Harbingers of Spring: Daffodils

I'm a blogger for Main Life Gardening, a garden center near Philadelphia, contributing an essay or two per week to their website. I think you will enjoy my essay, Harbingers of Spring, posted to their site today (click the underlined words to read the essay.)

Yesterday the temperatures soared into the 60s again, so we spent about an hour and a half cleaning up the flower garden.  Last year the weeds had overtaken a section near the back along the treeline where we had planted wisteria and forsythia.  Along with the weeds come the brambles - wild blackberries along with other thorn-filled plants that send runners underground and emerge with long, pliable stems replete with thorns several centimeters long. Once those plants appear, we're in trouble.  The only way to get rid of them is to dig them out entirely.  We use a pick axe on the hard clay soil and dig, dig and dig.  I wear heavy suede gardening gloves.  My job is to pull the thorny stems up and discard them in the woods.  I always get stung by the thorns and develop a rash for an hour or two afterward.  It's really no fun.

But tackling these tough chores now is the best course of action.  In a few weeks, the ticks emerge, and clearing brush and weeds when the ticks are out just isn't smart. It's cold enough at night and warm enough during the day to keep those ugly, disease-ridden insects at bay, plus we're still wearing long sleeved shirts to protect our skin.  When it gets hot in Virginia, it gets hot - and even though ticks are a risk, I can't garden in a long sleeves shirt when it's hot!

Despite feeling sore and tired from all that weeding, we did uncover a surprise.  More spring bulbs were hidden underneath all the weeds along with daylilies that crept down from the hillside to naturalize on the forest edge.  We dug up the daylilies since they were growing where we are going to continue the pathways this spring.  We moved them into position underneath the forsythia, where we're trying to have a nice band of yellow starting in early spring, then continuing with orange-yellow daylilies during the summer.

Last night we made up another garden catalog order. We are adding more trees to the property - as if 13 acres or so of timber and 2 acres of hardwoods aren't enough - and adding a few Colorado spruce, more redbuds, and magnolias to the property.  I've got a "matchstick" mum on order, what my dad used to call a "spoon" mum because the petal ends have little spoons on them, and we ordered tons of ground cover plants. Our latest plan (to avoid weeding next year) is to plant lots of perennial ground covers such as sedum, phlox, and Mother of Thyme on the slopes.  We noticed that in spots where the ground cover has taken over, such as the pink Evening Primrose, it chokes out the weeds.  Any plant that prevents weeds from taking over the garden is a friend of mine for sure!

Please enjoy the essay today on daffodils and spring bulbs over at Main Line Gardening.

Daffodils in the Orchard

The 400+ bulbs we planted in the fruit orchard are blooming. They are blooming in successive waves, rather than one gigantic "hurrah!" First came the yellow crocus around the fruit trees, then the purple and purple striped. Next the clusters of daffodils began to bloom, starting at the top of the hill - the western end of the orchard - with more blossoms unfurling daily, marching steadily eastward. Over the years, we hope the daffodils naturalize and spread, creating a golden carpet under showers of pink and white apple, peach, pear and plum blossoms.


Enjoy the photos, taken yesterday before last night's amazing and scary thunderstorms. The fruit trees are still small and caged in chicken wire to keep deer from nibbling.

Over 400 Spring Bulbs to Plant

That's not a typo. We bought 430 spring bulbs to plant around Seven Oaks.

Many years ago, I got a book out of the library filled with landscaping ideas. One glossy color photo captured our attention. It showed an orchard of apple trees. Planted among the floweirng apples trees were daffodils, grape hyacinth, crocus...a living carpet of yellow, purple, white, buzzing with bees while the dainty pink apple blossoms swayed above.



We were absolutely captivated by that image, and we wanted to recreate it when we finally could. Now's our chance...

Last year, I planted just about a dozen King Alfred bulbs in the orchard. A few came up. This photo is from last year (the one above is from Morguefile - but what we aspire to!)



According to the book, the spring flowers flourish in the orchard. Sunlight nurtures them until the trees leaf out, and by the time the grass grows high enough to need mowing, the bulbs are finished for the year.

So that is what was are doing here.

We bought 100 King Alfred Daffodils, and 100 of a professional landscaping mix for naturalizing. We bought 100 crocus and another 100 grape hyacinths.

And the remaining 30?

I love tulips. I can't be without them. Fifteen mixed pastel tulips will be planted near the deck, alongside 15 mixed color hyacinths for their heavenly smell.

The deer love to graze in our orchard, and ever night, the mama deer with the crooked leg and her two almost-grown fawns graze among the apple trees. We picked the daffodils for the wide open areas for the most important reason: they're deer resistant!

Now on to planting them....I wonder how long that's going to take?!

So what does 400+ bulbs look like? Like this!