June Gardening Chores

My herbs, tomatoes, peppers and yes, a banana plant on my back deck garden.

June Gardening Chores

Behind in gardening chores? So am I. It’s been such a wet spring, it’s hard to get anything in the ground, let alone much mowed. The plants sure have taken advantage of all of the moisture. And just think, June is traditionally our wettest month of the year.

Since our spring season is getting extended with our rapidly changing climate, there is still time to get some late spring chores done:

1.     Japanese beetles show up this month so hand pick and drop in a bucket of water with soap. Also treat your lawn with nematodes and milky spores, both will gradually help eliminate grubs.

2.     Trim lilacs now so growth the rest of this year will provide blooms next year.

3.     Get your flower pots planted. Water the soil first, let drain, then add your flowers for better adjustment.

4.     When planting vegetables, plant a new supply every 2 weeks to give yourself a new crop through the season.

5.     Keep your asparagus bed weeded and let the green top ferns grow until they go brown, do not cut.

6.     As rain stops, make sure to water deeply in the root zone. Don’t sprinkle on leaves, that’s a waste of water and does nothing for your plants.

7.     Pinch mums weekly through July 4th to keep them bushy and delay bloom until fall.

8.     Leave spring bulb greenery to die off naturally. I gently remove the yellow leaves if they bug me and plant summer perennials to cover them in the meantime.

9.     Plant annual flower seeds, such as zinnias, sunflowers, forget-me-nots, cosmos, marigolds and herbs.

10.  Mulch your vegetables, even those growing in pots. Shredded leaves, shredded paper and torn cardboard all work under dried grass and leaves.

This dill and purslane volunteered from last year. Gardening doesn't get much easier than that!

11.  When mulching, leave 2-4 inches clear from the plant stem and the mulch ring no larger than 5 inches deep. More than that and you are smothering the plant itself.

12.  Check for dead limbs and remove before they fall on someone.

13.  When planting wildflowers, mark the beds where seeds have been added. Some wildflowers may take 2 years to germinate.

14.  Add bird baths for interest and a bird water source. Birds will help keep unwanted insects down.

15.  Feed roses and other plants compost to give them a good source of energy.

16.  For those of you with grass, don’t cut more than 1/3 of the grass down at one time.

17.  When making new flower beds, use cardboard boxes to kill off unwanted plants. Add shredded leaves, grass clippings, mulch to get the bed ready for fall planting.

18.  Take photos of your garden. Use the same photo spots you used in spring so you can see the changes from one season to the next.

19.  When adding perennials, focus on native plants. Once established, they will require less water and care than non-natives and Missouri has a lovely array of native plants to choose from.

20. Make sure to have a seating area in a cool garden spot so you can sit down and enjoy all of the work you have invested in your garden.

Charlotte

Hummer Time

This is one of my inside cats supervising the hummingbird feeder out of the window to my deck. This cat in particular takes her supervisory duties very seriously and lets me know whenever there is a hummingbird at the feeder.

Hummer Time

With all of the other spring signs several weeks early this year, I decided to put out my hummingbird feeders a few weeks early and turns out, I was just in time.

Hummingbirds winter over in Central and South America, migrating back north for our spring and summer while the southern hemisphere goes into its winter season. As they migrate north, the male hummingbirds are the first to show up at backyard feeders. They are the scouts, checking out food and nesting areas for the incoming females.

This year, I had one ruby-throated hummingbird at the feeder off my deck the first day I put out the feeder.

How Hummingbirds Migrate

The story of how hummingbirds make this trip is amazing. During migration, a hummingbird's heart beats up to 1,260 times a minute, and its wings flap 15 to 80 times a second.

They fly alone, often on the same path they have flown earlier in their life, and they fly low, just above tree tops or water. Flying low allows the birds to see, and stop at, food supplies along the way. They are also experts at using tail winds to help reach their destination faster. Research indicates a hummingbird can travel as much as 23 miles in one day.

A good hummingbird feeder has feeding slots that are flush with the surface. That way the feeder can easily be cleaned with an old toothbrush and hot water. Do not use detergent when cleaning a hummingbird feeder, a little bleach in water will remove any mold growing inside the container. (Photos by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

Hummingbird Homemade Sugar Syrup

You can help feed hummingbirds with a simple solution of sugar water. I make my sugar syrup one part sugar, 4 parts water. Mix the sugar in hot water out of the tap until the sugar dissolves completely. You don’t want to boil the water unless you boil, then let it cool off because boiled water can be too hot.

Once cooled, I store the sugar water in the refrigerator and only fill the hummingbird feeders halfway so the sugar water doesn’t spoil. Then change the sugar water every week or so; more often in warmer weather.

When cleaning out the hummingbird feeders, don’t use soap or any other cleaning agent or you may find the hummingbirds won’t use the hummingbird feeder.

To keep mine clean, I rinse out with hot water and a give it a good scrubbing, then add a little dab of bleach in the water to remove any leftover mold and rinse well.

There was a nursery rhyme where I grew up in Brazil about hummingbirds getting rides on the backs of geese. I was at a conference of biologists many years ago listening to one present his theory of how those tiny birds make the long trek across the Gulf of Mexico. After basically saying they couldn’t prove beyond a shadow of a doubt how hummingbirds fly across that long expanse of water without food, I mentioned the nursery rhyme and asked if there was any possibility that those two species worked together.

The scientist said no, they knew the hummingbirds made it across the Gulf of Mexico because they found their little exhausted bodies along the shoreline.

The voice of an old gruffy, well-respected biologist came from the back. “That’s where the geese dump them.”

Charlotte

Finding First Strawberries

Can you see the first strawberries? I have strawberry plants as border plants at Bluebird Gardens.

Finding First Strawberries

For many years I have used strawberry plants as border plants.

It started when I found a patch of wild strawberries and didn't want to mow them over. Once transplanted into my garden, I kept them as border plants so I could easily find them.

When my brother sent me strawberry plants for a birthday, I also planted those as border plants. There is something enticing about planting something edible along flower bed borders, the anticipation of finding something delicious along my garden walks still thrills me every time I think about the possibilities.

As strawberry season approaches, I start looking through my flower borders for the first strawberries of the season. Easier said than done because my resident turtle population also has their eyes on those berries. One day they are there, the next completely gone so I try not to get my hopes up about finding a delicious treat.

For several years, I even had strawberries planted in a raised bed thinking that would discourage slow-moving visitors. Instead, I found a turtle pulling itself up over the raised bed border to get to the ripening strawberries!

These strawberry plants are day neutral so they should fruit several times this year.

Not sure the front strawberries will make it but that one in the back...

Strawberries require rich soil so I add compost every fall around the plants so they have enough time to absorb the nutrients before fruiting. I'm sure the turtles appreciate the extra effort!

Charlotte

Blackberry Winter

Blackberries in bloom at Bluebird Gardens, these are growing over one of my compost areas.

Blackberry Winter

Blackberries have been a favorite addition to my garden. Although wild blackberries grow abundantly through mid-Missouri, these are thornless ones so I have them growing where I can easily access them once the fruit is ripe enough.

After a very mild winter and earlier than usual spring - I had tulips blooming mid-February - these blackberry vines started blooming about a month earlier than in the past. The sign of the flowers is also a trigger for beekeepers to track the nectar and pollen honeybees are bringing in. And in the Missouri Ozarks, they are also a warning that we may still have one last cold spell before warm weather settles in.

It's called a Blackberry Winter, and we are currently enjoying a few days of this last nippy hurrah before summer settles in for good. During this cold snap, temperatures in the evenings hover around the mid 40s while daytime temperatures are sweater-cool mornings.

An office colleague introduced me to the term many years ago, when she explained we couldn't go on our regular morning break walk because it was too cold. She also referred to a cold snap in April as a "dogwood winter," the cold snaps coordinating with the blooming trees.

As our climate continues to rapidly change, I wonder if these cold snaps will disappear. Weather in the midwest is forecast to have milder winters with longer spring and fall seasons.

Blackberry promises, blackberry fruit still green but ripening in the sun.

It's a nice respite from spending the days in the garden pulling weeds and hauling mulch. And then there are the ripe blackberries to look forward to picking!

Charlotte

Tip Toe Through The Tulips

My first tulips in a couple of decades are blooming, and I can't get enough of seeing them!

Tip Toe Through The Tulips

For years I would pass by those bags of tulip bulbs and remind myself there was no point in feeding the beautiful flowers to my resident deer. This past fall, I splurged on a couple of bags of mixed color tulips after the flower beds attached to my driveway retaining wall were finished. I make bulb gardens out of tulips bulbs most years but its not the same as having the bulbs blooming in the garden for weeks in spring.

Designed to be practical as well as beautiful, the driveway retaining wall includes three levels of flower beds, each adding greenery as well as stability to the wall holding up the curved road into my property.

We actually followed the design of the old railroad tie retaining wall, adding a flower bed at the bottom where the tulips are now blooming.

 My builder was proud of his work until he showed photos to a couple of people who wondered why the walls are so short.

Why would you want taller walls, I said, this way we can easily see the flowers in bloom. If the wall was taller, you couldn't see much blooming and it would all feel hemmed in. Who wants to look at tulips half way up?

Most people are used to taller walls, he said, and they don't get the flat stones at the top.

One view of the tulips blooming in the flower bed that is part of my driveway retaining wall.

I like the flat stones. I can sit on the edge of the flower beds and enjoy the flowers, then I can also easily reach over and do some trimming, or add mulch. Or better yet, easily plant something. When I'm through, I can cut through the flower bed by walking on the flat stones from one side to the other. I can pretend, I said, that I was tip toeing through the tulips.

The view from the other side of the driveway retaining wall, tulips are pretty from both ends.

He just shook his head and smiled. My builder knows there is no such thing in my world as having too many flower beds.

And if that doesn't satisfy the people looking at the photos and wondering why someone wants flat stone walls, I said with a twinkle in my eye, just tell them your client is a goat. 

Charlotte

Flower Flies

A flower fly, also called hover fly,  on a dandelion at Bluebird Gardens.

Flower Flies

At first, I mistook this little insect for a bee, a common problem for hover flies. Hover flies are true flies but they look like small bees and wasps. They are the helicopters of the insect world, often seen hovering in the air, darting a short distance, and then hovering again.

These beneficial insects are valuable tools in the fight against aphids, thrips, scale insects and caterpillars.

Hover flies (Allograpta oblique) are also called flower flies and drone flies.  The adults feed on nectar as they pollinate flowers. The female lays her tiny, creamy white eggs near aphid colonies, and the eggs hatch in two or three days. The beneficial hover fly larvae begin feeding on the aphids as they hatch. After spending several days eating aphids, the hover fly larvae attach themselves to a stem and build a cocoon. They spend 10 days or so inside the cocoon during warm weather, and longer when the weather is cool. Adult hover flies emerge from the cocoons to begin the cycle again.

Flower flies are nearly as effective as ladybugs and lacewings at controlling aphids. A well-established population of larvae can control 70 to 80 percent of an aphid infestation. Although they are most efficient at controlling aphids, they also help control other soft-bodied insects.

The bright bands of color on a flower fly’s abdomen probably help to defend the insect from predators. The bright color makes them look a lot like wasps so that predators, such as birds, might think they can sting.

You can tell the difference between flower flies and wasps by their heads, which look like typical fly heads. Another identifying factor is that flies have two wings, while wasps have four.

Flower flies aren’t available for purchase, but you can plant flowers and herbs to attract them. Plants that attract flower flies include fragrant herbs such as Oregano, Garlic chives, Sweet alyssum, Buckwheat and Bachelor buttons. 

And dandelions.

Charlotte

Fun with Garden Gloves with Claws

Have you seen these gardening gloves with claws on the fingertips?

Fun with Garden Gloves with Claws

Ok, so I don't always use gardening gloves when I should. Sometimes when I'm inspired, it's just too much trouble to stop and put them on, as I was finding a new spot for my mother's lion. I needed to make a little spot in the ground for the red brick to sit and, well - there goes my manicure.

Too easy to do, too mundane of a garden story. Enter these new garden gloves with claws, designed to make digging easier and save your hands.

I gave a friend a set and within hours he said he had to hide them because one of his friends wanted to "borrow" them. Like a good book, one should never loan a good pair of gardening gloves with any expectation to see them again.

Garden gloves with claws worked quite well in loose soil and compost.

After trying the gloves in various areas of my garden, I took them off long enough to finish cleaning my hands and painting my nails.

Then whimsical inspiration hit me and I painted another set of nails.

Adding nail polish to garden gloves with claws gives the gloves a whimsical touch.

Now my garden gloves with claws are ready for garden work!

Charlotte

April Gardening Chores

Eastern redbuds welcome April with their lovely pink haze of flowers surrounding my house.

April Gardening Chores

My garden is starting to get serious about growing this month. It’s time to try to keep up:

1.    Clean out composters and add to flower beds and fruit trees. Mix with existing soil for now; you will mulch this later. Leave a good bucket of finished compost as starter for the next compost batch and start adding leaves, grass clippings if you have them, kitchen scraps and water. Don’t forget to mix.

2.    Prune lilacs immediately after they bloom. If you wait until later in the season, you will be cutting off next year’s blooms.

3.    Continue to sow lettuce, spinach and radish seeds every 10 days or so for fresh spring salads in your round foot garden. I would call it my pot garden but that leads you to believe I am growing something completely different. Call it your garden in pots, if you prefer.

4.    If you like to grow peas, this is the last month to plant sugar snap peas and snow peas, they prefer cooler weather conditions. To keep their roots happy, mulch with cardboard to keep them cool, then add a layer of wood chips.

Daffodils in bloom around the corner from the front of my house at Bluebird Gardens.

5.    As daffodils and tulips continue to grow and bloom, sprinkle compost around them to keep the bulbs well fed. As the flowers fade, remove them by snipping off the flower heads. Leave the greenery until it turns yellow; the green leaves help the bulbs store energy for next season’s blooms. Don’t mow the leaves down with the lawn mower until they turn yellow or the bulbs will gradually become smaller and you will not have any more blooms next spring.

6.    If you have a vegetable garden area, this is a good time to add cardboard to kill off any growth prior to summer planting. Don’t till it, the prevailing thought now is that tilling damages the soil ecosystem. Kill the plants you don’t want, make holes to plant the ones you do, or make trenches to plant seeds, and cover. Easy peasy. Who doesn’t like easy gardening??

7.    Start your summer plants inside in containers you can transplant outside later; tomatoes, peppers, watermelons, squash, pumpkins, cucumbers, zucchini.

8.    Don’t forget companion plants to reduce crop damage; basil is a good bug deterrent for a lot of plants.

9.    Plant for pollinators as well. I love zinnias and so do butterflies and bees. Native plants such as New England Asters, yarrow and purple coneflowers are good choices for pollinators because they have long blooming seasons. For another good annual, try sunflower seeds. Birds will love the seeds in the fall.

10.  Enjoy the beauty of Missouri’s native trees, these usually bloom this month, redbuds and dogwoods. Better yet, plant a few more native trees along with compact dwarf fruit trees. Although planting native flowers is still good for pollinators, trees provide better, and more reliable, pollen sources for bees. The smaller fruit trees are good pollen sources as well and, when pollinated by bees, will also give you easily accessible fruit to pick. That’s what I call a win-win!

Charlotte

Pansies

Purple-bordered white pansies in bloom at a local nursery center.

Pansies

It's hard to believe there is a flower I deprive myself of having but pansies come close. For some reason, I had this impression that I couldn't grow these charming spring flowers in USDA hardiness zone 5b so I tended to pass these up, even on sale.

Until several years ago, when I found a hanging basket full of pansies at the local recycling center. Thinking I could use the hanging basket, I brought the whole container home, watered the soil and left it on my deck planning to remove the spent greenery and replant. 

To my surprise, the greenery turned out to be yellow and blue pansies, quickly revived by the water.

I found a semi-shady spot for the hanging basket and enjoyed the blooming pansies through mid-summer, a good 4 months of cheerful color in a corner of my garden. I was hooked.

Large purple pansy in bloom.

When most people think of pansies, they often think of the larger, bolder varieties often the first blooming plants found at local nurseries as spring flowers. Although those are eye-catching, I tend to gravitate to the smaller, less hybridized varieties, perhaps influenced by those Victorian flower drawings in some of the flower books my grandmother sent me many decades ago.

Pansies can be grown from seed; they are also easy to transplant from starts.  A master gardener friend told me the secret to keeping pansies growing as perennials in our zone was to make sure to keep them watered and they should pull through, even winters. 

Although I have tried to do that, I have not successfully pulled pansies through but I haven't given up trying. I have a new spot off my front porch that has good shade that looks promising for pansies. Now I'm on the lookout for blue and yellow ones on sale to add to that spot and see if I can get them to stay.

Purple pansies hand-painted on the side of a ceramic tea cup.

And if that doesn't work, I can always stop by a friend's house and enjoy a cup of tea in one of her lovely hand-painted ceramic cups!

Charlotte

Round Foot Gardening

The beginning of my deck garden at Bluebird Gardens.

Round Foot Gardening

You have heard of square foot gardening, the practice of dividing up a garden plot into squares and carefully planting each square with a desired crop?

This is round foot gardening, what I used to call pot gardening but because that leads one to think of Colorado and that one is planting marijuana, let’s just be a little more square about it all. Most of my pots full of soil are at least one foot around and no one I know has a foot that looks like a circle so I think we should all be good with this new terminology.

I have been planting basic herbs and vegetables in round pots on my deck now for several years; enough years that I prefer it to trying to tend a full garden. I keep telling you, I am basically a lazy gardener. I like this option because the pots are easily accessible from my kitchen. I can also see them out my dining room windows, just in case I have forgotten a garnish or some other last minute fresh ingredient I need to add, and my squirrels look at least guilty as they sneak by stealing a cherry tomato.

Some basic gardening principles from full gardens apply here as well:

1.    Don’t plant the same crops in the same pots more than 2 years in a row so make a note and rotate. I cheat: I take photos and date them to remind myself of what I planted when and in what pot. I also use certain sticks and stakes, moving those around from year to year.

2.    Be kind to your soil. Don’t let it dry out. Keep it healthy by adding compost, mulching, keeping it watered and planted with something when you are not growing something you want to eat.

3.    If weeds grow and you haven’t planted anything else, leave the weeds. Volunteer cover crops are welcome and will keep the soil nourished in between your plantings.

4.    Frost free dates are the same. Although Mother’s Day is our traditional USDA Zone 5b date, we may be mid-April this year. If you can’t wait and get an early start, make sure you have something to protect your outside crops on those nights when temperatures dip. Other pots, plastic, even old winter coats will work to give your tender greens a little protection.

5.    Water daily. To make sure my plant roots are kept moist, I add plastic bottles with holes buried into each pot and use them to keep pots well hydrated.

6.    Add crushed soda cans, old packing peanuts, broken terra cotta pieces to pot bottoms to help lighten the weight. Keeping the bottom lose also helps water to filter through more easily.

7.    Mix vegetables with flowers to make pretty arrangements. Many herbs are edible so mix vegetables with flowers for pretty arrangements. Add violets and basil to a pot with a tomato.

Plastic bottle with holes buried in pot helps keep soil moist. Red onion is liberated from crisper.

8.    Go to your refrigerator and clean out your crisper of sprouting onions, potatoes, celery and carrots and you are well on your way.

9. Don't forget to dream about your garden, even one in small pots!

Charlotte

Spring Fever

Semi dwarf Bartlett pear tree in bloom at Bluebird Gardens, surviving the last week of cold.

"It’s spring fever. That is what the name of it is. And when you’ve got it, you want — oh, you don’t quite know what it is you do want, but it just fairly makes your heart ache, you want it so!"
~Mark Twain

Spring Fever

It's been a mild winter but just the thought that it was still winter was enough to make me want it to be spring. 

I really shouldn't complain. I could still putter outside on some winter days. My hillside gave me a clear view of the good garden bones I have to work with, a promise of new projects to tackle once the weather warmed up.

A pile of gardening catalogs and books kept me company by the fire, and a stack of projects were always only half finished.

My plants were dormant for most of the time, although the compact dwarf fruit trees started blooming a good three weeks earlier than usual.

Pink compact dwarf apricot trees are the first to bloom in early spring at Bluebird Gardens.

The compact dwarf apricot trees are usually the first to turn their beautiful dark pink, followed by the compact dwarf peaches, which pale by comparison.

Valentine's Day used to mark the first appearance of purple crocus but our rapidly changing climate is playing havoc with plant habits, too. I finally found my first yellow crocus blooming a good month later than usual.

No matter, we made it through the last week of below freezing temperatures. I dressed my fruit trees in my winter coats and fleece blankets, picked bouquets of daffodils to enjoy inside in case they were snapped by the freezing temperatures, and have a list of projects to tackle once temperatures warm up again.

It's time for new beginnings. It's time for the fever. It's now officially spring!

Charlotte

What Every Gardener Dreams of Getting

Well, at least what this gardener dreams of getting.

Because I garden on the side of a Missouri limestone hill, one of the rarest commodities I have is soil. I do my best to make it, from crushing leaves into holes to bringing in mulch until it decomposes enough to be a planting base. Those sources seem like samples of soil so little they are.

I don't always have the time to wait for nature to make some and I have soil brought in. By the truck-full. By the dump truck-full.

It's a lot of work to get it moved but what joy to have it so close!

Charlotte

Blackberry Winter

Bluebird Gardens blackberries in bloom.

We are just coming out of a blackberry winter in mid-Missouri. The expression is an Ozark term for the last cold snap of the season. According to lore, if there is thunder in February there will be a blackberry winter in May, usually past the last frost date of May 10.

When combined with a rainy spring, a blackberry winter makes it tough for plants to get a good start on the season. Bees also struggle because their source of pollen is washed way.

There are other expressions for this weather phenomena including "redbud winter" and "dogwood winter," associated with what is blooming. Of the four seasons, spring has the most storm names associated with plants growing.

Charlotte

Third of Seven Gardening Mistakes - Plants In Right Place

Wild columbine has a tendency to grow in places where it can easily be damaged.

There are a number of mistakes we as gardeners make, sometimes not knowing it's bad. Then there are those mistakes that take a little change of habit to have better results. Understanding the size of the plant when it grows to maturity is one of those.

Know Mature Plant Size

When we buy plants, they tend to be small or smallish. It's easy to think that's the final size of the plant unless one looks at the tag or, better yet, researches the plant characteristics. One of the best places to get information about Missouri plants, including wildflowers, is the online library at Missouri Botanical Garden: mobot.org.

In the meantime, when buying plants look at the enclosed tag and place the plant in your garden where the size will fit.

Think Through Best Place

Now I have a tendency of planting vertically. By that I mean I plan plants on top of bulbs so that once the bulbs die off, the perennial takes over for the rest of the season. Sometimes, however, the plants are too big for the space so I have to make a note and carefully dig it up to place it in a better location. Every time a plant is moved, the trauma can damage it so try to minimize any unnecessary garden travel.

A little advanced planning, and reading, will help you settle the right plant in the correct space.

Four more gardening mistakes to cover, can you guess what they are?

Charlotte

Keeping Cut Lilacs Fresh

Old-fashioned lilacs are a spring favorite but they don't always cooperate in a vase.

Whether they are hybrids or the old-fashioned variety, lilacs grow on thick, sturdy stems that need a little help. Some recommend hammering the cut end so water can more easily keep the stems hydrated. I have tried but I managed to smash my fingers more than the stems.

As an alternative, I cut the end off with scissors every couple of days. Sometimes I cut straight across, other times I have angled the cut. Not sure it made much of a difference in term of direction but cutting the stems did rehydrate lilac stems I would have otherwise composted.

Once refreshed, it will take a short time for the lilacs to plump right back up.

A sprig of old-fashioned lilacs keep a sprig of geraniums company on my den's coffee table.

So pretty!

Charlotte

Busy Gardener

My beekeeping friend David hand-carried this lovely porcelain cup for me from a visit to England.

It's been an unexpectedly busy spring 2016. After retiring from my full time job December 31, 2015, I had this, now apparently quite silly idea that I would be living the leisurely life. 

One of my goals over my work years was to sleep in, something I have yet to do. Not that I am complaining, if the day is sunny and warm and I don't have some meeting to attend or deadline to meet, I am out in my garden. 

Well, first I am in a neighbor's garden. I have permission from the new property owner. Their plan is to bring in a bull dozer and turn over the soil so grass can be planted. In the meantime, I am digging up basically a 50-year plus garden, trying to save everything I can identify, and even some things I can't.

It would probably have worked better if they had just cleared up the property and left the basically flower garden intact with only paths to mow but then the site would have looked like my house. I like not having to mow, it leaves me more time to play with my bees and grow things I can eat. 

Half of the dug up plants are now at my house; the other half are at another nearby beekeeping friend's house. Knowing how much Tom likes to plant, I invited him to help me dig and split the plants with him. We don't worry too much about who has what plant because we know where each other lives. It's enough for now that we saved most of the plants.

Thanks goodness for the excuse to stop long enough to break-in my new teacup. Now the planting starts, again.

What to plant, what to plant....

Charlotte

The Glory of Gardening

One of my favorite spring flowers, bleeding heart, greets visitors next to my front door.

"The glory of gardening: hands in the dirt, head in the sun, heart with nature. To nurture a garden is to feed not just the body, but the soul."

— Alfred Austin

I was thinking about how gardening has shaped my life over the years. I chose not to live in places where I couldn't have clean water, clean air and a place to garden. Not that pick-axing the side of a MIssouri limestone hill is easy but, after more than 30 years, we have a rhythm of sorts: I build a hole, add amended soil and add a plant. Then we both wait to see what happens.

Sometimes the plant adopts well, other times it can literally take years for the roots to have enough energy to see light.

Doesn't matter if the plant is native or not, it's all about giving the plant time to adapt to its growing conditions. How many times do we see people trying to survive in the wrong career, wrong relationship, wrong place?

I am blessed I have the right place, for me.

Charlotte

How to Add Daffodils to Spring Bouquets

I added blue anemone, purple lilacs and a tulip after daffodils sat in water for a couple of days.

It is so tempting to want to grab a handful of spring flowers and plop them into a flower vase to enjoy inside. You can do so but you need to let the daffodils sit in water for at least a day first to remove toxins that kill other flowers.

Once daffodils have been cleansed, you can easily add tulips and other spring flowers.

If you don't have time to let the daffodils remove the toxins, put only daffodils in the bouquet or the toxins will wilt the other flowers.

It doesn't take long to do and is well worth the extra effort.

Charlotte

Training Eastern Redbud Trees

A friend recently said she didn't like Eastern redbuds because they tend to not grow straight. I couldn't help but say it helps if you're not regularly mowing them over but she does have a point; these lovely native Missouri trees do have a tendency to bow.

Tie Eastern redbud Trees to Help Them Grow Straight

Over the years, I have easily reduced that tendency by tying the young Eastern redbuds to encourage them to grow straight. Nothing difficult, I use twine and make sure the temporary fix is easily seen by anyone who may walk by, especially me, so I don't end up tripping myself.

I tie young Eastern redbuds to nearby older trees to help them grow straight.

When I see the twine start to sag or break, it's time to check the tree to see if it can stand up on its own.

It can take 1-2 growing seasons to get the straight line you want but it is worth it to keep these lovely native Missouri trees in your landscape.

Eastern redbuds add a lovely canopy of pink to my Missouri spring garden.

Not all trees should be ramrod straight, I like the flowing curves Eastern redbuds create throughout my hillside garden.

Since deer have discouraged me from planting tulips, I like having Eastern redbud trees to give my garden a splash of pastel spring pink!

Charlotte

The Pink in a Missouri Spring

Redbuds in full bloom March 30, 2016 in bluebird gardens, my hillside Missouri garden and apiary.

Missouri has a number of spring flowering trees and one of my favorites is the Eastern redbud. A smaller tree that blooms between native Serviceberry and elegant Dogwoods, redbuds welcome spring with a burst of pink and purples hues against grey stems.

One of my blooming redbuds early morning starting to show heart-shaped leaves.

Eastern Redbud Trees Have a Variety of Uses

Once blooms end, tiny heart-shaped leaves start to appear, covering the trees in green for the rest of the growing season and giving light shade to any garden. They are a good understory tree.

Birds like the tiny seeds; white-tailed deer like the leaves.

Eastern redbud is also a nectar source for my bees and a great salad garnish, the tiny pink flowers are edible.

The tiny flowers of Eastern redbud are edible and a nice pop of color in a salad.

Redbuds Have Been A Favorite Landscaping Tree

Some people go to great lengths to add redbuds to their landscape, Eastern redbud has been used an an attractive ornamental since 1641, according to Don Kurz, who wrote Shrubs and Woody Vines of Missouri.

I was lucky enough to have them as ample volunteers so all I had to do was trim them into shape. I focused on letting them surround my house and property, forming a pink canopy over my daffodils. I also tied a few to nearby trees to make sure they grew straight but in terms of work, these trees have been a lovely gift.

Charlotte