Ahhhhhhh, Spring at last

The first two weeks, and a little bit more, of April this year were freezing cold.  Literally.  It actually snowed on April 8.  This is what my garden looked like:

I went directly past despairing of ever seeing Spring to settling in to trudging out to cover plants for nightly freezes and uncover them the following day, only to repeat the same thing two or three days later.  Again and again and again.  My seedlings were ready to come out to harden off in preparation for planting, but because they couldn't go in the ground, I had to haul them up from the cellar in the mornings to put them in a makeshift greenhouse and tote them back down at night so they didn't freeze. 

What a pain.  Next winter, I'm going to have some better plant covers ready.  And maybe hold off on starting my seedlings a couple of weeks or so.

But, it's over!   Spring is here.

Tomato seedlings breaking out

The only things that sustained some freeze damage were the rhubarb and the peonies, and they will all come out of it okay.

Rhubarb row

This year, I rigged the cucumber trellis to form an archway into the garden.  I have some cucumber seedlings planted next to it, and on the outside of those, I planted runner beans, hoping to get some pretty flowers to cover the cucumber plants.  I don't know if that will work, or if I'll just have a jumbled mess.  We'll find out.

The beans/seeds themselves were so pretty I hated to cover them with soil.

I also created a sundial with some ceramic mushrooms and a little silver alien I got years ago in Roswell, New Mexico.  He's high noon.  (Or high eleven, with daylight saving.)

I love these hyacinths.  Aside from the heavenly aroma (which was blocked by the too cold temperatures), the color is brilliant. 

This is the second spring for my little magnolia.  Last year, deer ate every flower bulb off just as they were getting set to open.  This year, some of them broke open and then dried up from the cold.  Fearing I'd not get to see blooms again, I covered the whole tree for several of the coldest days, and was rewarded with this beautiful show:

Once the forecast quit calling for freezing nights (just last week), I started getting my seedlings and seeds in the ground.  Thank goodness I had already gotten the beds built up with compost and the paths mulched, because I have been nearly all day every day for a week planting and watering.  I'd be too exhausted to enjoy anything if I had to prepare beds as well.

Cabbage row (with a Nasturtium at either end)

 I've been putting a lot of work into my rose and newly created cut flower gardens.  Not having any grass clippings yet this year to use for mulch, I'm using whatever I have on hand.  For the things that are easier to mulch around, I'm using what's left of some tree mulch from three years ago when the county people came along and shredded their trimmings.  It's practically compost at this point and works very well.  I've even been forced to use a very light layer of it where I've planted seeds.  It's not ideal for that - a bit too coarse - but the grass didn't want to grow during those two freezing weeks either.

I had some maple leaves I'd bagged from last fall and used them in some places, but not having a way to shred them up makes them unsuitable for mulching very small seedlings or buried seed.  I also had a little dried cypress leaves from last fall that I was able to scrunch up into a light mulch that worked fairly well, but not so well as grass clippings. 

My cut flower bed, then, has a variety of mulches over dozens and dozens of little seedlings I planted one at a time.  It's tedious and makes for next day aches and pain, but I couldn't afford to have the full garden I'm going to get if I had to buy bedding plants.  Nor could I get the variety of plants and the less popular things if I didn't grow them myself from seed.

 

Cut flower garden

Aside from the perennial plants that I hope will come back up, this year's cut flower garden will have Delphiniums, Snapdragons, China Asters, Globe Amaranth, Lupine, and Toothache plant, along with a patch of Cardinal basil.  In the center, I'm going to plant Black Pearl ornamental peppers.

 One overwintered lupine, and newly planted lupine seedlings mulched with fallen maple leaves

 
I'm really excited about the rose garden this year.  I have my four new Palatine roses, and - oh glorious days! - all my roses from last year made it throught this crazy winter.  I was getting nervous. 

I had several perennial plants I wanted to mix in with the roses, and I found a couple last week at Superior Garden Center near Columbia.  This morning, I found the others at Springwater Greenhouse & Landscaping in Marshall.  I even picked up a couple of fluff ball grasses at Walmart which weren't in the plan, but they looked so fun I couldn't resist them.  This is how I have nine rose bushes instead of the originally planned five.  I only have four more I want to get next year!

It doesn't look like much in the pictures, but I love it already.  Can't wait to see it all in bloom.

Believe me, it's going to be gorgeous.

Happy Spring!