Garden Update

So, almost exactly 2 weeks ago, I wiggled the dead birch tree out, and that space, my new perennial bed, has been waiting for me to do something to it. I've been doing little things all along--I moved the lemon balm, for example, and I hacked away at more of the Greek oregano, though I still think there's too much there. And between yesterday and today, I bought perennials, some from the farmers market and some from Andrews Greenhouse in Amherst. (Andrews is a dangerous place to go during gardening season--they have a great selection, and their perennials are a bit pricey; so, you want to buy everything, but if you do, you'll have no money left.) I can't say I really planned it out in any kind of organized way, but I did think about colors (mostly pinks and blues) and heights and about what was already there and how things might fit in. This is how it looked a few weeks ago:

And this is how it looks now:

Five perennials went in today--2 different kinds of Campanula, a Coreopsis with pink flowers (I've never had one of those before), perennial Bachelor's Buttons and a Scabiosa (pincushion flower). You can sort of see them better here:

It's always funny to see a garden bed, especially one with flowers, in its early life, when everything is small and spaced so far apart. If I'm lucky, in a few years, it will have filled out. But some years things don't come back (my Platycodon--Balloon Flower--which I loved didn't come back this year, and so I had to put a new little one in its place), or you discover that they don't fit and need to be moved. It's always such a work-in-progress. (Or, sometimes, a work that can't progress. I bought some red bee balm as well, and I wanted to put it in next to the other bee balm, and when I started to dig, I learned that the reason that particular space is empty (and so seemed to need filling) is that there's an enormous slab of rock underneath. I wasn't up for uprooting everything in the vicinity, so I gave up pretty quickly and refilled the hole, but now I have to ponder where else the red bee balm might like to go.)

In other garden news, the False Indigo (knock wood) seems to like its new location. Last year, there was a single stalk, and this year there are three and even some flowers:


The lettuce, while tiny, is at least up:


The biggest of my three blueberry bushes is covered with blossoms; I'm still a few years away from being able to harvest any blueberries, but this gives me hope that someday I will:

You can see in the background to the right where a very large branch of my neighbor's tree fell during the winter. This is the problem with living on the edge of woods . . .

And in good community garden news, Alex spent a chunk of the afternoon over there turning over the second side, facing corn poppies and mint alike. I am very grateful (though he did suggest that I was going to wait to go back over there til he was done and then start planting things without consulting him. How he can think I might do such a thing, I can't imagine).

The one area where progress is less than stellar is in the asparagus realm. Last fall, the lovely Tibetan dug an asparagus bed for me where there had been lawn. Here's how it looked at the time:

The thing with asparagus, though, is that you have to dig trenches to put the asparagus in, trenches at least a foot deep and preferably 18 inches. I'm just a bit behind where I'd hoped to be by now . . .

I was even tempted to call him back and see if he could dig the trenches for me, but then I reminded myself that I did it myself a few years ago, so I can do it myself now. (And, realistically, I'm not going to be able to go down 18 inches, so I think a foot will have to do, and then I'll build the bed up from the top if I need to.) Hopefully, by the time I go back to work on Tuesday, the asparagus will be in. We'll see if I can swing it.

And that ends this week's garden update . . . There's supposed to be rain tonight, which is good for everything I just put in. And I am pleased with myself for managing to write this before 11 p.m. Now I can go putter some more in the garden without blogathon anxiety.

Happy Saturday.