The Perfect Garden Gift

My new gardening cart has an adjustable handle and moves on its axel like a dump truck.

My original idea was to find a used little red wagon at a yard sale. I didn't want another wheel barrow. I have two I can barely keep upright when moving along the slope of my hillside garden.

Once I started digging up plants at a neighbor's garden, I knew I had to get serious about getting a cart. I would need the help to get the plants I was digging up to their new flower beds.

Enter my beekeeping friend David, who loves to shop. He was headed to Springfield, Mo. so would he mind looking around for a good garden cart. Two hours later, he texted me he had found the one in the photo with an adjustable handle and big tires. It barely fit in his car.

Once home, I was enchanted. It was easy to move and at the right height. 

"Did you see where it moves like a dump truck," David told me as he gave me the manual.

No, I said, but I can't wait to try it. Of all of the garden gifts I could have given myself, this was even better than I had planned.

Happiness, to a gardener, is definitely a new garden cart!

Charlotte

Dug Up Daffodils Still Bloom

One of the new daffodil additions to my spring garden dug up from another garden site.

Of all of my spring garden flowers, daffodils are definitely a favorite. And not by design. 

Over the years, I have been lucky enough to be given permission to dig up old gardens and bring those plants to my one acre hillside. I have a range of plants that grow in the different seasons but I surmise I have the most daffodil varieties.

I started with the small, old-fashioned bulbs that represent spring to me. They soon get over-shadowed by the larger, hybrid varieties but no fancy bulb can take away their special place as the harbingers of spring.

After some experience digging up daffodil bulbs, I started to bring home bulbs I couldn't identify until they bloomed. I kept the bulb clumps together - most of the time- so they could be replanted.

My latest daffodil haul without blooms has decided to surprise me. I picked one of the buds and placed it in water with my other cut daffodils. It is a variety I don't have, a long, orange nosed-daffodil with a white ruffle.

Can't wait to see what other colors and varieties of daffodils I may soon have blooming. Isn't spring grand?

Charlotte

Digging Up Daffodils

Some of the daffodils dug up from a neighbor's house. My friend Tom has the other half.

Gardening friends have told me over the years it's not possible to dig up daffodils to replant. I enthusiastically beg to differ. With the help of a number of pairs of good gardening gloves, I have done so several times in my gardening lifetime, leaving my one-acre hill side garden a spring "Daffodil-land" according to one of my neighbors.

Best Time to Dig Up Daffodils

Although I prefer to dig up daffodil bulbs after they have bloomed, I won't pass up a batch if they still have flowers. It helps to know what the bulbs are as I re-plant them.

How to Keep Bulb Varieties Together

When no flowers are in bloom, I wrap twine or a vine around the bundle of bulbs so at least I know that grouping is the same variety.

Bulb bundles with loose bulbs go into plastic bags so I can keep the whole grouping together. Nice way to recycle those bags, too.

Transplant Whole Soil Clump

If the soil is soft enough, I dig up the whole clump to separate later. Some of those bulbs still in a soil clump will continue to bloom once moved, especially if they are planted right before a slow spring rain.

It may take one season for the bulbs to settle before they bloom again but they are well worth the wait.

Charlotte

The Beginning of a Missouri Spring

Spring 2016 started with a 1" dusting of snow on Bluebird Gardens.

There is a popular saying in Missouri. If you don't like the weather, wait, it is bound to change. The prediction was most appropriate the first day of spring 2016, which kicked off the new season with large snowflakes covering my one-acre hillside garden.

The snow was lovely blanketing my daffodils and flowering compact dwarf fruit trees. My compact dwarf apricot trees at the entrance to my herb garden were in full pink bloom, a startling contrast against the large white flakes.

I turned away from my windows long enough to make my breakfast of oatmeal and tea. By the time I settled back into my window seat, the snow was gone. For a second, I honestly thought I had dreamt it.

Charlotte

Fashionably Fending Off a Spring Freeze

My compact fruit trees covered with bags, blankets and towels against a hard freeze.

The weather forecaster March 24, 2016 was emphatic. As we were enjoying the early warm, sun-blessed spring days of 2016, he predicted there was going to be a hard freeze. Flowering trees were bound to be damaged, he warned, unless "precautions were taken."

Most freeze-managing advice is for commercial farmers; run sprinklers all night to keep the frost at bay seems to be the most popular solution. As a home gardener on the side of a Missouri limestone hill, with fruit trees scattered throughout my one acre, spraying is not a viable option.

Instead, I started by digging out old empty corn sacks and tied them over my flowering compact dwarf fruit trees. When I ran out of those, I plundered my collection of lightweight beach towels and blankets.

A beach towel keeps a flowering fruit tree covered against a spring frost.

Towels are tricky to use because they can be heavy when draped over small trees. I tried to match the towel cover over branches that could handle the weight in a wind.

When I ran out of towels, I went through my closet and pulled out my spring jackets.

I used some of my lightweight jackets to cover flowering fruit trees to protect them from frost.

Frost notwithstanding, I do think I have the best-dressed fruit trees in the neighborhood!

Charlotte

Welcome, Spring!

One of my honeybees visits a blooming dwarf apricot tree in bloom March 20, 2016.

Welcome Spring!

"I love spring anywhere, but if I could choose I would always greet it in a garden." — Ruth Stout

There really is something about spring in a garden. No two days are the same, plants seemingly transforming themselves overnight unfolding promises of delicious treats. My compact dwarf fruit trees are adding a beautiful pink tone to my garden, a prelude to the redbud pink of native Missouri trees.

Can you tell I love spring?

Charlotte

First Lettuce

There are a number of ways people mark the arrival of spring. Purple crocus; yellow daffodils in bloom; maybe a favorite tree blooming. In my world, it's lettuce.

In addition to a dedicated vegetable garden spot, I keep a series of pots on my back deck where I can easily access herbs and greens. Sometimes the potted garden grows faster. It's on the equivalent of a second deck surrounded on three sides by glass. It also faces west so the soil warms up faster than the vegetable garden.

To get an early start on vegetables and herbs, I usually have a pot share lettuce seeds on one side and an herb on the other. I use shards from broken pots to set up growing guides. This year, lettuce is sharing space with sweet basil.

When I harvest my first greens for a salad marks the official beginning of spring for me.

It's a healthy, delicious and easy way to start!

Charlotte

Hoppy Easter

One of my professional colleagues lives close to our office. Sometimes on my daily walks, I cruise by her garden to see what she has growing.

We had a bad winter 2014-2015. Besides record cold weather, spring was late arriving, which gave us all a good dose of cabin fever and bad moods.

Not at Becky's house. This year, she added two visitors obviously celebrating the advent of spring and warm weather.

Another side view so you can better see the bunny shapes. These look easy to make from painted wood.

Anybody have an extra pair of sunglasses, or two?

Happy Easter!

Charlotte

Hello, spring!

"I love spring anywhere but if I could choose, I would always greet it in a garden."

                                       — Ruth Stout

I love the four seasons, each offering a new perspective on life if we are only smart enough to slow down enough to enjoy it.

Sometimes I think winter is the beginning of a new year, freezing temperatures and grey skies cleaning the landscape palette to make room for the anticipation, and expectation of sunny spring days.

Of all of the favorite garden flowers that mark the beginning of spring in my garden, the one I anticipate the most is the crocus.

In fall, I plant new stashes of bulbs along my garden paths dreaming of them popping up in spring with a burst of color.

The low to the ground imported bulb flowers are also honeybee favorites, a source of much-needed protein for baby bees soon hatching in nearby hives.

Charlotte

Happy spring!

"I love spring anywhere, but if I could choose I would always greet it in a garden." --Ruth Stout

What's happening in your spring garden?

Charlotte

Best Time to Trim Lilacs

There are a number of wonderful, fragrant lilacs on the market but if you don't trim them at the right time, you will loose next season's blooms. In Missouri, USDA Zone 5b or 6, old-fashioned lilacs bloom in May. The best time to trim lilacs is immediately after they've finished blooming so you're not cutting off branches that will set blooms for next year. You'll know lilacs have finished their bloom when all their florets have unfolded and the flowers are going brown. If you want to keep your old-fashioned lilacs contained, cut out all new growth sprouting around the base; remove dead branches and cut top branches about 6 inches from where you want the plants to be next year. I have old-fashioned lilacs under my bay windows. I know it's spring when I can open the windows and welcome their wonderful scent!

To Deadhead, or Not to Deadhead

If you like a neat garden and don't want more narcissus flowers including daffodils and jonquils,  then the answer is easy - off with their heads! By that I mean when a daffodil has finished blooming, it's time to remove the spent bloom so the bulb can save it's energy instead of making seeds. To deadhead daffodils, find the node at the bottom of a fading flower and either using clippers, or your fingers, pop the whole flower off. If you're uncomfortable breaking off the flower, remove the whole stem. Either way, this will re-direct the bulb's attention away from using energy to maintain flowers and seed buds and give you flowers next spring.