Nursery Overgrowth

The nursery always looks terrible and this year is no different. It is completely overgrown. I can never keep up with the weeds and rarely even try. It is a big space that is contained on all sides by bush, fench, drive and a retaining wall. If it ever gets weeded, it all has to be done by hand, without shovel.

2 reasons why are shown in the photo. The delphinium and knautia will all get moved into the garden somewhere. What you don't see in the photo is 3 more reasons at the foot of all these weeds: orange viola, forget-me-not and variegated white lamium. That particular lamium is slow spreading so I am always happy when I find a volunteer. The solid orange viola has not made an appearance in my garden for 2 years now... until this one showed up.

The first 2 years we were here, the nursery was a temporary spot for everything I brought from my city garden. Long enough for the self-seeders to take hold and the bulbs to have very tiny babies. Tulips and lily randomly show up every few years. There are early orange in the nursery now that need moving. My only 'Pheasants Eye' Narcissus are in the nursery. I lost track of them before I got them moved this year.

Usually, I pull a path through to whatever I am moving. Dig it up to move and that is about all the weeding that gets done. I keep saying one of these years I will clear it out but it seems that is one of those things I like to talk about doing but am never actually going to do.

'Tarda'

Of all the mini-botanical tulips I have grown over the years, none hold a candle to 'tarda'. They are very reliable, multiply extremely quickly and always add a spot of sunshine to my spring garden.

When I lived in the city, 'tarda' were always the first blooms in my garden every spring. Always.

Here, there are a lot of things that show up before 'tarda'. I think part of it is that the 'tarda' are under trees and not in the sun gardens while the 'chopin', forsythia and early red triumph tulips are in the sunshine all day from very early on in the season.

This year, I was excited to see that the 'thalia' daffodil were blooming at the same time as the 'tarda'. I am going to move a patch of the 'tarda' (they make very nice patches) out to the sun garden beside the 'thalia'. Of course, being in the sun might make 'tarda' bloom earlier but I am going to cross my fingers and go for it.

Phlox Paniculata

This will be the third year that Linda has sent me root divisions of her several phlox paniculata varieties. The paniculata phlox varieties are not one of my garden success stories. They seem to winter kill more often than not and they take forever to form anything that could be called a patch in my garden. The last two years, I have planted the root divisions where I would want them to permanently be situated in the garden. Last year, 'Pink Flame' and 'David' survived. With our planned move (that did not happen), the 'Pink Flame' ended up in Judys' garden. 'David' was a single stalk that was full of flowers at our sun gardens entry. This year, I have decided to change my phlox strategy. Since they remain skinny and thin for at least 2 years, I decided to plant them all together near where 'David' survived the last winter. I can protect them here, they take up very little space and grow tall so if I can keep them alive here long enough to form small patches, I will move them out to a more lasting location. I am calling it the phlox nursery and keeping my fingers crossed. Sometimes my garden can be a crap shoot... and sometimes I get lucky with that!