Over the weekend, I went to my local nursery, one of my time favored favorites. They had the Prairie Fire Crabapple trees and I bought two. The weather was good and two of the previous purchases were planted, the tulip trees. I really hope they do well, although I put them in a challenging place. Time will tell.
The other trees will be easier since I won’t have to dig out clay and replace with loads of better soil. Good thing my husband helped. Now he has the achy muscles and understands the demands that heavy duty gardening can exact. I am sure that for years he thought I was just being a wimp. I am one now, though. The gardening season should begin to change that.
Anyway, lots of things are blooming, the Dawn Viburnum, Viburnum x bodnantense ‘Dawn’, is blooming with pale strawberry pink balls of bloom. Very pretty and decorative. The lonicera is blooming where the snow had protected it on the lower branches, but the upper ones had lost bloom. I suppose it is due for some drastic pruning. I’ll decide that later.
oooo. I have lots of dandelions. I offered to pay one of my daughters to help me. Yes, that is how bad it is. Great spreading circles of toothy green waiting to leer at me with bright golden bursts of prodigous progeny.
The purple crocus are into their own. They seem to multiply best. I seem to have lost some of the others that I had. Named varieties with purple and white and some creams. Maybe they will appear later. My memory seems to be failing me. Time for a journal. A paper, hard copy type.
Here are some I know I had, formerly:
Prinz Claus ; Crocus chrysanthus “Blue Pearl”; Crocus chrysanthus “Cream Beauty”; Crocus chrysanthus “Advance” . I bought them as named single varieties, but have dug around in those beds quite a bit the last couple years.
There is a white that is blooming strongly right now, “Innocence”. This is the larger flowered type, and it handles growing through grass and heavy applications of mulch. If you like a bright white, this is your baby. I have mixed feelings about this sort of white. It is the same as white petunias, they look a bit harsh, like paper got blown and stuck in the garden. I think the remedy for that would be to plant a larger expanse of them. Which reminds me.
As I was out and about, I chanced by a wooded front yard simply covered with the blooms of eranthus. You can tell them by their greeny yellow and the more regular form. It was a very large area under a number of trees. It was calming and eye-catching at the same time. I love woodland. And I really miss not having much around. By the time mine grows I will be gone from the earth…with another gardener to either undo or take care of all my well laid plans.
That brings me to the last thing. I bought two small oaks. That is height of faith, friends. We plant oaks for our children’s children. But I bought them anyway, and will plant them in my little grove of trees. I think the Ent characters in the LOTR movies were designed along the lines of oaks, and the talking trees of the Wizard of Oz movie as well…never mind the apples. Apple trees do not have the armlike branches and gnarly faces of the oaks. They don’t have that huge glowering presence that a fine stand of oaks can produce. Apples are friendly accessible trees when well pruned and just jumbled confusion when not.
That is my imagination speaking. A woods is a perfect place for imagining.
