It was a busy garden weekend here at Black Dog Farm. We started with a trip to Molbaks to take advantage of their 30% off bare-root and b&b trees and shrubs.
We started with something to go in front of the three cedars. The early white blooms of this magnolia shrub will lighten up the dark corner.
balled and burlapped magnolia ready to go in
Digging the hole for the magnolia was little nerve wracking. There are irrigation pipes everywhere. This one isn’t actually split – though all that water running into the hole made us nervous for a couple of minutes.
it's not what it looks like
We added two other shrubs to the front bed. Spireas have nice little white flowers early in the spring and the bright green foliage will make a nice backdrop for more colorful flowers in the summer.
bare root spirea
spireas in front of the oak-leaved ashes
It was hard sticking to the bare-root section at the nursery. I did pretty well, but I just had to have these lenten rose for the library window.
nice lenten rose
lenten roses blooming and iris starting grown
The last plant we bought (and we had to go back for it with the trailer) was replacement for the Korean Dogwood that froze out 2 years ago. Redbuds are a lot hardier. Jim liked the shape of this contorted weeper.
weeping redbud for the end of the rock wall
fat red buds!
We’re still playing catch up with rehabilitating the trees that were improperly planted 6 years ago. So far we’ve had two die. This cedar is doing okay but look at those roots, aren’t roots supposed to grown down?
roots are supposed to grown down not out
The Black Dog Ivan. What can I say…
ivan was supervising
Things are starting to get going. This fat old peony is sending up it’s shoots. They’re so red! They’re also brittle.
fat roots, little shoots
Last October I fell for one of those mixed bags of spring bulbs. In this case reticulated iris and some unnamed species tulip. There were 25 or 30 bulbs (I think) I’ve seen three irises and 2 tulips. Bloody deer. Chewed them all off. I’ve never had much faith in deer repellents but I’m desperate enough to start throwing away money ;-)
a bit faded now
purple!
I also did some early trimming in the herb garden. The rosemary may have survived the winter. I can’t tell yet. One of the things I cleaned out was the washtub that holds the clothes line post and the mint. Hundreds of tiny mint plants.
tiny mint plants
Also coming up are the lilies. Time to put out slug bait.
starting to appear - lilies
amazing that this will be 4 feet tall by august.
I’m hoping for another dry weekend, there’s a lot of planting to do!
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