Spring Blooms and Abundant Beauty

Spring has arrived in a hurry, with abnormally warm temperatures it is all happening fast!

It is as though I left for Easter weekend in Virginia at the beginning of Spring bloom time, and returned 3 days later to the end of spring.

Fortunately, I went out with my camera last evening in my half acre wood and photographed the blooms. When I returned from work today, the 4th day of the heat wave.....most of the early spring bulbs were spent and browning in the heat.

The upside of this warm spell is sleeping with the windows open. I love hearing the birds waking up at dawn, and feeling the chilly morning air move through my room.

These photographs were taken in the evening light. Even though I had the setting on automatic....I held the flash lens down, and wanted to capture the true light. I did a quick edit and enhanced the photo's a bit, and I feel they represent very well energy of the pulsating and light filled spring season.

My garden is now 3 years old. It is maturing and fairly lush. Though, over the Easter weekend I visited my dear friend Carol, and her garden. Carol has had at least 20 years to naturalize her garden. I wish I had taken photographs of that!

Her Forget Me Not's are the offspring of seeds her son Shaughan scattered about when he was a 5 year old boy. They now bloom in drifts along her stone terraced walls. There are so many memories in her garden, of our children, our clients and gardening adventures lived over the last 30 years.

Here is a link to a slideshow of my blooming beauties this Easter week.

It has been a fun and family oriented Easter celebration with Easter egg hunts on Long Branch Farm with the grand children....with silliness and joy abounding.

I am most grateful for this magical spring and my amazing family.

Blowing Hot and Cold

So much new energy arrived with the chilly Easter holiday. I traveled to Virginia for an Easter egg hunt in the bluebell fields with Barrie Ann and my family.  She is such a treat!  

She loves to paint too.  So we had ourselves a painting day in her playroom at the nursery. While her Mom helped all the customers get introduced to all her new offerings for the season. The nursery is so beautiful right now. It was hard not to stuff my truck full, but by the time I made it home I had it filled with Dee Runk Boxwoods, scented geraniums and other things I had to gather for clients here at home. 

I will spare you the hundreds of photo's I took of this funny little angel over the entire weekend. Everything she says and does is hysterically funny.

The Dee Runk Boxwood is a conical form of boxwood, a beautiful dark green evergreen that can take the Blowing Rock winters. I think it should replace all the Dwarf Alberta Spruce that yellows in the winter and gets spider mites in the summer. So I am trying to introduce them to the gardens here.

We also took Barrie for her first visit to Oatlands Plantation for the Point to Point horse races,  and a romp through the boxwood gardens.  I am so happy to be there with her as she saw them for the first time. There is no more magical place for a child to explore.  She kept trying to tell the other children the Teahouse was her house.

It has been a challenge knowing how to dress for work these days. I am a month ahead into spring in the foothills, where as, on the top of the world, 18 miles away in Blowing Rock, we had snow on Monday.  My Geurnsey Cream Clematis is in full bloom, but up  top, things are just breaking dormancy. I get a very long spring as I travel between the two geographical locations.  

Last week, my little friend Lindsey came around for the first time since Thanksgiving. She said, in her sweet little Carolina accent..... "I'm sorry I haven't come by for so long, but it's just been so cold! It really ought to be  be summer by now." I had a giggle about that statement all week.

Today the lawnmowers are buzzing away in the foothills neighborhood.  Managing our landscapes takes precedence now over anything that involves idol laziness, or we will be eaten alive by honeysuckle, weed trees and tall tall grass.  It all smells so good!  My tomato seedlings are finally starting to grow in their little pots on the sunny deck, instead of shivering in the cold.  

I have a lot of transplanting to do this evening, as everything needs a bigger root space than the seed trays offer.

We feel a month behind on our jobs, but are catching up quickly, now that we aren't being rained out daily.  Now, we have to patiently wait for the last frost date, as clients call and say can we plant the annuals yet?  We are accomplishing much. I have been good about taking the before photo's of projects, but by the end of the day I forget to take the after photo's. Such is the life of a busy gardener. 

There has been no time for painting. I stare nightly at a half finished portrait of a bouquet I picked weeks ago.  My camera stays busy though,  photographing the family fun and all the gorgeous blooms I find for future paintings. 

One of the weeks most exciting moments was the emergence of Patty's Crown Imperial Fritillaria.

She had traveled to Amsterdam about a year ago and ordered some bulbs.  We planted them last fall, and forgot about them.  She saw them this spring and was delighted to find these exotic creatures blooming in her cut flower garden. They will be interesting to paint one day so I took a lot of photographs for her and  future reference.  I think just about every gardener in town has been invited to see them.  The Fritillaria have a very strong odor. Helpful for repelling moles.

Last evening, after a day of major spring cleaning, I began tending to my own garden. Just as the sun was going down, I grabbed the camera once again.  In this heat, all the spring beauties will soon be gone.  The cool colors of the moss phlox, Phlox divaricata, white flowering Vinca minor, Tree peony, Thalia Narcissus, Trillium, Solomons Seal, Ferns and the helleborus blend so beautifully.  After two years the garden is filling out some and looking more like I want it to. My neighbors dog Buck likes my garden too.

Enjoy!

  

I just completed mulching my slope.

Last year, I tore out a huge mess of overgrown shrubs, honeysuckle and trash trees and prepped the area for creating the garden in view of my patio door.

I planted Vinca alba, Phlox divaricata, Thalia Narcissus, Squill, and ferns as the base. I have also planted rhododendron and blueberries. I have a Chesapeake Viburnum planted as well for it's sweet fragrance.

I sat down to read the garden section of the New York Times and found this article on the March Bank at Winterthur Gardens in Deleware. I have a long way to go before my vision is reached. The photo's in the article though are a good representation of my vision. I have done it before, in my horsehead garden posted by my profile.

I have spent my whole life planting the tiny bulb, Chionodoxa sardensis also known as Glory of the Snow in gardens. It does take years to get them to naturalize into large drifts. But, like Johnny apple seed I keep poking them in the ground everywhere I go. My clients ask "What are those little blue things?" When they discover what I have done. I once worked on an estate that had them in such abundance in the lawn that I felt I was in 'Blue OZ'.

I have tried to recreate that everywhere. The bulbs in the photo's were planted 100 years ago.

I was so proud of my little slope all mulched and tidy...until I saw these photographs of my dream gardens. The vinca survived last years drought and is blooming, but in tiny little clumps. It is all so baby new. Next year will be better. With perennials, the first year they sleep, second year they creep and the third year they leap. At least two more years and hundreds more bulbs to go.....

Gardening takes a lot of vision and patience. It is so worth it.