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Spring doings, major garden accomplishments and spring is bursting out up in Fairy holler
Last night as I drove home thru the back roads, after stopping at a local
Wally to get supper fixin's, I remembered there was one spot that, once I crossed the 4 way stop sign, a house on the corner lot which is surrounded by woods and has a hill that rises above it on the south side has a spring boggy, marshy spot. The road curves deeply on the right of it and then snakes back to the left in another deep curve, and rises above the property. Down the drop from the road, the land holds water. Enough that a perennial family of mallards and other ducks return every year to mate and raise a brood. They are protected, have enough food, and feel safe enough to come back every year. I've noticed this every year since I discovered it 11 years ago when I tried out a back road from my house. Lately I've begun noticing something else too, and this was the reason as I approached the stop sign, to get my cell phone and hope the signal was strong enough to make one call. A week ago, when going TO Wally from the back road, and drove the winding road to the spot, I was overwhelmed by the sounds that rose to greet me in my vehicle thru the rolled up windows. Last night, the sounds were even more raucous and loud. So loud it was almost deafening. The waters lately have harbored hundreds perhaps almost a thousand or so frogs and peepers. Their chorus of high pitched trills is so loud and echoing in this little nook nestled against the bottom of a hill, and surrounded by woods that I wonder how on earth the people who live in the house stand it and also hope like hell that they never get disgusted enough to do something about it to make it "less noisy". The sound cut right thru the glass of the car, and thru the glass it was loud. I pulled over to the narrow shoulder on the first deep curve that also has woods and scrubby brush bordering it with a sharp ditch drop just inches away from the old asphalt road and was seeking the phone number of my best friend out in Oregon. I wanted Diane to hear the cacophony of sound from the cell phone if she was home. I pushed the number next to her name and connected it and hit the speaker button on the side and then rolled down the glass. Instantly the sound surrounded, over came, smothered and blasted me out. It was awesome!!! They were all in full throat and singing to the heavens and every female within a possible radius of a mile it seemed. I listened to the ringing of the phone and when her husband's voice came on on the answering machine, I waited for the beep and then gave this message, "I just called from East Tennessee to share some true spring songs, I hope you can hear this and enjoy it. It's really this loud" and immediately stuck my arm outside the window to pick up the sound better. I did this and slowly eased up the edge of the deep curve and it got even louder. I then closed the phone and drove off to what I knew was waiting for me at the house. Earlier I had called oldest son at home on his day off to tell him there was a package coming from Carroll Gardens up in Maryland. (YES, he has a job, and it's at another Lowes in plumbing, woo hoo!!G) He informed me that a package had already arrived. And it was large enough to hold a small child. I told him it must be Diane, and he sounded shocked and amused when I told him they had folded up a small person named Diane and sent it to me....GBSEG So when I got home, he comes downstairs to get the bags of supper making's, a stuffed sauce cheesy pizza and extra stuff to pile up on top, and informed me that "Diane" was waiting by the nook door against the chimney. In the light next to the screen door that comes on when you drive up, I saw immediately a four and a half foot tree gently tied to a five foot bamboo pole painted green, in a large three gallon plastic bag and glowing. There were magenta pink/red blossoms all along the stems that were tied against the trunk. And the trunk........wow! It was almost three inches thick at the base. I was excited, so I called my friend, Diane out in Oregon and told her that I had gotten a witch hazel named Diane that had red flowers. I also told her to listen to her answering machine to see if there was an odd message for her from me, and we parted since she was doing her earth mother things with her four children and her hectic life out there in the land of growing things. She gardens too, only on a scale that sometimes puts me to shame since she also grows a veggie garden to supplement her produce as she's a vegetarian and been one for as long as I've known her. This morning as I woke early to the sounds of shouting birds in every song imaginable that cut thru the closed window, I rolled off the warm waterbed and opened up the window and the sounds came rushing into the room, along with a fresh burst of cold, moist, smelling like damp earth and spring air. I hunted around for the glasses case and my specs, and after putting them on, looked out the window to the flower garden outside the window on the south side of the house next to the shared driveway. Despite my cutting of every narcissus that was blooming the other night to save from the hard freeze we got, there were more arrivals outside my window. The cold marble on my arms as I leaned up against the window, I am amazed at the growth in just a few days of warm sunshine and cold nights. More little shoots of Frakartii asters that I remind myself that I must lift and transplant to other places......then I remember the red witch hazel, Diane that must be planted. The fairies whisperings are subtle but suggestive as I heard them subconsciously and considered their mumblings as my own thoughts and I moved towards the nook. Rose and Sugar were already reading my body language and had almost knocked me over in the hallway as I remembered I needed shoes and searched for the slip on's I have somewhere. Ahhhh, found them, my feet sliding into comfortable shoes that I found at Wally for a couple of dollars, I pop pop pop down the hallway again, this time the girlz are so stirred up they almost knock me off my feet, and I reach the door and unlatch the screen door to release them and Rose bursts thru the door all on her own, Sugar hesitates, looking up at me with those eyes of hers that are so wise and thoughtful like she's asking "can I go instead of staying by your side? I'd rather hang with you but I'll behave, honest". I coaxed her to go on, and she nosed her face past the closing screen door edge and bounced outside into the early spring morning. I sucked in my breath as the "nightsticks" (tails)passed by in a blur and exhaled as they got past the little sapling bush just bursting with red ribbons. "Yep, DEFINITELY time to plant her before the girls in their rough-housing around break it like they did my Harry Lauder's Walking stick " I mumbled to myself and the fairies who were listening as I picked the bush up by the neck and went to get the new weapon against the soil and this ridge. I have a new spade. A Fiskars wide step, life-time guaranteed, sharpened fiberglass and steel shovel. I find it under the eaves of the side porch near the swing and pick it up by the neck as well and start the steep decent to the first terrace. I have already decided where she'll go. There is an overhang and mini cliff that I've planted beautyberry, Sand cherry, and Scotch Broom along the tops of rocks where there used to be towering Jack Pines. The pines are now not only cut, but one has crumbled and the branches of Mary Emma's huge Black Knight buddleia she dug up for me three years ago was broken in the older trunk twisting and falling. It needed pruning anyway. Same with the lilac and orange throated thug I dug up on the same day with roots the size of my wrist or larger. Next to the tomato/perennial box is a small boulder jutting out of the soil, and it's next to a semi exposed piece of corrugated drain pipe that has worked its way up thru the soil it was covered by. I chunk into the soil and the sharp blade cuts thru it like a hot knife thru butter. I get a great sense of relief as I make a perfect hole next to a stump of a cut cedar and start untying each restraining piece of twine that has so lovingly been tied around the bamboo and bush to keep the arms from getting broken. There are six. It's almost 5 foot tall already and according to the tag, it will get six foot by six foot. Good. It will make a curtain at the end of the box. I don't care. I plant insanely with no thought and as things grow and mature and settle in, it somehow works. If it doesn't, I move it later. Now that I've planted Diane, I start looking at all the signs of spring around me. The fairies tell me to slow down and just SEE what they have prepared and waken for me. That makes me decide to run inside and grab the camera. All stoned on spring, I am once again almost knocked over by the marauding, blustery dawgs. Snatch the camera off the support hook under the shelf, I turn and book back out the screen door, startling the dawgs and making them crazzzie and start playing and growling and gargling marbles as they rough each other up across the boardwalk that leads out my nook and the den door. Boogie back down the dog run that cuts thru the back of the raised beds and in front of the house, hook right and skid to a stop as I see BLUE. Wait, wait, back to the nook entrance and decide to capture the Black cherry shade garden. Oh joy!! The little micro-climate has encouraged the Virginia bluebells to bud and start to open. And the primroses I planted two weeks ago are blooming strongly. There was three colors in one pot, I grabbed it. Now if only it would return for me next year......... I start taking early morning pictures. Awesome ones. I hunker down (no easy task for a fat little hippie) and take fairy view pictures of the Hellebores. And move westward, stopping at showings of flowers seemingly everywhere. and they are everywhere. Peeping outa every pot almost of perennials I have in open spots in front of the long raised bed. I grab the trowel and the two pots of Arabis and dig up a clump of Frakartii aster and when I tip out the rock cress, I replace the aster in the pot to hold until I plug it somewhere else to spread. Take a picture of some snowdrop galanthus that are awesome, each little dot of green like perfection on every tip of every little lampshade like blossom. One can almost hear the titters of laughter of the fairies as I squat down and balance against the landscape timbers that need replacement soon. That close to where the hole is that Sugar left behind when she dug up next to the kniphofia I see there is just enough hollow left to sit a peony that Mary Emma had me dig up when I dug up 9 tree peonies. The distraction of the fairies insistence is strong. I rise and turn off the camera and go find the peony. It has pointy little red sprouts poking up from the clod of earth and thick roots. It fits perfectly. Like it was made for that particular spot. Back to where I was, I look at the massive 15 gallon broken black nursery pot that houses the straggly Iberis and three different lilac's I'd heeled in last year. Hmmmmm, with the dolly my dad left me, I could wheel it over to the side yard and plug them in next to the other lilac. Noooo, wait, maybe if I use the new shovel to try and dig up some more of that ancient forsythia..........YEAH! " I sit the camera between the two window boxes that is quickly filling up with bulb shoots, and go down the driveway to retrieve the dolly. It's an old one. Weighs about 20 pounds and made of solid metal and heavy thick rubber tires. It'll move a double door fridge or a boulder if given the chance. It's a real hand truck that is older than me that my dad had. I tried to shove the edge of the steel plate up under the massive broken pot, and finally managed to lift the edge enough to dislodge it from the suction of the soil and plastic pot. Trying to load it onto the dolly's edge by myself was too much the first time. I lost my hold, flew over the dolly and landed on my right wrist and butt in the driveway. I was lucky. The wrist wasn't broken. So I caught my breath and let Sugar give me a patronizing kiss as she rushed over to me from her spot in the shade on the opposite side of the driveway where Jerry's Firethorn grows along a dogwire fence. Ok, one more time with feeeeling..........I grunt and shove and manage to get the heavy pot onto the wide lip and then slowly lift and push the dolly down until it's lying flat, the pot and bushes balanced. Grab the handle and start to roll it towards the side yard. And get a brilliant idea. Or not. The Fiskar spade comes out and I start jumping on the edge and prying the stump of the 30+ year old Forsythia I've been trying for 10 months to dig up. I've been using the heavy mattock but was wearing out but I knew if I was going to get it out of the soil, now was the time while the ground was tender from the freeze and winter. As I carefully shoved and maneuvered the blade under the root, I thought to myself that if I broke it, Fiskar would be freaked out that I'd only had it two weeks and already killed it before they replaced it. But I carefully levered it and suddenly I heard the most satisfying thunk deep in the soil you've ever heard. I actually whooped!. Working around the stump, I managed to sever everything and finally lifted the whole thing out of the grasp of the red clay and turned it over. Delirious, I ran to get the camera and take a picture of my accomplishment. Rose rushed over to snatch up any fat grubs that I'd uncovered. And some larval thing that was as large as my thumb with scratchy feet and tan looking that she chomps and smacks like peanut butter when she comes across them. Sugar was fascinated. But unsure if she wanted it and Rose had her treat. Three of them to be exact. Now I had a hole to put the lilac's into and they'd get full benefit of southern and western exposure. If I don't like them there, I'll plant them next to the older lilac and I'll have a lilac bush that has four different kinds of blossoms. I may still do it. But for now the hole is filled back up and it works. Once I realized it was later than I realized, I went in to get my first glass of sweet tea and eat a Navel orange and banana. Refreshed and energized, I decided to finish taking the pictures of everything and download the pictures and label and clean them all up. That took an hour, and when I was finished, I started writing my update to ya'll when I decided I wasn't quite through. Back outside I went straight to the two piles of dry brush that I'd raked out of the beds a few weeks back. Then I gathered the dry and brittle stalks of the Lemon Queen Heliopsis and piled them in the driveway. This reminded me that I needed to cut the Zebra grass and burn it. I'd burn it where it grows but I have crape myrtles and a Sherbet colored trumpet vine growing close to it. I'll have to cut the grasses and burn the debris in the driveway later. Spring is bursting out all over Fairy Holler. Every variety of spirea is leafing out, some more than others. Looking like flaming yellow orange leaves, others dotted with fresh green all along the stems of the older ones. The Oakleaf hydrangea has leaf shoots poking out just under spent blossoms that I quickly broke off and tossed into the neighboring compost pile that needs a few buckets of fresh cow pies....that'll be tomorrow, rain or shine.g The variegated blue lacecap hydrangea has white edged leaves all along it's branches and I've set a rock on the branch that started roots to make a daughter bush to plant somewhere else later when it grabs the soil. My 16 foot YOSHINO CHERRY tree I got last year and drove home sticking outa my car window doing 10 MPH on old highway 66 is blooming!!!!!! Where's the camera??? Awesome!! But sad to say the twisted filbert has been destroyed and the evidence is the seven straight shoots coming from the roots. I'll have to clip them and hope what comes up later is twisted. There is enough wood debris to have a bonfire for days. Massive logs of fallen Jack pines litter the floor below the last woods room. Striped shoots of Bengal Tiger cannas are poking out of the mucky, gray water fed area, and I need to find the rose gloves to remove the ripped out canes of blackberry when I cleaned it a few weeks ago. The Chinese almond bush I thought I'd lost is fine and bud tight. Little pink balls with just two or three blossoms that look like miniature roses are starting to pop out where I planted it in front of the western end of the front beds. Everywhere I see the soil filling up with shoots. Daylilies are already six inches tall. And the damage where Sugar did some of her worst in the tomato/perennial boxes is showing me emerging's of shy remnants of roots of the many plants I plugged in the box last spring and summer. Varigated Wiegelia has leaflets on it, the Loripedilum has survived and looks like it's making buds, Diablo ninebark is budding, Wine and Roses wiegelia has teeny little leaf buds on it as well. I look at the dawgs lying under the shade of the bushes that line the drive on my neighbor's side and go get the rake and pile up the dry debris in the center of the driveway and go hunt for a match. After the stuff burns, I tell the girls lets go in the house, and find the camera, put away the shovel, rakes and claw weeder. Take pictures of the fattening up sempervivums that Micki sent me babies of 29 different varieties last year that have wintered in little pots on my deck. I only lost one pot this winter. The twice blooming irises are ready to be plugged into a spot to mature and bloom for me, sitting patiently on the deck under the pots of semps. And those irises in the windowbox I nailed to the railing next to the kitchen door need lifting out of the box and placed somewhere they will bloom. they refuse to ever since I planted them there but are healthy other than that. So now I can go inside and get another glass of tea and fix myself a sammich and tell ya'll all about my first spring day in the fairy gardens. And I think I got my first sunburn. I wore a halter today it was so glorious. Life is good! Now all I hafta do is drive into the city and get a replacement handle for my watering wand, plant those irises, pick up all the limbs and twigs and wood in the various places and pile it in the burn pile, collect cow pies and put them on top of the rotting bags of leaves I salvaged under the deck from a haul I'd done a couple years ago and they'd sat quietly in their plastic bags decomposing. Plug in the weedeater and whack some edges, transplant a few plants that have jumped outa boxes into the narrow pathways, and replace the landscape timbers with those composite landscape timbers we have one at a time. Maybe by the time I have replaced them all, I will have the bracket kit that you can attach to these timbers and turn those 18 inch stepping stones into sides and raise up the backs of the front beds....I'll let you know if I do this. Just the timbers alone will take me a month or so to replace along the edges of these front beds. I hope Spring's soft breath is blowing gently on every bulb and plant where you are and are wakening up to thrill you as much as it does me. Until later, my friends, madgardener, up on the ridge, back in Fairy Holler, overlooking a greening up English Mountain in Eastern Tennessee, zone 7, Sunset zone 36 where it got up to 77o today! |
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