New Year

A new year and a new improvement in the wildflower department. The front garden is a long and incredibly dull story, suffice to say its been planted with wildflowers for a few years now. Last year saw the grass encroach too far and destroy several plants, so it was time to rejig the whole thing. I spent a couple of days in the autumn digging everything out and replanting the remaining plants and adding others.

I couldn't clear the central ring as it holds my collection of Lesser Celendines. I have been worried about these, although they are tenacious little beings, I do not want to lose any of them. I needn't have worried because on surveying the little area which is full of long grass, I found they have already leafed up and flattened the grass surrounding the individual plants. I have to get a wiggle on to clear the grass before they begin to flower. This is the difficult part as it is very heavy clay with compacted subsoil but it has been fairly dry this winter and I may not get another chance after this week to walk on the ground there. First I have to find a way to stop the area being a full scale battle ground for the local cats who are leaving logs to mark their territory!

What are your plans for your wildflower patch this year and which plants do you expect to flower first?

Heck Baa - if you only knew!!!!! I don't know where to start first!! I want to bring together a wild flower area/natural forest/shed & working part (compost etc). This will be to the left of our property and down into the forest. The new shed makes a good first marker!! Then there's the hard landscaping, patio area, rose & perennial garden, cutting garden and not forgetting the veg patch of course!! So in answer to your question, we are going to have to dig up the grass (weeds really), till the clay soil over a huge area and incorporate some good soil and hopefully I will be able to scatter some seeds in the Autumn!! I am holding my breath regarding native wild flowers and can't wait to see what emerges, this being our first Spring in the new house. I know we have trillium and by golly I'm over the moon about that!! Sounds as though your celendines are doing a great job for you. What do you think I should start with - remember virgin ground, clay and quartz and compacted by builders!! When the builders cleared some of the forest to build the house, I swear they got rid of that wonderful forest top soil!!

My little wildflower patch in the back yard needs a lot of rejigging as well (my grandpa used to say that!), and I'm a bit concerned about the puppy factor. And the fact that the puppies are now in the 30 - 35 pound range and still growing! I had almost lost the bed in question from total neglect the first few years after we moved in and were so concentrated on the roses and saving as many of the old plants as possible. last year I added a couple of new things, a white fern leaved bleeding heart and some pale corydalis which may or may not have survived. I also moved a little plot of Dutchman's Britches in last spring - we'll see about them as well. The trillium and Jack in Pulpit are so well established that I have no fears for them and the large solomon's seal is going to get a major thinning, if not a total move - too darned pushy, that. I'd like to reestablish some round lobed hepatica and see about some of the more interesting varieties of violets that I have back in the woods.

Then there's the full sun patch with the native asters, spireas, ironweeds and solidagos, vervain, turtlehead, healall, boneset, and Joe Pye weed. It will be interesting to see what survives my tender care! I also have seeds for native cleamtis and swamp milkweed and the swamp roses that I rooted last year to pull together somewhere.

The first flowers will be the spring beauties ( claytonia virg.) and the sweet violets, the trout lilies-adder's tongue-Dogtooth violet-Erythronium americanum.

So Kathleen any suggestions for my new space?? You realize I am green with envy!!

LOL looks like we three have our work cut out this year.

Louisa,

How big is the garden? I could say concrete the lot over ;) or throw out those roses and have a croquet lawn (hehehe). I know you don't want to do that. I have no idea what grows in Virginia, I'm no help am I? :) I did hear a professional gardener once say never plant in the first year of moving to a new house, you never know whats going to appear so I reckon you're doing the right thing already. Potatoes are great from breaking up compaction, oddly enough so is couch grass, I know what I'd rather have in the garden though LOL. Campanula trachelium, Aquilegia, Lamium, Dicentra and Primulas have done really well on the heavy clay here along with the usual weedy things like Lotus and Vervain.

I would like to have Trilliums but they never do very well, I did get a leaf once but that was it. I found one at half price 2 months ago but its still a no show, maybe later on it will make an appearance.

So you're going to have a formal(ish) garden graduating to a blend of the natural landscape? That will be beautiful when it gets there. We shall want to hear everything about each stage as it progresses!

Kathleen

Those pups sound like they are all over the place LOL. Oh to have the energy of a collie dog, as long as the neurosis didn't come with it of course! Corydalis (C.solida) in this garden seem to carry on regardless of anything that might happen to it, now thats what I call a good plant ;)

I love Dog Tooth Violets, so do the snails which is a pity. I have White Beauty and Pagoda hiding somewhere but the flowers get eaten almost as soon as they appear :(. I think I'll bring in the chicken defense troops and herd them onto the front garden for a slug/snail sneak attack!

The Sweet Violets are on a world domination mission starting with the back garden, so I planted some out the front to teach them a lesson (holding hostage plants in heavy clay chains!) I think my over used phrase of the past few years is 'There are worse weeds to have in the garden' LOL.

Louisa, I'll think on it. Too poop to pop tonight!

Baa, you should see some of the beauties that hide im woods. I'll try to come up with a list tomorrow...or the next day...

Baa - formal garden - me!!!! lol!!!! I don't think so!! All those beauties you have in your garden might do well in the English climate and clay soil, but unless I grew the same in the shade and amended the soil, they just wouldn't survive the heat here!! I love lamium!! As for Corydalis - no, no, no!!!! I refuse to have it!! Unless, it was the blue one of course!! But the yello.....sheesh....does that ever pop up everywhere!!!! I think it would happily make a place in the bathroom if it ever managed to get in there!! I have noticed the violas taking over lawns in this neck of the wood. I like them!! Would prefer them to the bare patches on the lawn!! So OK Kathleen, any ideas yet??

See, I told you I was no help LOL

Baa - I could always use your help in whatever shape or form....lol!!

You're too kind!

Pity you don't have anything like our postcode plant database over there, I found it invaluable.

Louisa - you'll have to forgive me, I'm just limping along this week. This is what resides in my woods:
approximatley 6 different varieties of violet in white, blue and yellow - I'll have to hunt down my list
round lobed hepatica in blue
Jack in pulpits
partridge berry, a creeper
at least 3 varieties of trillium
Dutchman's britches, a dicentra
Indian Cucumger Root
smooth Solomon's seal
spring beauties, a Claytonia
mayapple
white wood asters
closed Gentian
blue cohosh
Doll's eyes, Actaea
Nodding ladies tresses,
foam flower, tiarella
dwarf ginseng
meadowsweet - spirea
virgin's bower - clematis
Canada Mayflower
and a lot of other stuff. All of this, as well as bloodroot which grows along the edges of a nearby wood and aquilegia canadense, blue eyed grass, wild asters, jacob's ladder, pasque flower, monkey flower, turtle head, vervain in wet spots - many of these I could help you find.
The thing is to work from the open into the woods - I wish we were closer to our woods, but I'm working and planting one. My poor wild flowers live under a mock orange and a snowball bush too near to a black walnut. sigh

Oh my Kathleen - you sure have been blessed!! I am trying so hard to stop my hubbie from encroaching too far into the woods just yet!! He has cleared some space for the rhodos and even then I hated to see the ground disturbed, at least, not until this Spring so I could make more evaluations and observations. I know you have a lot on and are probably tired, so I can't thank you enough for taking the time to list all your beauties. What wonderful pleasures await you as you walk through your woods - it sounds so enchanting!! Well this year will tell it all, unless there are biennials hiding in there somewhere and wouldn't it be awful if we dug them up by mistake!!

Oh, if only it were still as beautiful as it was. The loggers that the former owners turned loose in it were, to put it mildly, woods butchers. They took everything they could and damaged much of the rest. I'm sure I lost a lot, but it is slowly returning. We have always tried to keep it in a state of wildness, but with judicious culling and for a long time, it was all the garden I could really think of as my own - I knew every plant on a down on my belly to check it out basis! But, of course, it was money in their pockets, so there it went. This year, I hope to get out there more than the last few, but it has to be early before the brambles overtake everything. One good thing about the snow is that it really knocks them down.

We have brambles too and wild honeysuckle - I wonder what's growing under them!! Hate to cut it all back, it provides such a wonderful haven for the wildlife!! I guess, patience is what is required here - on everyone's patch :-)

Ughhhhh Brambles! The garden was covered in them, and still would be if we didn't keep on top of it.

I went and pulled up the grass round the Celandines today and found several new seedlings with different leaf formations. And... (poor grammar, I know) a wallflower is just about to bloom. Great Stuff!

I think it is now acceptable to use And to start a sentence - good or bad, I do it all the time!! And I bet you were delighted to find your new treasures!! :-)

Louisa, I was thinking, a good book for you to have would be the Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Wildflowers, Eastern Edition. The one that I have is from 1979, and includes a lot of introduced plants as well as native. I'm sure they've updated it not too long ago. The field guides have wonderful pictures and detailed descriptions of the plant and its habitat. I also have the eastern editions for birds, mamals, and reptiles - I'm a real sucker for a good reference book!

Kathleen I always intend to buy the Audubon books - they really are a wonderful reference to hand and no doubt I shall treat myself one day. Thanks for the prod!!