think of it the whole garden is just out of control!

The solution is obvious: start a new garden. Learn the lesson from my old over-grown garden and plant picky perennials. You know, plants I have to nurture and fuss over. These plants will not spread everywhere, they will have to be coaxed to grow. Never mind that they will look sickly and pale; at least they won't be taking over. Hm.

You know, on second thought,  I really do like those piggy plants. They are some of my favorites, and I like working in my garden even if it means ripping out buckets of spreading plants. So I guess in the end I will stick to the good news about the sun getting higher and tomorrow morning go out and enjoy the spring sunshine in the garden with a few extra buckets.

The Peeper Frogs are Back

The wind is rattling the windows; spring is closing in.  Another way I can tell is that our greenhouses are full to bursting, with no where to put another plant.  We only have so many covered greenhouses or heaters to go in them.  Our friends Hilda and Clara, who come every year to help us "pot up," came in February and then again last week.  This time they brought another friend, Helen, who along with everyone else poked holes in pots filled with potting mix and filled them in with small plants.  At this time of the year they grow so fast, it is one of our spring miracles. 

We are going to have so many new plants this year.  I can't wait to see two new achilleas we have gotten (achillieas are also called "yarrows"). One is called "Apricot Delight" which is  apricot colors fading to soft peach, very fruity. The other is "Pomegranate" also fruity with a deep red coloring almost like, you guessed it, a pomegranate.  I couldn't resist them, achilleas are drought tolerant, beautiful, and low maintenance (OK: well-drained, full sun low maintenance).  We will also have the vibrant heuchera villosa hybrids "Caramel," "Christa," "Citronelle," and "Miracle" just to name a few. These are the colors of yellow-orange, rose-purple, and citron yellow, among others.

We have two tree paeonias this year: one is red and the other is wisteria blue.  If you've never seen a tree paeonia, it is an amazing little shrub with huge tissue-paper flowers.  I've heard that in China there is one that is a thousand years old.  People will just sit and contemplate it when it is in bloom.  They are definitely a long term plant. Well, I could go on and on about all the new plants, but I'm thinking you will just have to visit. Trav has posted our events and happening, and if I can manage a few more I will let you know. I love that the peeper frogs are enjoying these warm evenings.  I opened the window just so I could hear their serenade as I wrote this. Yes, it's spring.

Planting the New Garden

One of the new greenhouses

We have a new planting project here at Morningside Farm: our new huge display bed. It stretches on forever around the new retail area. The back side of the garden is going to be a rain garden, which will help with erosion and runoff problems into our new pond and on down the pond chain to the river system and the Chesapeake Bay. I am savoring the idea of planting this garden. Our friends Jeff and Bill came and tilled the whole garden bed. It's beautiful just as it is, but of course an empty garden to a gardener is a battle cry. We will all work on it. I like to imagine it will be the wonder of the neighborhood, and it will certainly be the wonder of our nursery. As children at Christmas with sugarplums dancing in their heads, our heads are full of dancing perennials and annuals, maybe a few small trees and shrubs, a few pieces of iron work maybe, beautiful blooming containers over-spilling with summer lushness. I am going to do the containers now so they will be ready to add to the garden after mother's day.

Crab Apple

I was thinking of a seasonal Spring, Summer, and Fall garden starting with Spring at the big blue house and continuing around. The whole garden would be of interest all the time, with an emphasis on a particular season in a particular area. I haven't broached this with the men yet; I'm trying to get it straight in my own mind first. I plan on making a list of all sun blooming Spring perennials, a list of Summer perennials, and a list of late Summer/Fall perennials. I'll start with a list and veer off entirely by the end.

I would also like to have bays of annuals in the garden that stay the same every year, kind of like annual islands in the perennial bed, with their own area they can be planned as a garden within the garden every year. That's the end of my garden musings for now.

A small, funny string of tips about old-fashioned clothespins (the ones with a coil of wire between the pieces of wood):

• Use an indelible ball point pen to write on them, snap it onto the rim of a flower pot to identify the plant
• Put on opened packages of seeds to keep tightly closed or to separate different packages
• Flank a partly broken stem with pieces of wood and hold in place with the clothespin
• Hold the pages of a book open to free both hands
• Hold covers in place to shade a plant.
• The last part of the tip..."Keep in your basket of tools at all times"

That's it for me this week. I will let you know about our garden progress, or better yet, come visit.

The Freeze that Wasn't and Working in the Rain

Magnolias

Nature, gardening, and life are fickle. My own thoughts on the freeze that wasn't were dire. I took pictures of all the beautiful flowers that were going to be toast in the next few days with the thought that I would have before and after pictures for this blog. Well, that didn't work out; nature gave us a double scoop of chocolate-chocolate chip ice cream instead (you see how my mind works). No hard freeze, no dead blooms, no happy perennials cut down to the ground in a black mass. Nature winked at us, fooled us mere mortals, laughed at our panic. I think I did more damage trying to cover up one of my favorites (tree peonies) than the cold did, and I would have to say, nature is whatever it's going to be and that's something we, as gardeners, will always have to work around. 

One of the new greenhouses

On to something more predictable: how our new greenhouse space is coming. The second greenhouse ribs are up and one of the end walls is up and painted its robins egg blue. I love it, and soon it will be as comfortable to me as our old space was. It has been a flurry of excitement here at Morningside: people and friends coming and going, energy flowing from plants and people, soft music playing, the sound of the nail gun and skill saw. We are all helping each other with whatever we are doing. Each to our own tasks, which are all very different. Travis is finishing up the carpentry work and painting on the greenhouses, George and Billy are madly potting up the huge plugs George has grown, and me trying to pull a retail area together out of the chaos. We're moving the plants outside the greenhouses so we can pot up more plants, and I wonder when we will have time to plant up our new huge garden space that, at the moment, looks like a giant pile of dirt with a very pleasing sweep around the garden center area. When we get that planted it's going to be spectacular.

Daffodils

A few thoughts on your garden:

After the daffodils have bloomed don't tie the leaves up. Leave them to die back just as they are. It may not look as tidy, but it's so much better for the bulbs.

Remember on these rainy and post-rainy days: Don't work clay soil when it is wet, as clumps will form that can take a whole year to break down. If you decide to work in your garden anyway, stepping or kneeling on a board or stepping stone keeps the soil from becoming compacted. I try to stay out of the my garden for a few days after a rain except around the edges. Well folks that's it for now. I can hear little plant voices calling, "Mama come watch us grow...."

Gardener's Frustrations: Spreaders and Weeds

Campanula

We are furiously trying to get the gardens cleaned up and mulched in time for opening day. While George and I were working within speaking distance during our weeding of the big garden, he would remind me of all the plants I had put in over the years that I was now having trouble removing because they were just a teensy bit aggressive. I reminded him of all his own very large plantings in a part of a garden that he put in. It made me think of our different perspectives on plants. My favorites are English garden-type plantings: overfull, lots of color. Campanulas are a favorite, but the ones I chose never seem to work in that garden. I just loved the campanula punctata 'Wedding Bells' which was supposed to be white with pink freckles (it wasn't).

This campanula is a spreading plant, and in the right place it's great. In fact, I have a friend who has had it in a corner surrounded by a stone walk on one side and her house on the other. It looks great and it's spreading habit is contained. Unfortunately, in my garden with the good soil it took over the world: It's getting under shrubs and squeezing out my old favorite, well-loved plants. I tried to be pro-active in containing it, but it was faster than I was. Last fall I took the whole thing out, and George finding a remnant, was able to remind me of my choosing this plant even though I knew its growth habit. I just wanted it, and put it in, and after a few years reconsidered, and ripped it out. We gardeners do that all the time, change things. This is not a perfect world; I ripped it out and moved on. So ends my Campanula punctata stories These are much better choices in campanula's for that space; Campanula glomerata 'Surperba', Campanula poscharskyana, Campanula persicifloia.

A serrated trowel (left) is great for weeding.

A few gardening notes: At this time of year, weeds can overcome a garden space very quickly (they seem to be growing at three times the speed of my perennials). If you are not mulching your garden, it is more difficult to keep them under control. Get them out when they are small. We have found a great gardening tool this year (the serrated trowel at left). It's really good for weeding; it looks like a fat knife with a serrated edge. I love it and we will be buying more to have here.

One last thing: if you have peonies, they don't require fertilizer for the first two or three years after planting. Then apply a trowel full of bonemeal each spring before bloom in a band 6-8 inches from the crown. Work into the soil being careful not to disturb the roots. Mulch with 2-4 inches of organic matter. If staking is necessary, place the stakes before the plants fill out.
That's all for this week! Enjoy the greening and the warming!

The First Day of Spring & the Small Details of Progress

New Retail Area Under Construction

I have come to realize that writing the Garden Blog is a lot like gardening: It has to be done every week. My son Travis gives me the nudge on the blog while weeds and bare spaces in my garden move me along there. We have so much to do this year that getting into the garden is a rare treat. Everyday I think I will get to dig up those wild onions in the peony border, grub out the running grass. A day later, the onions are taller the grass runs farther.Taking time to garden is a luxury. How can people think of it as work? I will admit, in the heat of summer when the weeds are having sway in the garden, it is a tiny bit difficult to muster up the energy to engage the enemy...but in the cool of a spring morning I still have delight in my gardening. The big garden has matured to the point where all kinds of birds and small creatures call it home. It affords them great cover from my cats, who garden with me but seem uninterested in the wildlife at that time of the morning. We're all happy just to be out in the garden in the cool morning air...but this is jumping ahead. This is spring and if I write really fast I may just get some of the dreaded onions out (my own pet peeve).

Peony

We have been having friends over for Sunday suppers the last few weeks. It is our social swan song for the season. Everyone wants to see the new pond and retail area. I get to see it with fresh eyes again. We were such innocents in regard to how we were going to set the whole thing up. Our way is to get it generally the way we want it and spend more time and energy fixing it later.  Right now, the new garden looks like a runway to me: too long and wide. We are going to change it, make it smaller with a curve around our new rain garden, (OK the rain garden we will develop as soon as we get our new main garden squared away and after we put up the next greenhouse to house the annuals for this year...are we really opening on April 7th?).

I thought I would pass along this recipe I found this week. It sounds really good and I get to use some of our fresh herbs (lucky me to have greenhouses full of them).

Strata with Goat Cheese, Tomatoes, and Herbs

• 1-tablespoon olive oil
• ½ pound stale country bread, sliced about ½-inch thick
• 2 large cloves garlic, 1 sliced in half, the other minced
• 1-pound fresh tomatoes (about 3 medium) sliced 1/3-inches thick
• 1/3 cup Gruyere cheese, grated
• 1/2 cup goat cheese, crumbled
• 1 tablespoon fresh rosemary, chopped
• 2 teaspoons fresh thyme
• 1-teaspoon kosher salt
• ½ teaspoon black pepper
• 4 large eggs
• 2 cups milk

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Oil a 2-quart baking or gratin dish, Rub the bread slices with garlic halves. Mix the minced garlic with the tomatoes, season with a pinch of salt and pepper, and set aside. Layer half the bread slices in the baking dish. Top with half the reserved tomatoes, half the cheeses, half the herbs and half the salt and pepper. Repeat the layers. Beat together the eggs and milk. Pour over the bread-tomato mixture. Place the dish on a baking sheet and bake for 40 or 50 minutes until puffed and browned. Serve hot or at room temperature.

That's all for this week! Time to get out in the garden and meet the first day of Spring!

In the Cold, Spring Heats Up

Sedum 'Autumn Fire'

Can you believe it? We have one of the new greenhouses up in the new retail area thanks to George, Travis, and our good friend and excellent helper Billy. I never believed it could happen so fast, but I look out our living room window, and there it is. A good thing too because we have run out of room in every greenhouse and need the new space for more plants that we are potting up everyday. Today Trav was working on herbs (thymes, loveage, garden sage, and many more) and I was potting up perennials (hypericum, chrysanthemum, sedum 'Autumn Fire'--at right). Everything is breaking dormancy and growing so fast. Now is the time when everyday is different in the greenhouse. Seedlings jump, cutting root so fast, it seems like the plants think spring is here, and I guess for us it is.

George and I are doing something we have not done in years, we are going to the Philadelphia Flower Show, and I can't wait. The theme this year is 'Legends of Ireland' and as someone who subconsciously always seems to make a garden that looks like it belongs somewhere on one of the British Isles, I will be in heaven. I expect to come back with a whole new outlook on Irish gardens. I will keep you posted; we now have lots of new gardens to work on, and I don't see why a part of one can't be a bit Irish.

I also wanted to say last week we got in a ton (for us) of terra cotta pots. Some we are going to paint, some we will lime wash, and some we will leave terra cotta. It's really beautiful stuff, big pots, medium pots, and small posts in lots of different shapes and sizes. Something for everyone.

Some of What's New at Morningside ...

Future retail area

While I was away visiting family in California, we started work on our new retail area. I say we, but it was actually a young man with a big machine. He came and changed the natural slope of our land into (what seems like to me) a very big, flat space where our new retail area will be. We also had him put in a real pond close to our rock-lined spring. The pond is filling directly from the spring, and with snow melt it is not taking the month the pond digger/land changer said it would take. In fact, it only taken about a week and a half so far. Now it is a small pond, but we are proud of it. It will be a beautiful addition to our display garden area.

On this new, graded area we will build two greenhouses and a much bigger retail area with plenty of room for parking; no more blind curve around a greenhouse. I have to say, I have no idea how all of this will happen by early April. We still have all of the seeding, potting up, and everything else we do every year to finish. It will look raw this year, but we hope that you can see the future in our new big display garden along with us. It looks huge at the moment (it is huge), but I bet we can plant it up very quickly.

Enchinacea

The greenhouses are also filling up. We will have all kinds of new Echinaceas, such as "Summer Sky," which is the first bicolor Echinacea. The huge 5-inch flowers are a light orange with a rose-colored halo and orange cone. It is prolific bloomer and highly fragrant. Another new one, "Harvest Moon (pictured left)," is a vigorous, fragrant earthy gold with a golden orange center cone. Some of our new Echinaceas are even fragrant! I can’t properly explain how show-stopping these new plants are. We will also have all of the great prairie Echinaceas such as "Magnus," with its large rose-pink petals and a coppery-brown cone, and "White Swan," with a white ray petal that flexes down away from the coppery-brown cone. I could go on and on...new retail area, lots of new plants, what could be better?

Pruning Artemesia

A few reminders before I head off to bed...now is the time to prune your buddleia, caryopteris, russian sage, and artemesia to within 6 inches of the ground. In late February, cut ornamental grasses to 6 inches also. Cut or mow (so much easier) liriope to 3 inches. Cut hydrangea arborescens to the ground and fertilize lightly. These hydrangeas, like Annabelle or Limelight (the ones with big white blooms in the summer), bloom on new wood. But be careful! Blue or pink hydrangeas (Macrophyllas) generally bloom on old wood and shouldn't be cutback until after they flower. Feed iris with bone meal and top with wood ashes. Circle herbs with lime, especially lavender. Okay, that’s it for now.