![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
In the garden, again
May. 6th, 2003 10:43 amWe (that's ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
jwg and I[1], for those of you keeping score at home) spent Sunday night in Gloucester, first time this season. It's entirely possible that in the 25 years we've owned the place this is the first time we've never managed a night there in April. This has indeed been a late spring.
Still, things are moving at a pretty good clip. All the radishes, peas, and lettuce planted earlier are up; the tomatoes we transplanted last week appear to be thriving; the grass is definitely greener, and more of the hitherto-dormant perennials are showing signs of life (although it looks like we might have lost a couple of things). The forsythia behind the garage -- which has spread out into this enormous wall of gold -- is at its peak.
Most of the beds are now ready for planting. I put in a bunch of seeds: second crop of lettuce, two kinds of cosmos, nasturtiums, Persian Carpet zinnias, plus some bulbs called Babiana stricta or "baboon flower", which are something of an experiment. (The picture in the catalogue looks really pretty -- yeah, yeah, I know -- and they purport to be hardy to zone 6 "if mulched over the winter". On the other hand, Park's online ordering system warned me when I ordered them that they were "not recommended for your area".)
John, meanwhile, scored another victory in the Honeysuckle Wars, successfully uprooting several shrubs that were starting to threaten the entrance path. The great tangle of blackberry, multiflora rose, and honeysuckle adjoining the parking area is the next target -- that one's going to be tough. He also aprayed as much of the hemlocks as he could reach with Neem in the hopes of quelling the incipient outbreak of woolly adelgids, which have been killing hemlocks all over New England. We need more Neem (and some good luck, I suspect).
We (which means me, mostly) still need to figure out where to plant three other kinds of zinnias, plus the safflowers and big annual coreopsis that I appear to have bought while I wasn't paying attention.
We finally heard the spring frogs, who had so far been silent (at least during the day); I guess they've had a late spring too.
Fortunately, my back seems to be OK. Now I wish I could get rid of this laryngitis/cough thing, which has already caused me to have to postpone my Cecilia reaudition and will presumably keep me from having a voice lesson tomorrow. Not to mention what a handicap it is for me to not be able to talk.
[1] Plus (for those of you who know our people) Teddy, Woolly, Andrew, Paul, James, Kropotkin, and McAllister.
jwg and I[1], for those of you keeping score at home) spent Sunday night in Gloucester, first time this season. It's entirely possible that in the 25 years we've owned the place this is the first time we've never managed a night there in April. This has indeed been a late spring.Still, things are moving at a pretty good clip. All the radishes, peas, and lettuce planted earlier are up; the tomatoes we transplanted last week appear to be thriving; the grass is definitely greener, and more of the hitherto-dormant perennials are showing signs of life (although it looks like we might have lost a couple of things). The forsythia behind the garage -- which has spread out into this enormous wall of gold -- is at its peak.
Most of the beds are now ready for planting. I put in a bunch of seeds: second crop of lettuce, two kinds of cosmos, nasturtiums, Persian Carpet zinnias, plus some bulbs called Babiana stricta or "baboon flower", which are something of an experiment. (The picture in the catalogue looks really pretty -- yeah, yeah, I know -- and they purport to be hardy to zone 6 "if mulched over the winter". On the other hand, Park's online ordering system warned me when I ordered them that they were "not recommended for your area".)
John, meanwhile, scored another victory in the Honeysuckle Wars, successfully uprooting several shrubs that were starting to threaten the entrance path. The great tangle of blackberry, multiflora rose, and honeysuckle adjoining the parking area is the next target -- that one's going to be tough. He also aprayed as much of the hemlocks as he could reach with Neem in the hopes of quelling the incipient outbreak of woolly adelgids, which have been killing hemlocks all over New England. We need more Neem (and some good luck, I suspect).
We (which means me, mostly) still need to figure out where to plant three other kinds of zinnias, plus the safflowers and big annual coreopsis that I appear to have bought while I wasn't paying attention.
We finally heard the spring frogs, who had so far been silent (at least during the day); I guess they've had a late spring too.
Fortunately, my back seems to be OK. Now I wish I could get rid of this laryngitis/cough thing, which has already caused me to have to postpone my Cecilia reaudition and will presumably keep me from having a voice lesson tomorrow. Not to mention what a handicap it is for me to not be able to talk.
[1] Plus (for those of you who know our people) Teddy, Woolly, Andrew, Paul, James, Kropotkin, and McAllister.
