There are lots of ways to spend a day that will sap every ounce of energy you have and leave you headed for the couch and the advil bottle. My all time least favorite is a day spent at Boston Children’s hospital ( where my daughter is a patient), followed by any trip involving amusement parks, air travel or clothes shopping,  That’s a pretty wacky list, but we are who we are.

Today I got my energy sapped by spending 3 hours volunteering at an historic house in my town, where I am re-doing the gardens, then coming home and spending 5 more planting bare root roses, a few shrubs, dividing  phlox, moving  a few clematis, and trying to make a suitable bed for iris ensata  which wants constantly moist soil, a tough trick for those of us who garden in sand.

Already exhausted, my downward spiral  started with the roses that arrived yesterday and needed to go in the ground ASAP. David Austin Roses sends these bare root roses that first make me laugh at how ridiculously large their bare roots are and then make me cry as I try to dig a hole big enough to fit them. After they were all planted and watered I hit that state where you are too tired to effectively do any task without calling on every muscle you have to pitch regardless of their sutability for said task,   resulting in very awkward digging indeed.

 In that  reduced capacity, I figured why not go for broke ? and dig another hole deep enough to accomadate a large ( 3ft diameter) pan meant for a small fountain to hold soil and water for the iris.

Then on to the phlox, which might as well been welded into the ground for all the effort it took me to dig them out and divide them. Moving the clematis was not so bad because they are just babies, but along the way some more grass had to be taken out and more water lugged and that was when CJ showed up and told me to go shower he was taking me to a movie for Mother’s Day. Sweet sweet CJ, thank you for saving me from myself.

When we got to the theatre ( to see Thor, which was great BTW) CJ was standing outside the car waiting for me to get out and he turned and said, and I quote, “Why are you moving like an old lady today?” Good thing I was too tired to even try to take a swing at him. And I guess the fact that it is a time to celebrate being a mother,and by” celebrate” they don’t mean  “attempt bodily harm on your offspring”  contibuted to his escape as well.

 Now I am home , and evey muscle in my “old lady” body is T I R E D. I want hot tea, a book about anything but gardening, and my comfy bed with 20 pillows stacked up high around me. I want to sleep late, awake to breakfast in bed, and gifts (lots of gifts).

Being exhausted on a day when you have done something you didn’t enjoy, followed by the fact that you may or may not get enough sleep, and may or may not have another horrific day in front of you, feels much different than exhaustion caused by doing your favorite activity on the eve of the only day you are not expected to get up and do anything except open a present or two ….although .it better be more than two, and it better not be plants!

  Been checking out lots of garden blogs in this very un-spring like weather and found Gardening Gone Wild. I was  enjoying all the writing and thenspent time looking through the archives of the photo contests they have run.People amaze me with the images they are able to  capture. 

Here is my entry into the latest Gardening Gone Wild Picture This Photo  Contest on using the right light in relation to your subject. This  picture was taken last summer and is a sunflower backlit and glowing like a it’s namesake Predictable , maybe a bit boring, but still makes me smile 🙂

 If you get a second , head over and check out not only the latest photo entries but the photography of Rob Cardillo (taken in Chanticleer). Not a bad way to spend a very cold rainy evening.

Being so near the end of the semester (and actually college days in general,WOW) for my oldest boy CJ, has meant frequent weekends home in search of sustenence and $$. He works at a grocery store near school and they have cut his hours to nothing ,having already replaced him in anticipation of the great exodus from campus in less than two weeks. Now not only do I get to enjoy his company, but he is a workhorse around here when he is trying to earn food and beer money.

Extra hands means a lighter workload for me, and a lighter wallet for Bill, but more time for both of us to sit and enjoy our family and friends.Yesterday the weather was actually nice (today mother nature is exacting payment for it in the form of miserably cold rain) and we spent most of it outside. We  caught a few moments to sit on the porch and relax , where we spied these in a basket that hangs  out there.Everything I have read says to clean out all your birdhouses and nesting places in the very early spring , which kind of makes sense to me as I am a tad on the neat freak side. But this basket along with many other nesting sites never gets tended to and the birds nest there every year. This spring I cleaned out only a few of the houses, and after these eggs piqued my interest I took a look around at who was nesting where. Turns out all the “clean” birdhouses are empty, and all the houses I left the nests in are full of families. Hmm. One more area of my life where I have been delegated to “unneeded ” and “superfluous”.

Oh well ,that frees up time to take pictures….. here are a few of the early flowers. I love how after a few years the hyacinths go revert to a more natural state , far less fussy , and more fitting for my garden that’s for sure! Getting down on the ground to snap photos also brings me very close to their wonderful scent.

CJ was up early this morning and while we had coffee he was reading over my shoulder. He is now arguing for a royalty payment from me for writing about him in the blog. I wholeheartedly agree, so I will give him any percent he wants of the $0.oo I make in my gardening endeavors. Easiest decision of the day 🙂 Happy Easter and Happy Earth Day!

I am the QUEEN of the list! The list is a must-have for me . The list makes it possible to accomplish the myriad of chores that define my day and ensure the family is appropriately housed, clothed , fed, educated, entertained, and presented to the world with bright shiny white teeth and on time vacinations. This time of year though the list gets a little muddled. My priorities get a little out of whack and I tend to loose my focus.  A typical day’s list could start out looking like

Coffee

laundry

Call oil company to set up oil burner cleaning,  call insurance company, call to check on my mother who has poison ivy

Accomplish a little housework

Faith to dentist at 11

Visit  my Grandmother and drop off candy for her

Go to library to pick up books

 Drive Faith to art class

Make supper

haunt Erin to pick up wet towels and luandry from her room and do her homework

Work on presentations

 but end up like this:

Coffee

Re-pot seedlings that look desperate on window sill

look at laundry, but grab fertilzer from shelf instead and feed newly planted sweet peas

consider calling oil  and insurance company but head outside for a quick second to put rabbit caging around newly emerging vines I spied yesterday

10:30.. realize if I do not shower now we will miss dentist appt

grab more coffee to go

take Faith to dentist ( that is the responsible thing to do )

think about Grandmother, but it is going to rain later, so I will fit in visit then

Head back outside check on recently transplanted shrubbery, and end up poking around moving a few perennials and re-edging a bed

Too late to hit library now, drive Faith to art class

Pull back in driveway and decide to spend a minute fixing a few holes the fence company left late last fall

Good lord if I don’t leave now I will be late to pick her up from art class

Walk back in the house and realize what a crazy mess it is, reconsider for the 50th time hiring a maid during gardening season, is that so selfish? Is hiring a cook going overboard?

Cook supper ( not feeding the children is neglect, I must remember that)

It is still so nice outside that I know I could fit in a little more garden clean-up out back

realize sun is rapidly setting and I have not been managing homework/room cleaning child who is probably watching netflix in basement realize also I never called my mother, but she is probably resting and I will call first thing in the morning

have a pang of guilt,  after it subsides, finish cutting back tickseed

Head back inside, move bulk of contents from today’s To-do list to tommorow

bed

gotta love gardening season!

Even though the weather was unco-operative at times ,and downright nasty at others, I managed to get more done in March than I had hoped to.

-seedlings of sweet peas lathyrus odoratus , love-in-a-puff cardiospermum halicacabum, and hollyhocks were started

-cuttings of pelagoriums , lavendar cotton santolina ,  and honeysuckle were taken and are hopefully rooting as I type

-any day I could get outside , I forced myself to attend to the dragish-ly boring chores of lawn raking, perennial bed clean up and pruning out winter damage

-a new plan was devised for the very large and very daunting area now enclosed by the dog fence and not easyliy mow-able

 You know when you decide to repaint a room, and all of a sudden the rug looks old and crappy , so you get a new one , then the curtains don’t match, so you buy curtains, then th hallway next to the room looks shabby so you go get more paint and on and on..? Well the garden is no different. We put in a fence for the dogs and suddenly pathways had to be extended, plants moved and grass taken out. It encompasses a very large area  and lets face it, I am not the energenic sod remover I once was. My friend Christina started a new landscape business called Upscapes (no web link yet!) and so I promptly hired her to come over and help me design and plant…here is what we have accomplished in the two days we worked before 6 more inches of snow got in our way

We moved a ridiculously heavy hemlock that in the end was successful due only to the fact that our two egos( a force you should fear lol) would not let us accept that a 400 lb rootball could not be lifted out of a 3 foot deep hole by two girls.(well ok , Bill helped for 5 very critical minutes)

We moved a recently installed weeping birch, two snowberry bushes symphoricarpos albus, two red knockout rose bushes, many dainthus and armeria plants that line the new edges and path we outlined ,and multiple daylilys and other perennials that were in the way of the new design.

 The area we were working in is all new garden put in after our house addition and I do not know it well enough yet to be sure of what is planted where. I am sure I will have to relocate many more plants when spring finally gets here and they poke up in unfortunate locations.

I ordered a new bench with an arbor over it (of course for more clematis) and many new plants that will be arriving soon to fill in all the holes .( Including two new viburnums , three new wiegelas , a few new perennials (photos below) The worst part of it so far has been the sod removal , and there is still ALOT of that left to do.

Meanwhile the siberian  squill scilla is starting to bllom, the daffodisl are getting tall, the garden furniture is getting painted and the ornaments getting polyed. Soon we will be outside enjoying it all and that certainly brings a smile to my tired face.

weigelia My Monet

viburnum carlesii

I think I may have mentioned it before, but I am not a big fan of houseplants. I find my time off from outdoor gardening a refreshing change from plant induced worry and care , and hate having to find all the appropriate space and lighting to be successful growing things indoors.

 I have also come to realize that the trait I find most endearing about my outdoor plants is that in 99% of the cases when something is going wrong ( disease, pest, damage etc)  I can cut the affected baby to the ground and it will shoot out all new and clean , thus further inflating my very large gardening ego. With houseplants, as a rule this is not so true, and in the cases where it is ,the progress is slow going -flatly deflating my gardening ego.

Back in Fall 2009 at the tail end of my Master Gardener Classes, Tovah Martin    came in to lecture to us on growing houseplants. Tovah spent many a day working in Logees Greenhouse(s) and is caretaker in her own home of numerous plants which she loves dearly. Can I just say she is a-dor-a-ble!   I first “met” her through the books she wrote  about one of my gardening super heroes, Tasha Tudor. Given the opprtunity, I would love to garden the way Tasha did, with all her glorious cottage-y borders, yankee thrift and chickens.  I have the corgis already ( she had many),, but my Tasha experience would be lacking as I would never give up electricity, proper heating, UPS delivery 365 days a year, and of course, Bill. I am also not, as both Tasha and Tovah are, a bonnet and calico dress wearin’ kind of girl, relying as I do on “foundation garmments” and make-up to enhance and deflect the eye.

But I digress. Back to Tovah. I was so looking forward to this class, and trying my hardest not to act like a crazed groupie. She talked to us about the vagaries of the tropicals , and  in my starry-eyed state  I took zero notes. I just wanted her to be my best friend, skip the whole indoor plant thing. At  the end of her lecture she announced that she was going to give away the divisions of a plant she had used to demonstrate re-potting in sort of a raffle/lottery. Well, guess who one of the winners was?  EE-GADS! How to decline??  There was no way I could not accept such an offering and still remain able to gush all over her and get her to sign my new book, “The New Terrerium” .

So, I took the division, and jotted down the only word I wrote down in my notebook that day …..Ammonum Cardomom….just that exact thing, no other words at all.

This week in my fervor to get back to my garden-ness, I tried working outside  but it was COLD and SNOWING again. So I turned to the least likely place you will ever find me, tending the  houseplants that have finagled their way under various and convoluted circumstances into my living room. The Tovah Plant, (as I like to lovingly call it) has grown and grown, on might even say thrived, but that is tempting fate . It needed re-potting and so I took it to the kitchen and went in search of my master gardening notebook. Given that I know next to nothing about houseplants, but have vague notions that some prefer to be pot-bound , root pruned, and other uncomfortable sounding treatments, I figured i would look up the plant and at least try to give it the proper care .

My search using the name found in my notebook, Amomun Cardomom left me scratching my head. Cardomon is a tricky plant to grow. The directions used words  like “fussy” and “difficult to grow”.It  does not like drafts, sunlight, or a  regular watering schedule. It likes to be misted daily, but have it’s roots kept dry. Blah-blah, on and on with all it’s Diva requests.

Um, this could not be the plant I had been tending, that is for certain. More searching ensued.

Turns out the most common mis-identifiation in Houseplant Unniverse, is  ID-ing Amomun Cadomom when you really have Alpina Nutans (Cinamon Ginger). Both plants look very similar, and both have spicy scented foliage. BUT Cardomon is FUZZY on the underside of it’s leaves and difficult to cultivate outside a warm steamy greenhouse.

I can not, and will not accept Tovah, MY Tovah, was wrong. I must have in my dreamy eyed  stupor somehow imagined she said Amomom Cardomom, when what she really said was Alpina nutans. I forcefully brush the thought that I have never heard of the plant before and could not possibly have written it down without someone not only saying it ,but also spelling it for me, out of my head.  Tovah is not wrong, not now, not ever.

I potted up my Tovah plant and put it back on the windowsill. It is happy, and it likes it’soriginal  name, Tovah Plant, better anyway.

Last week I had the joy of attending the Boston Flower Show at the Seaport Expo Center. I say that completely without sarcasm, (really) as it was such a delight to see so many lovely displays by area landscapers and nurseries and I even enjoyed the floral displays that usually leave me a little bewildered and perplexed . ( Let me clarify by saying I appreciate their beauty and the work involved, but the “art”,  themes ,and interpretation leave this simple gardener shaking her simple head).

As I walked around snapping the odd photo here and there, and talking to the other master gardeners there about what new and exciting things they saw, I started to think about the overwhelming-ness of it all. For instance, I have a perfectly wonderful magnolia that I enjoy immensely when it blooms for   three minutes in April ( if no late frost whacks it), yet here I stand gazing longingly at a new magnolia introduction ,whose name escapes me  but the vision of it’s deep purple blooms won’t leave my head. An urge comes over to hit the ground running trying to find  it in a nursey somehwere and rush home to squish it into the garden. That is, my friends, beyond all reason. Every year there will be so very many plants I do not have , need to have, and  just plain drool over. The point is you can not have them all. I must keep reminding myself to rein it in, there  is no more room, and the plants I already own are just perfect.

I think back to the well marketed beanie babies that were all the rage in the 90’s when my kids were little. The hype around the release of each new animal with a clever name and cuteness coming out it’s ears, added to the fact that you could not find them anywhere, made the draw irresistable to my offspring. Every extra penny was spent on them, every birthday wish list wasted on requests for them, every christmas stocking chock full of the little suckers, and there they sit in a box in my cellar.

Fast forward to the end of the endless  Winter 2010-11, right on the cusp of spring, when, after the 6 feet of snow have almost finally melted ,you can see the crocuses poking out their little purplely and yellow  heads and fat  buds ready to explode on the spring blooming trees and shrubs, and every gardener is at their most vulnerable with the promise of the season ahead of them dangling just days out of reach.

 Smart trade show people put together an irresistable combination ;the smell of dirt and mulch, the fragrance of  flowers we have been separated from for 6 long months, and the explosion of color and texture  arranged in picture perfect garden vignettes you long to linger and lounge in. And then they add in those elusive plants, the newest , the oddest, the most unique. The ones your gardening friends will be jealous you found, the ones that you and only you have, the ones  you blow a huge chunk of your garden budget on.It is madness and genius, and usually it gets me every time.

This year, though , I was too busy to buy much of anything. A few quick trips into the vendor aisles yeilded two tiny garden gnomes and a new wood and wire trug , that’s it. I took a picture of the magnolia, but refused to go find David Haskell ( the evil temptor) to get it’s name. I have thus far resisted the urge to google it. I am hoping to hold firm until it is a sweet memory. What do you think my chances are?

Here in the land of boresville this morning , I am using some down time to brush up a few common Latin words that help with plant ID.

Back in high school I took 2 years of Latin ,and mandate that my kids do the same, first so they can suffer as I did ,and second to help with college writing and SATs . I remember my teacher Mr. Davidson very well. He was a funny guy who knew how to make the time we spent in class go a little faster, so I count him among my faves. At the beginning of the year he made us all choose a Latin name to be called in class. As you can expect the boys all chose (in the immature fashion of 15 year olds) names like Gluteus Maximus and  Caligula……… I honestly can’t remember mine, but I was quiet and remarkably unclever back in the day so it was probably something like Phillipa.

I wish I had the fortitude to call myself Lesbia or Regina. Regina means queen , which is close to Diva, so that is the name I would chose for myself today (let the Lesbia thing go already).

I  can still hear the chant  of conjugation : amo,amas,amat,amamus,amatis amant,amare,…..made worse by the fact that a.) I didn’t love anyone so did not need to learn to say it 50 ways and b.)  the word order in sentences made it beyond difficult to figure out who was doing what to whom ,which is a point that needs clarification in my book especially when it comes to love.

I already know my latin colors and numbers, those are  like the Sesame Street parts of the language . Now I am moving on to words that describe a plant in other ways and are often given as a prefix to their name.

Caprifolium means “climbing like a goat”  an lupulus “like a wolf” . Odd ways to describe a plant .

 Complexa means”complex, interwoven branches” I like the complex part, so now I am Regina Complexa.

 Scandens sounds like it would have some connotation of promiscuity or wantonness, but sadly it just really means climbing. Bummer.

Atomarius is speckled, Maleagris , and conspersus mean speckled as well. Can you tell me what kind of language needs three words for speckled?

Cineracus means covered in gray hairs, weird to have one word mean that, but now I have a Latin name for Bill.

There are several different words that mean striped (striatus,syrtriatus) and more than you would think for splotched or spotted (maculata, pardinus, guttatus). I must find out have that is different from speckled. 

For describing the color red and /or red traits such as veins, stems or leaves , there are over ten words. Apparently Roman plants were many many variations of  red.

I have a brain like a sieve, so most of this will be long forgotten , or buried so far back in the recesses of my mind , behind the grocery list and the kid’s taxi schedule, that I will never be able to recall the words when I need them, but I am making the effort anyway. It is too cold to go outside , I am sick of every book I am reading, and I  must either stave off the boredom or succumb to nesting on the couch with the 30 boxes of Girl Scout cookies that are taunting me from the cabinet and watching reality TV. 

 …but your Latin lesson is over…….Quidquid praecipies, esto brevis   🙂