A morning of work 17 May 2008

Thursday morning (the 15th) I did a bunch of work in the back garden. Amongst other things, I planted a bunch of stuff. I wanted to focus on planted the smallest things and the large currently blooming things first, so that’s what I planted (minus a few of the large plants, as I ran out of time and energy). Below are some pictures I took at the time.

This is one of the back beds after my Thursday plantings in it. In this one, I added the saxifrages (2), the corydalis, a lungwort, one of the woodland phloxes, and two downy yellow violets (the regular species and the smooth variant).

This bed already contained a lot of colchicums (the big leaves at the bottom; while they bloom in autumn, almost all garden-grown species produce their leaves in spring and then go dormant again in early summer), a fern-leaved bleeding heart (Dicentra eximia), a monkshood (the squirrels turn out not to have killed it after all!), an aster, goldenrod ‘Fireworks’ (which likes richer soil than many goldenrods, so is planted in the back unlike the others I have), comfrey, and a patch of Solomon’s seal. My first experience with the native Solomon’s seal was when some birds seeded it under a bramble of raspberries at an old garden (it produces berries in summertime). Since then I’ve figured that if it can successfully compete with raspberry roots, it can successfully compete with just about anything’s roots. So far I’ve been correct. (Click to make this photo larger, as with all photos.)

Here is a photo of the lungwort I planted in the above bed.

It didn’t seem to be doing the greatest there when I checked on it today, so I moved it a little up the slope.

Here is part of the other main back bed (the one I did the most work on last year).

In this one, on Thursday I planted the larger-potted, taller nemesias (3), the twelve remaining larkspur ‘Giant Imperial’ seedlings, primrose ‘Blue Sapphire’, and chervil. I also moved the nemesia ‘Sundrops’ that was doing the worst to a new spot (I think it may have been too late; it hasn’t improved yet - but we’ll see).

Here it is from a different angle.

The brightest plants below are the nemesias (both the older, taller kind and the newer strain ‘Sundrops’).

I got the aforementioned primrose ‘Blue Sapphire’, to plant with primrose ‘Harbinger’ that I planted last year. Here are the two together.

I’ve been working on a post about herbs (it’s not done yet). I bought some herbs this week and here is the chervil I mentioned planting in the back garden; it is near the bronze fennel.

Chervil (Anthriscus cerefolium) is one herb that is for some reason not very well known here in the States. It’s also an herb that prefers quite different growing conditions from many other culinary herbs - a richer, moister soil and a shadier (partial shade is generally best), cooler location help it produce lush growth and keep from going to seed longer. In a hot, sunny site, it will quickly go to seed. It’s best added to dishes shortly before finishing cooking. This is the best page I found of more information on chervil in a fairly short search. In the past I’ve grown chervil from seed, but I find that the competition of tree roots tends to make fewer non-weed seedlings germinate in the back yard than what I am generally used to.

Yes, that’s a dandelion beside the chervil. Perhaps I am one of the few who doesn’t mind dandelions, but that’s all right with me. Their blooms are cheerful and provide nectar, their seeds provide food for birds, their young greens are pretty good to eat, and their roots are medicinal.

Here are some more pictures from the back on Thursday -

The variegated honesty has kept on blooming away

One of the alpine strawberries (Fragaria vesca) is already blooming. Here it is with one of the nemesia ‘Sundrops’.

Leopard’s bane’s (Doronicom orientale) lone bloom with another nemesia ‘Sundrops’

It looks little right now, but it will form a clump over time. In a few years it should be a pretty good size (compared to its current size) and have a bunch of blooms all gracing it at once.

The beautiful native sedum, Sedum ternatum, is blooming away while still waiting to be planted. (The larger version of this shot is really pretty if you like sedums.)

Brunnera ‘Hadspen Cream’ (my favorite brunnera cultivar), blooming its clear blue blooms while waiting to be planted.

Most of the trees in back are maples, but one is an oak (my favorite). It leafed out in the past week.

I’ve read that you’re supposed to plant beans when oaks leaf out, but that is definitely not true this year. The soil is still too cold and they would likely rot before germination could occur.

Here are some of the aforementioned maples.

This is my newer composter that I switched to this spring.

It is the tumbler kind. (The old one was the hand-aerated kind.) Some tumbler kinds are fully enclosed and some are not quite enclosed; this is the latter kind. That kind creates compost tea. The black tray under the composter is to collect it. The white shining thing at the bottom of the photo is a bucket to keep bits of wood and sawdust and such in, as this composter also needs something good at absorbing moisture added to the compost to make it work.

I did a ton more work in the back garden today, but that’ll have to wait for a separate post.