This time of year I absolutely live for the softly warm spring days that get me out in the garden. But after a few days of that I’m always ready for the rain days that pull me out of the garden and back into the greenhouse. We potted up; I went nuts spraying insectical soap on the few (very few) whiteflies and aphids (it’s better for the plants to spray soap and hort. oil when it’s cloudy) and we did a little more moving out. Our greenhouse days are numbered now and I am cherishing them - especially while it’s not too hot in there.

We’re very lucky at Blithewold to have The Julia L. Morris Horticultural Center. But before it was The Julia L. Morris Horticultural Center (named in honor of our bosslady director of horticulture, Julie) it was a falling down wreck of rusted iron, 100 year old cypress, broken glass and potty bricks and was pretty much held together with 5mil plastic stapled to the muntins. Some of you might remember the sign on the door: The Greenhouses Are NOT Open To Visitors Trespassers Will Be Composted. It was dangerous enough for the staff to be inside - a big wind was particularly scary - but the thought of visitors tripping on the rotten boardwalk or being beaned by falling glass was severely cringe inducing. Only one of the big houses was heated - with a giant noisy blower hung above the door like a booby trap - and the other house was left to freeze with only the hardiest of tender inhabitants - a couple of collection fig trees planted in the ground. The little propagation house was warmed (ever so slightly) with rickety radiators and was stuffed to the gills.

I only risked my head a couple of winters in that greenhouse before the dilapidated Lord & Burnham was restored to its present glory (thanks to grants and generous donations and a contractor named Stephen Wacha) using modern materials. We have efficient radiant heat in all the houses, a safe walkway, benches that stay standing, vents that open and close automatically and new fans that have helped regulate the temperature and keep the bug and fungal activity to a minimum. And it’s open to the public! Some of the original features remain - the south gable end is restored cypress, the iron work finials were cleaned up and put back up and the vent cranks were reinstalled as decorative features. The old greenhouse lives on in other ways too - sills and foundation blocks and iron gutters are being recycled in all sorts of different ways in the gardens and - look at this - a most handsome railing for the pumphouse that Fred, Dan and Joel put up yesterday using what looks like cypress and iron from the old palm house (dismantled long before our time).

I keep hearing stories about people who have unused greenhouses on their property and I go green(house) with envy. I know that heat and maintenance cost an arm and a leg but still what I wouldn’t give… Most gardeners I know make do with sunny windowsills, grow lamps in the cellar or a cool southside porchlet like mine here. What does your greenhouse look like?

This Sunday Julie and expert plantsman and volunteer Gil Moore will be here from 1 - 4:00 hosting an open (green)house. They’ll have answers for your Mom’s questions and there will even be a few choice houseplants and tender perennials for sale. Happy Mother’s Day!

If you learn how to read the looks of things in nature you can figure out just when it’s the right time to do just about anything in the garden. — You can be your very own farmer’s almanac! I have no good memory for this stuff - I know that when birds are on the wing, it’s time to do something… And I remembered something about oak leaves being as big as mouse ears - but Gail had to remind me that that’s the rule for when it’s safe to plant the tender annuals. We did get our lettuce in right on time today - as it happens, the lilacs have leafed out. The thing that’s confusing to me just dabbling my toes in the phenological pond is that things like oaks and maples (you can plant perennials according to this site’s list when the maples unfurl) have timing that’s all over the place - our gardens and streets are full of so many varieties now. Some of our oaks are still tightly wrapped while others’ leaves have exceeded mouse and are now fully cat. Which one do we believe? (I think the later ones or whichever ones are native to these parts.) Here at Blithewold we tend to go more by the moon when it comes to putting out the tender stuff. We’re typically safe from frost after the full moon in May - so oak leaves or no oak leaves after that is when we’ll start getting plants out of the greenhouse in earnest.

And then there’s full-on gardening by the moon: Dick and Cathy planted leeks today. According to the moon it might be just the right time - depending on whether they’re considered an above-ground or below-ground crop! (I’m easily confused.) Above-ground crops should be sown/planted during the waxing moon and below-ground with the wane.

Or you can do things according to your own busy schedule and hope for the best! We most often get things done exactly when we have a moment to do them. So I’ve decided to make up some of my own rules:

When the Maackia amurensis leaves are still silvery jewels, the Golden Larch is leafing out and the crabapples are starting to bloom, it’s definitely time to pot up dahlia tubers - which, speaking of mice, look an awful lot like a box full of them. — We pot up the dahlias that are earmarked for the North Garden so that when we plant them, they’re already up - we’re much less likely to trample them that way when we’re working in there.

Do you follow any of nature’s rules? Which ones? And better yet, do you make up any of your own?

Yesterday, the Rockettes and I were walking back to the greenhouse from planting teeny poppies and blue woodruff in the Rock Garden and I finally saw a tree that my eyes must have bounced off of nearly every day since I started working here. The tree has beautiful peeling bark that would have been a perfect feature in a Winter Interest post (maybe next winter I’ll write one of those…) and according to the AHS A-Z it has midsummer flowers (insignificant according to Julie) followed by pea-like seed pods. But this is what the Maackia amurensis has now and what my eyes finally lit on and saw:

From a distance the emerging leaves looked almost purple/blue and up close they were sterling silver busting out of an 18k greengold wrap! The thing that I can’t get over is not that it was one of the most incredible color combos I’ve ever noticed in nature but that I simply hadn’t registered the tree before. My challenge for you, if you choose to accept it, is to look at something new that you see everyday. You might find a surprise every bit as sublime and stunning and knock you off your rocker gorgeous (like these Red maple samaras).

There are other things we’re noticing in the gardens that aren’t so wonderful but are just as important to keep an eye out for. Gail and I spotted Cedar-apple rust (Gymnosporangium juniperi-virginiani) on a Juniper near the greenhouse. These alien orange gelatinous globs of disgusting goo appear in April/May usually after a rain on the host plant - Junipers (Juniperus virginiana) a.k.a Eastern Red Cedars - and then spread by spore to infect apples and native crabapples (most non-natives are resistant). Damage on apples appears as leaf spots, poor quality fruit and repeated infection can eventually cause the tree to die. Take a look at your junipers - if you see an orange Martian with horns, cut it off and throw it out (but not in the compost).

Today we moved some perennials from the North Garden to the Rose Garden and as I was digging my planting holes I came across these critters. The larger brown-orange one I think is a Gypsy Moth pupa (anyone know for sure?) and when I suggested putting the wriggling guy on the pavement for the birds to find both Gail and Julie said “Awww…” and the Mom in Gail said “We don’t harm nature, Kris.” So I rolled my eyes and buried it again. I squarshed the other one though and several of its siblings. And I would pay any child a penny a pinch to do the same because it was a Japanese beetle grub and future rose devour-er. I had half a mind to keep digging up the Rose Garden to try and find them all… Instead I did something much more pleasant - I nipped and pinched and groomed our lavenders. Older specimens often open up in the middle and pinching can help keep them young at heart.

Daffodil Days are still going strong although the daffodil show is beginning to go by. It’s a good thing the parade of (other) blooms has only just begun!

Gail has been focused - I’d say “fixated” if that didn’t have a wrong sounding tone - on getting the seedlings transplanted by May 1. So yesterday I worked on basils and Nicotianas and thought about whether or not I have “the touch” (a.k.a. a green thumb). I used to work with a 70 year old Dutch gardener named Gerard who taught by nearly silent grumble and who definitely had the touch. I remember planting out bedding annuals with him and watching him knock salvias out of packs, open the roots with rips and tears and shove them one after another into the ground. The fascinating thing for me watching him was the delicate balance - his handling of the plants both wasn’t nearly as rough as it looked nor were the plants as fragile as I thought.

The nicotianas I transplanted yesterday look like they’ve been through a devastating hurricane - I separated them from a pack like this one and I swear leaves broke when I only looked at them. I’m not a terribly coordinated person - my penmanship is illegible, it takes me 5 tries to thread a needle, I can’t walk in a straight line, and I fall off my bike sometimes. But I can handle plants with a certain “touch” because (and this is the real trick) they’re wired for survival. (Mind you, I’m not talking about gardenias and maiden hair ferns which under my care seem downright suicidal.) We transplant seedlings - and plant in our gardens - in order to give the plants room to grow to their best potential and so that’s just what they’ll most likely do. Of course we’ve still got to water them, give them the right kind of light and heat and make sure there aren’t any slugs lurking beneath the packs and even then, every once in while something might fail to thrive. And so we keep learning. Do you have “the touch”?

Mother Nature’s touch has been a little on the rough side the last couple of days but my guess is everything will thrive for it - even the tissue paper delicate waterlogged trillium (Trillium grandiflorum).

The daffodils look a little bit sat upon but I think they and the tulips will pop back up too. Did you know that a penny in a vase of cut tulips will keep them from slouching? (If only that worked for teenagers…)

and it seems like a whole week has gone by - everything is happening so fast now! For a taste of what yesterday looked like at Blithewold, head right over to Ledge and Gardens. It’s so fun to see Blithewold through another’s eyes - but I’m really sorry that I missed Layanee’s visit!

I ran around this morning trying to catch up with all the changes. The Korean Spice Bush (Viburnum carlesii) is beginning to bloom and smells divine - if only we had virtual scratch and sniff! Last year we planted a compact form (Viburnum carlesii ‘Compactum’) in the Rose Garden - it looks (and smells) like a perfect shrub for a small garden. I’m putting it on my own-garden wish list…

The Mayapples (Podophyllum peltatum) are up all of a sudden along with epimediums that apparently leafed out and began to bloom over night. And the tulips are opening before our very eyes.

The warm spell is a mixed blessing - the daffodils are still peaking but the first ones (the ‘Ice Follies’ especially) are beginning to go by. Good thing there are so many other spring beauties opening up! The weekend still looks good weather wise - don’t let a little rain in the forecast for Sunday slow you down - we’re having an open house in the greenhouse! Gail and Julie will be here from 1 - 4 and our favorite garden books will be out on the potting bench for you to flip through. We’re busy getting the place spiffed now — we needed a good excuse to tidy up!

Look up. Look out. New leaves are turning all over the place! I think if you had the patience you could practically sit and watch the births like chicks hatching. I don’t have that kind of patience - or that kind of time! But I’m glad to have taken a look up and out this morning. The Cut Leaf Full Moon Japanese Maple (Acer japonicum ‘Aconitifolium’) was my morning’s favorite and another that sports puppy fur - which reminds me, no one has shared the answer yet to the fur’s-purpose question from the other day - my guess is still for frost protection.

The Kentucky yellowwood (Cladastrus kentuckea ‘Sweet Shade’) is finely fuzzed too. - What a shape! This one was my favorite.

And the Cinnamon fern (Osmunda cinnamomea) are also nestled in fur muffs and suprisingly tall all of a sudden! (favorite)

The Katsura (Cercidiphylum japonicum) leafed out overnight - the last I looked it only had flowers and now it’s got leaves the size of quarters. (2nd favorite)

And the Butterbur (Petasites japonicus) is giving me fits because its leaves have grown so much in the last week that I’ve had to move the label further out 3 times. (gah. but, of course - it’s a favorite.)

Aside from watching the leaves grow, strolling through a peak daffodil display and chatting with hundreds of visitors (hurrah for a banner week!) we’ve gotten a lot done the last couple of days and even put some stars on our calendar. -We draw big stars and underlines and color it all in highlighter orange when we’ve passed a major milestone. This week it was planting the sweet peas! We grew 17 varieties (including colors like Royal Wedding and April in Paris - in honor of my March) and planted them on a new fence edging Dick’s vegetable garden.

We also spent time with the Rockettes this morning replanting a muddy bank of Astilbe that have been hurling themselves out of the ground in the last couple of years. We could just pick up the clumps with our hands, they had heaved so much. Some clumps managed to survive such a life (fish out of water) and we’ll replace the ones that died with other things that might like a boggy shade bank that occasionally goes bone dry in a drought. (Is there anything?) This is a really good time, by the way, to move, divide or replant perennials - we try to do all our perennial moving before the end of April.

And could it be time already to hoop the peonies??!! Better check yours - I got our hoops on in the North Garden just in time - I didn’t have to smash and yank!

What have you been up to this week? Any milestones?  Turn over any new leaves?

No matter what I set out to do, something else always grabs me. All gardeners are familiar with this phenomenon (and some have already written winningly about it!). I went into the greenhouse with every intention of shifting pots from bench to bench in an attempt at organization. It was inevitable really that I’d discover that some plants needed water so of course I checked the whole place. In the middle of that sidetrack I discovered that the larkspur seedlings were eaten (grrrr!) and spent the next 10 minutes on a slug patrol. I checked the bottom of every peat pot, booted the little devils and unceremoniously squarshed them. (I think sometimes I should pick on someone my own size but a couple of these nearly were.) Anyway I’m getting sidetracked. So, I was in the middle of doing that when I noticed that the pitcher plant (Sarracenia leucophylla ‘Tarnok’ - ‘Judith Hindle’) flower was starting to unpeel and because I promised a couple of visitors last week that I’d post a picture I had to run right then and grab my camera.

I’m so sidetracked right now by spring that I might as well just get off the train for awhile. This is the other stuff that hooked me today: New leaves on the Red Chestnut (Aesculus x carnea ‘Briotii’) still have their puppy fur. Anyone know what the fuzz is for? My guess would be frost protection but then why do only some early openers have it?

The Pasque flower (Pulsatilla vulgaris) is furry too.

The Quince (Chaenomeles) reminds me of popcorn which reminds me that it’s ages since I went out to the movies…

The Winter hazel (Corylopsis glabrescens ‘Longwood Chime’) is still shaking out her skirts.

The Water Garden Cherry (Prunus x yedoensis ‘Akebono’) is in bloom - this tree would stop you in your tracks too.

And of course the Daffodils. Peak-a-boo! Most of the ‘Ice Follies’ have bleached to white and might go by in the next couple of weeks but the late bloomers will distract you completely. This one is Narcissus poeticus. When your daffs go by, it’s ok to deadhead them but be sure to leave the foliage on to nourish the bulb for at least 6 weeks. (Ideally you should let the foliage turn completely yellow and pull it when it comes out easily.) In case you’re wondering, we do not deadhead all 50,000 daffodils but we do tidy up the ones in and around the gardens and hope that we’ve been clever enough to plant something that will fill in and hide the clumps. Do you plant cover-ups? Do you braid the foliage à la Martha Stewart? Are you so easily sidetracked that you stop noticing it?

And I almost forgot! (I was thinking about popcorn.) - The Bosquet fountain is on! I’d never seen it in action - it’s been pretty much out of commission for nearly 10 years. Thanks to a generous grant and lots of hard work it’s a water feature once again. It would be lovely to sit and listen to the trickle… FYI: our restrooms are located to the right of the mansion entrance.

Anyone out and about today in this part of the world knows it’s a glorious day (condolences for anyone stuck indoors). And anyone who’s out and about at Blithewold today knows this is absolutely the place to be. Here’s a taste for any of you who can’t be here and a pre-weekend update for all who are thinking of making the trip:

(As always, hover over images for the caption or click on them for a larger view)

Have a fabulous spring weekend and hope to see you here!

I could tell this morning, when the birds were louder than the chuckle and siss of my coffee maker, that spring has sprung officially and certainly, no doubt about it. It even seemed almost a little easier to bounce out of bed this morning. Now that the forsythia is in full bloom I think it’s time to really pay attention or the next thing you know it’ll be mid-summer! Do you have color associations for the different phases of the seasons? Spring, to me, is a bright yellow and light greenish feathery time and then there’s an early summer shift to pale blue. It seemed like a lot of people walking the property today were in my early summer color - there’s a lot of blue going on and I don’t think everyone was decked out for our superstar garden and archives volunteer, Mary - or maybe they were! We, the staff, and a few volunteers definitely were. Here’s all of us wearing blue. We love you, Mary!

I’m not sure what happened to the lull I mentioned last week - it’s over and we’re already in 4th gear revved to full speed ahead. We started moving some of Dick’s and our vegetables outside to harden off and yesterday the Rockettes deadheaded the hydrangeas by the summer house and Gail and Joel and I started moving shrubs and the last few perennials out of the Idea Beds. (More on the Idea Bed redesign later.) We also planted out the foxgloves we babied in the greenhouse over the winter and helped the Florabundas cut back the old liriope leaves in the bed by the Moongate. If the days weren’t so beautiful our crews might have complained bitterly about their hydrangea and liriope chores being like deadheading the Coryopsis ‘Moonbeam’ - which if you’ve ever attempted that task you know it’s tedious-ridiculous-endless. We don’t have any ‘Moonbeam’ in the gardens anymore…

And I can’t leave out the daffodil report. It’s so close to peak I’m calling it pretty nearly peak. The next couple of days are forecasted stunners and I think that the buds that are poised to open might just have to pop. We still think full and total peak will occur this weekend and into and beyond next week as long as the weather cooperates. Keep an eye on the forecast and please come through whenever you can!

Vacation week is perfectly timed this year or else it’s the daffs that are right on time. No matter if you think that spring is early or late this year, it’s surely happening now. And it’s Garden Bloggers Bloom Day (hosted by gracious Carol of May Dreams Gardens)! It’s all blooms all the time from now until Christmas and here’s a little taste of what’s open: First and foremost, the Daffodils. Probably 60% are open — I think all of the ‘Ice Follies’ are showing and we think, depending entirely on the weather, we should be at 98% (that’s peak!) by early next week. And the show will go on barring tempests, freezes or scorchers — then, of course all bets are off. So come when you can! You’ll also see these other things blooming today if you’re on the lookout:

Sharp leaved hepatica (Hepatica acutiloba) in the Rock Garden,

Lungwort (Pulmonaria augustifolia azurea) camouflaged with the Scilla also in the Rock Garden,

Another Lungwort (Pulmonaria sacchorata ‘Mrs. Moon’) in the Rock Garden,

Narcissus ‘Ice Follies’ in the Water Garden,

Dawn viburnum (Viburnum x bodnantense) on the path between the Bosquet and the Water Garden,

And check out the Katsuras (Cercidiphyllum japonicum) blooming!

I almost hesitate to show the weeping katsura blooms up close (they’re a little pornagraphic don’t you think? - Maybe sensual is a better word. I’m having a Georgia O’Keefe moment…)

And did you notice? - There are some new decorations on the left hand side bar. The first one is Blotanical and if you don’t already know about this terrific site, take a look. It’s all garden blogs - and blooms - all the time from all over the world and placed so handily at your very fingertips. You can search by location and see if any of your neighbors have opened their gardens to the public. The site was developed by a genius Aussie named Stuart who you might have met in our comments box from time to time . (Maybe one of these days he’ll visit us in the flesh! I think he should make a point of visiting all of us garden bloggers…)

And we’ve also decided to join the commercial world and have made room for an Amazon ad. Our hope is that anytime you need, want, desire something from Amazon.com, you’ll stop by the blog first (and don’t we all order from Amazon occasionally? - it’s just so conveeeenient). By clicking on our link and following through with a purchase, Amazon will send us a commission. It’s one of the very easiest ways to make a donation. Of course if you’d like to make an actual tax deductible donation please click here! I will try to keep the Amazon ad interesting by posting our favorite books - which just happen to be available for purchase!

Happy Bloom Day everyone (and happy shopping!)