Bleak is the best word to describe this time of year. The heavy snows and frigid cold are past, but the hope of spring is still more of a tease than a promise.
Last week it warmed up for a few days, just long enough to rake out the dreary brown dead leaves and mulch them up with the lawn mower. It always amazes me how such a large pile of leaves can be mulched down to practically nothing. Although a lot of extra work, I try to always give back to the soil what it so generously gave me first.
Two years ago, this garden had a huge pine tree removed. Unfortunately, the ugly stump still remains since the equipment to remove it won’t fit through my gates. Once the freezing and thawing temperatures pass, the stump will be adorned with a huge cement bee skep.
In the past two years, I have planted a few native Ohio plants in this area. Most of them grow to heights of 5 to 6 feet tall, reach for the light, and then flop over. To remedy that, I’m going to give them the old “Chelsea Chop” so that they will bloom not only later, but shorter.
I decided since the ground here is so poor, I would also try to make it somewhat of a wild flower meadow to hide the stump and showcase the bee skep. I spread a soil supplement, then a mixture of Poppies, Larkspur, Garlic Chives, True Hyssop, Pimpinella ‘Rosea’, Blue Vervain, Penstemon, Blue Flax, and Showy Milkweed. All of these seeds can handle the cold weather, and actually prefer it for germination. Then I covered everything with my leaf mulch and trimmed up the roses in front. It still may look bleak, but at least it now looks neat.
We’re slightly past the 50 shades of brown stage, and you can find flickers of green and the hope of spring if you look hard enough. Snowdrops are always the first brave souls to show their faces.
The hellebores are still being cautious, but once they come on, they will bloom for 4 to 6 weeks. They are always worth the wait.
The Pussywillows are in full swing . . . always a childhood favorite.
The raspberries are out of control and always trying to remove my sweater when I walk by. They definitely need a haircut.
A few garden structures still bring a sense of peace and calm to this barren landscape.
Yet despite the feel of winter, there are garden visitors that make you quite aware that spring cannot be far away. Raccoons quietly residing all winter in the eaves of my shed, have suddenly made their presence known. And so the rush is on to trap and relocate them to the country parks before we have babies everywhere.
A rare sighting of a Rufus-sided Towhee, most likely just passing through, unfortunately.
And until I run out bird food, there are always the shenanigans of the squirrels. Most of the time, they eat hanging upside down. I have given up trying to keep them out of the feeders. I applaud their determination, which has become a constant source of entertainment, and I must admit they have grown on me.
I applaud you for mulching the fallen leaves, Cindy. I’ve been making more of an effort to do that too, raking them into piles before “vacuuming” them up with a Leaf Hog and dumping the shredded material into my compost bins. It’s a workout! I look forward to seeing your wildflower meadow. Most of the seeds I sowed this fall/winter failed because our rainfall was so low and I couldn’t keep up with the hand-watering required to keep them moist as long as necessary to ensure germination. All I can do is hope for better next year.
I have so many leaves Kris. No matter how many I rake in the fall, and I rake for 6 to 8 weeks straight, there are tons more in the spring that blew into the yard over the winter. When I mulch in the fall, I put them all in a large bin and by the next fall, I have lovely leaf mold. In the spring, I just mulch and put them directly out on the garden. I raked just from my backyard, enough leaves to mulch 3 good sized gardens. Now it’s not a thick mulch, just a fine layer. But because it is so fine, I know it will work itself into the ground and improve the soil.
I had the opposite problem as you. We had torrential rains one day this week, and all I’m hoping for now, is that the rain didn’t wash all the seeds into one spot. Time will tell. Probably in a few more weeks, seedlings will start coming up. Since I planted so many different things, I won’t be able to weed there unless I definitely recognize it as a weed. This might be a challenge for me, since I’m a neat freak, and it goes against my nature to let things grow wild.
We’ve had several warm days in a row, more like April weather, so things are coming along and the early bulbs are popping up everywhere. I even had the first daffodil open yesterday. Can’t be to long now.