I have been occupied this week constructing Meadows Farms’ display garden for the Capital Home and Garden Show in Chantilly, Virginia. Apparently there is an art to building show gardens, and after many years I almost know what I’m doing. We finished building a day early, and while the other gardens are still works in…
Too many Japanese maples!
Cruising down a country road just to the south of Aurora, Oregon there are fields of blueberries to one side, and wheat to the other. A bit further down the lane are endless rows of raspberries, and fescue and rye grasses grown for lawn seed. Then, the eye is captured by a sea of red, which…
Better late than never
A few warm days in February set the heart aflutter with anticipation of spring, and a week ago I heard from a gardener in town who is celebrating the arrival of the first snowdrops and hellebores. In years past I have seen snowdrops poke their heads above an inch or two of fresh snow, but…
Twelve months of bloom
This morning I discovered some remaining yellow blooms on a Mahonia ‘Winter Sun’ (below) that receives little sun in the winter months. Only the side of the evergreen that is most shielded from sunlight was flowering, and they are a bit meager, but now I can enthusiastically proclaim that there are blooms in the garden…
A long winter
Most winters in the mid-Atlantic there will be a break with unusually warm temperatures, and after a few days there is considerable consternation amongst novice gardeners as green shoots of daffodils pop through the soil and star magnolia buds begin to swell. No harm is done, and rarely is the schedule of blooming disrupted, no…
Repairing snow damage – split branches
In the previous chapter I pruned large branches that were broken in the recent heavy, wet snow. Today will begin with repairing damage to evergreens, and then will address how to save branches that have split, but not broken beyond repair. Damage to evergreens was less extensive than in the heavy snows of February 2010,…
Repairing snow damaged trees
As heavy, wet snow accumulated on the thickly branched red maple at the edge of my neighbor’s property, the Y-shaped junction where the tree forked into two trunks was severely stressed. Finally, the weight of snow was too great and half of the snow covered maple tumbled over, its fall broken only by a large…
A dreary winter’s day
Today is cold and gray, with a drizzle of rain swirling about that threatens to freeze to make roadways perilous. Temperatures in the past week have strayed only a few degrees above freezing, and little of last week’s snowfall has melted. My garden is quite cold-natured as winter’s chill settles into the bottom land between foothills,…
A sad tale
On this morning of the third day following seven or eight inches of heavy, wet snow I have trudged through the garden to further survey damage, and the results are disheartening one moment, encouraging the next. My immediate impression on the morning after the storm was that injury would be more prevalent, and more significant…
Snow damage tips
At a glance, the heavy, wet snow from yesterday’s storm appears to have damaged trees and shrubs significantly, perhaps more so than the storms of last winter. In particular, there seems to be more damage to deciduous trees, those that drop their leaves for the winter. In my own garden I see numerous broken branches…
A low maintenance garden?
I suppose that I could learn to love planting, just planting, and not having to bother with the untidy chores that follow. No doubt there are gardeners who will say that they love pruning, transplanting, deadheading, dividing, mulching, and composting, and even some who find weeding to be therapeutic. I prefer to plant and forget, to…
Ramblin' through Dave's Garden 