Instant Garden

The overgrown area behind our utility room was driving me crazy.
Old blackberry vines poked out of the soil everywhere and while long abandoned and cut rose bushes kept them company among the assorted other weeds.Weather permitted a day of pulling weeds and pruning back vines and some digging in the still soft and winter-wet soil.


Once the tiny area had been cleared, I transplanted a hydrangea bush that had been struggling to survive in the meager soil left in its original pot.
Next I added some already flowering daffodil plants I purchased at Ellenden Farm Market.
Some forget-me-not flowers had sprouted between the pavers on the patio, so they, too, were uprooted and added to the flower bed.

With all of the digging, I had uprooted some grape hyacinths (Muscari armeniacum) and so some of them were returned to the patch, too.The purple primrose flowers that were crunched in together were then relocated and some yellow ones added, too. In fact, the only 'new' plants I added were the daffodils and the yellow primrose - all the rest I already had in the garden.

But the piece de resistance, as far as I was concerned, was the discovery and addition of wee wild violets. In fact these tiny plants were the inspiration for the instnat garden in the first place.
I have missed these tiny harbingers of spring since my move here to the UK.
Originally, I found them growing wild in my front garden's lawn when I purchased my previous home in the US. I carefully removed them, over the years, and transplanted them along the edges of trees and basement windows.You will not believe how big they grow when placed in the proper conditions!
The spread out and multiply to become proper hedgerows of large, bright green leaves and sprightly purple flowers each year.

I discovered three very tiny plants trying to find a bit of sunlight under some shrubs along the perimeter of the garden. My plan to use them as a border and add to them whenever I could find more, was set.

Then to my wonderment and surprise, I found more of them right next to the area I was digging up - and nowhere near where the originals were found!

See the little violets growing in among all of the grasses and weeds and flowers?

So they were dug up and added, too.
You will see some more photos of them as they begin to grow and become the border I know they can develop into!

In the meantime, the instant garden in a huge success with a small spot waiting for a visit to the rose garden center for a climbing fragrant gorgeous rose bush!


Happy gardening!
xxx
Maggie

Yellow

It's all about spring and the tidings it brings in the form of yellow!

Forsythia bushes are filled with sunshine as they wave in the wind like flags bearing signs of better weather to come.

Daffodils burst upon the scene where only a week ago there was mud and damp grass and grayness all abound.
Now we see bursts of yellow-colour trumpets heralding the arrival of spring.

Sweet Primrose flowers, yellow among them but coming in all colours of the rainbow, too, co-mingle with the daffodils to add a festive variety with which to play off of the bright and cheery flowers.
We are blessed to enjoy such gorgeous sights in early spring each year.

And this year is even more profound as we leave the dreariest and coldest of winters well behind and embrace the warm soft breezes that bring memories of summers past and soon to behold.
Welcome Spring!

xxx
Maggie

Ethel Dietz Nichols sitting on rock in garden Date: ca. 1911-1915

Daffodils
(1804)

I wander'd lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretch'd in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.


The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:

I gazed -- and gazed -- but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;

And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

- William Wordsworth
(1770-1850)