Saturday, April 26, 2014

Yikes!!!  It's been an entire year since my last post.   I won't pledge to write more frequently as that smacks of New Years Resolutions .

We've just come out of a gullywhomper of a winter and Mother Nature is dragging her heels even in late April.   We have a few gorgeous days and are then thrown right back into the slew of despond,  cold with rain.

I've spent hours in my perennial garden over the past week in an all out attempt to revivify it.  Last summer was very wet and we all know how clay soil reacts to  copious amounts of water.  Slime!!  By the end of last summer I had lost a number of the perennials that had been lovingly moved there from previous gardens.  In addition to constantly wet soil I feared that all the nutrients had been washed away leaving a sour soil and a magnificent crop of moss.

Last weekend I stripped away the moss, pulled out the dead plants and began the process of digging in 25 bags of organic composted down manure.  This is not work for the faint of heart!   I finished up that portion of the revivification process yesterday afternoon and I must say that it was very satisfying.  I should have taken a few pictures!  Since the afternoon was warm, but not too warm, I hauled out the bags of natural cedar mulch.  I hope that this mulch won't leach the nitrogen from the soil, time will tell I guess.   Any attempt to find a local source of composted mulch was an abject failure so bags of cedar mulch it was.   I'd no idea how much RED mulch there is out there.  Hideous!!   I bought 15 bags thinking that that would be plenty, I was wrong.   On my hands and knees, eleven bags worth were lovingly spread around the just emerging plants and only half the garden is covered.  Today it's too wet to work outside.

The trees that we have had planted over the past couple of years are looking fabulous!  The only ones to have barely leafed out are the two Sargent Crabs.  The Swamp White Oak, Red Oak & White Oak are nearly ready to pop as is the Cornus Florida.  Several weeks ago I went over to Elhannon Nursery and chose three more trees to be planted this year, a Sycamore,  Serviceberry and Black Gum (Tupelo).

It's been so long since I've posted a picture I'll have to learn how to do it all over again.