What a Difference a Year Makes!

I looked at my Cool Things for the Garden blog the other day and realized it has been almost a year since my last post.  I had great intentions last spring to keep my postings current and share my experiences from the garden.  But life does not always go as expected, and last April my world was turned upside-down.  I barely set foot in the garden all season, so there wouldn't have been much to share.

So here we are almost a year later, the fires of my living hell are under control, and now I'm preparing to say goodbye to my garden of the last 25 years as I prepare to move to Tennessee.  (Zone 7!  Yippee!)  

I looked through the few pictures from 2010 and found two highlights to share.  One is the White Fringetree (Chionanthus virginicus) in bloom sometime in June.  It was pure magic!  I am sad that I won't be able to see them as mature specimens, but I'm sure they grow in zone 7.

Notice the completely unkempt lawn around it.  Not that my lawn ever looks good, but at least it used to get mowed once in awhile.  This amount of bloom was much more than in previous years.  There are three of these in the yard and a few in the nursery that are four years in the ground now, and they all had the same amount of bloom.  

I really didn't spend much time around the gardens this past season, so I don't know how the perennials did.  I managed to make it through daffodil season.  We dug a record number of bulbs this year for the Indiana Daffodil Society bulb sales.  Many of them came from Helen Link's plantings.  The leftovers ended up at a convent in Cincinnati that is establishing an American Daffodil Society display garden.  I can't remember how many bulbs I took them, but it was enough to fill up the back of the Vibe.  

This next picture is one that I took from the driver's seat of our tractor as Master Gardener volunteers planted 2000 daffodils at an interchange near Martinsville.  The drought had made the ground impenetrable, and there was great concern about whether we could physically handle the planting.  Thank goodness I came up with the idea of using our tractor with the fence pole auger.  It made perfect holes for five bulbs, and a group of about ten of us got the job done in less than three hours.  We are all looking forward to this spring's show.  It should be spectacular.

Speaking of the drought, it was a doozey.  I actually lost some plants earlier in the summer to the excessively wet soil, and then the drought took some recently planted shrubs that were sharing root zones with established trees.  That's something that should not be attempted without irrigation, but that's why I do it.  I play the part of the guinea pig and share my experiences with you.  My kids should be excellent gardeners!

Memories of Colder Weather

This just seems so out of whack.  April 6 and we will hit a record high, and just a few weeks ago it seemed that the snow would never go away.  The transition happened so quickly that I didn't get a chance to post a couple of nature photos that I took during the snowy season.  A snow cover gives the landscape a different perspective and this past late winter I noticed things that have probably been right in front of my eyes all along.

I saw more wild turkeys this winter than ever, and in so many different places.  Often times there would be two or three, but sometimes I would see a flock of 15 or more.  They are a beautiful sight anytime of the year, but especially in the winter when the landscape needs a bit of excitement.

The other animal I saw more frequently this winter was a black squirrel.  I noticed them when we first moved here 25 years ago, but during the dog years, the squirrels kept their distance.  I had read recently that squirrels live on average for four years, so I figured our black squirrel was long gone.  It was a very pleasant surprise to look out at the bird feeders one day and see this black squirrel feeding on the ground.  The picture quality isn't great, but squirrels do tend to run away fast when you open the door.

These next few weeks will be super busy as gardening season kicks in to full force.  My nursery opens officially on April 16.  The next garden show is at Hendricks County on April 10 from 9-4.  Daffodil season is going quickly which means that we will be able to dig and divide earlier than usual.  Remeber to wait six weeks after bloom before cutting back the foliage.  And pace yourself in the garden.  It's only April 6.  We could still have more snow, but let's hope for June tomatoes instead.

There's More to Butler than Basketball

We generally root for our alma maters while they are winning, but when they get eliminated from the NCAA tournaments we root for another conference or state team that may still be in the show.  Since Purdue lost to Duke, my loyalties could go to Michigan State since they are a Big Ten team, but who can resist Butler.  They are just such a nice group of kids and they truly represent what is good about the college experience.

And Butler is a great school, too, from the academic standpoint.  Our Indiana Daffodil Society was fortunate enough to have an associate professor from Butler as our speaker this past Saturday.  Dr. Shelley Etnier, Associate Professor of Biological Sciences, just so happened to do a grad student research project on the biomechanics of the daffodil.  (Read the story by Adam Summers citing Dr. Etnier and Dr. Steven Vogel's research, or if you want the actual article published in the American Journal of Botany go to this link for the first page.  You'll have to pay to get the whole article, though.) 

Daffodils have been observed to turn away form the wind and bow down in a way that is unique to their genus.  Drs. Etnier and Vogel found this characteristic interesting and developed a project to study just what happens to the structure of the stem when subjected to wind.  Pretty heady stuff for a group of daffodil enthusiasts, but very fascinating.

If daffodils are your thing and you are in the Indianapolis area, be sure to visit Holliday Park on April 14 from 2-5 pm or April 15 from 9-noon to see the daffodil exhibition.  These are not your grandmother's daffodils on display although the historics do make up a nice section of the exhibit.  Most people are amazed by the variety of colors, shapes and sizes.