As I was saying, I have planted some very fragrant narcissus that I hope I can find the list of that I'd ordered from Dutch Gardens last year to plant more of this fall, and was starting to do what I so very much love to do.......and that is looking into the faces of the daffodils.

As I had wandered into the side yard and was noticing all my daffs the fairies had teased up out of the ground in the last few days, I was tickeled to see that I had conveniently forgotten some that I had planted last fall. I remembered that I had put in Sir Winston Churchill, but forgotten where. I had plunked two, side by side, making a bouquet of two of them as each stem had at least two flowers, and one had three of the rumpled beauties. You have to get down on your knees to lift up their faces and inhale their fragrances. Luscious. Each one is gathered like some hidden silken threads have pulled the fragile fabrics of the flower petals at the throats.

Next to the Sir Winston's I had planted two bulbs of another narcissus. Forgotten when I planted them, they now rose up as two sisters of same family, deep reddish pink cups, standing side by side, heads down, I had to lift up their faces to see them.

I had done the same with the other ones, a peach cup ringed in a raspberry edge that the fairies had tediously painted around each ruffled end with soft yellow petals ringing the cups. They stood together like haughty sisters as well, beckoning you to at least gaze at their beauty.

Behind me in the clustered and chaotic tangle of leaves of the "Colorado box" the return of multi-flowering narcissus from past years have returned for me. The little pale almost white cupped with dark yellow outer petals narcissus rise above the deep green leaves in little wads, you can almost hear the little fairies responsible for them tittering in their delight at their coaxing them up and out. They are up to their necks in the leaves.

At the corner of the box, where there is a slight opening at each end of timber, I had planted Autumn ferns, and they held up thru the whole winter,despite the snows and cold, and I see signs of unfurling fronds trying to push thru. As I kneel one knee on the ground, I look over to the other corner (this is the west corner of this bed) and I see clumps of newly emerging Lemon verbena. I reach over and brush my fingertips across some of the many textured leaves and slightly crush them against my thumb and then bring my fingers up to inhale.................ahhhhhhhh the scent of fresh lemon is almost overwhelming. I so love this invasive little plant. It is one of my favorites despite it's habits of walking around where it likes.

I glance over with the threads of similar thoughts in my head to the clump of tansy and see that it's pulling itself up where it had jumped, and it's drowning in a sea of henbit that is flowering like mad intent on spreading it's children even further. And mingled in with that is the insidious spurge that I mistakenly thought was neat looking years ago and brought three pieces home to plant out front. Little did I know how fast and sneaky it was when I plunked it in. One year's removal was almost fatal for me, because I was barehanded pulling it all up one afternoon, and forgetfully wiping my upper lip at one point, I didn't think about the sap on my hands, and when I licked my lips, I ingested the stuff. A few hours later, I was nauseous and disoriented and was scared that I was actually having a heart attack. When I called poison control, I was horrified to discover we didn't have one in Knoxville, and had to call one in Memphis (that's on the OTHER side of Tennessee from where I am too far to travel when ill) and eventually found someone who had a list of plants and we discovered it was significently poisonious. I wouldn't have died of it unless I'd eaten it, but the sap had done it's harm for a few hours. Nothing like hallucinations and nausea and drippy mouth to set you straight. I now don't pull it up bare handed. I wear latex gloves...........

But I see spurge has trickled down the western slope towards the woods, and give time, the little evil spurge fairies will sow the dust fine seeds there as well. For now it's bright screaming lime green upper leaves of the euphorbia are a welcome sight after the tans and browns and tired creams of winter, but not knowing when it reseeds itself, I will regret admiring it later on. Like the vinca...............

I have now dropped down to both knees and am looking for some signs of the asters I planted along the edges of the box, but I don't see anything but pot shaped clumps of soil......I hope I didn't lose them.........but if I did, it will free up space for more ground covers.G

There are other narcissus but my attentions are pulled by the rising of those precious bells of the snowbells. These are of the galanthus gigantic variety, not the sweet tiny little snowbells. I have planted those after looking for them, and they were the first to arrive. Their larger cousins are now up, and from the looks of Mary Emma's yard yesterday, they reseed wherever they want to and with abandon. I can't wait!

Everywhere I had a spot, I plugged in muscari, and the little blue pointy heads of them have risen up and pull the eye to gaze upon their blueness. I appreciate each and every one. The ones in this box are two toned. DArker blue with a clean lower blue of the little grapes underneath, the ones in the pots are a lighter blue and more frilly when gazed at close proximity.

I have this habit of planting things you need to get down and get close to to appreciate their details. And speaking of details and my pots, the pots of phlox is all in full bloom now, and it's so neat to see how the prickley little leaves have popped open the soft lavender blue in the one herb jar, and the other pot has the Persian star darker one in it with the dark pink and darker pink eye, and the dianthus were smart enough to wait for the snows to come and go before setting their blossoms. I will soon be greeted at the driveway by the warming smells of cloves.......

Everywhere there is bursting signs of spring. The fairies have been up for nights and nights unwrapping each little leaf and opening up tiny little boxes of spring everywhere in all my beds. In the new bed around the old BBQ I had feared I'd lost the creeping golden Jenny, and I was sadly mistaken. I see the teensy golden leaves in little rivulets of fairy streams against the dark soil I used as filler last year. Sometimes I just want instant gratification and I will enclose an area and pour topsoil and such up to a foot or two so I can immediately plunge pots of perennials into it instead of digging down. When I dig here, I tend to come upon red clay that needs to be exposed for a few weeks to soften, and smooth glacial rocks and possibly boulders I don't know exist just below the surface as I'm finding are hidden under a few feet of soil.

So I build upwards.

In this bed I have planted artemesia against the bricks and what is the back of the bed, bulbs of narcissus, toes of irises, two Helenium plants that seem to like where they are if the clumps of leaves are an indication of their return again this year. Corners with broken and loved large lipped herb jars that I can't throw away, so I place the pot over soil and plunge bulbs and things into the openings...in pots at the back corner of this bed where it narrows and runs along the square pit, I have let it narrow, but have placed great pots of heuchera's that are happy in their confinements. Pathetic at the moment, their return will look much better when it's true spring.

Around the corner, at the back side of this bed was what started the thing in the first place.......I decided to plug the quarter plastic barrel that was planted in yellow primroses and some roots of perennial ageratum or blue mist flowers that I hope ramble thru the loose soils now that their freed up of the confining sides of the plastic barrel. (it was one quarter of a thick plastic barrel the trucking school uses as markers in the driving field, Squire cut one for a container for my huge Cerius cactus when the 25 gallon clay pot broke in the move here, and the other piece I used to plant perennials and such temporairly until we found a house back in 1992)

I have also planted varigated Queen of the Prairie in there, a clump of Bog sage (I'll regret that later on) a neat little daylily that I hope will thrill me when she sets blooms against the bricks of the southern side, and at the corner of the pit, I have placed a resin fairy a friend gave me for Christmas two years ago and at the other corner, another fairy of clay that Zhan sent me.

There are probably more perennials in there, in fact, I planted Lambs ears at the edge and they're fluffing up as I write.........G

Before I pass out in front of the keys, I will stop here, but I promise there are more boxes that are partially opened up and spilling out their contents.......GBG

until later?
madgardener up on the cold and frosty ridge, back in fairy holler, overlooking a nippy and crispy outlined English Mountain in Eastern Tennessee, zone 6b Sunset zone 36