This week in the garden: Signs of Life

Posted on April 7, 2019 by John Kevin Hickey

Most of my garden is still quiescent, but there are signs of that it is breaking its winter dormancy. Seemingly overnight numerous shoots have started pushing through the ground. With the detritus from last years garden removed the soil is no longer shaded, allowing it to warm up and triggering the plants to reach for the sun.

Rocky Mountain Columbine spreading its leaves.

As you can see, a great many of plants that are coming up are bulbs. I’m not really a bulb person, but I understand their appeal. After months of cold and drear, seeing a spot of color in the garden can cause euphoria, no matter how short-lived that euphoria might be. The problem I have with bulbs is that their bloom times are so short that if one isn’t paying attention you can completely miss them. That is assuming a mid-spring snowstorm doesn’t destroy the blooms before they even get started. So, even though I am not a big fan of bulbs I still try to plant a few every autumn. To quote Avengers: Age of Ultron, “a thing isn’t beautiful because it lasts”.

The little green shoots in the back are Spanish Bluebells (Hyacinthoides hispanica). I planted them several years ago, but they only started blooming last year. Weather permitting hopefully they do better this year. The grey/green plant in the foreground is “Basket of gold” ( Aurinia saxatilis ) that should bloom in about a month or so.

One thing you might have noticed in all these pics is even though I’ve cleaned up the garden there are still a lot of twigs and leaves left over. This is for two reasons. One, I’m much too lazy to spend the energy it would require to make my garden look like something out of a magazine spread. Two, leaving twigs and stems in the yard is good for the birdies. They use them to make their nests. So it’s a twofer: I’m helping the environment and saving my back. Win-win all around.

Ornamental onions (Allium) on the left and False Forget-me-mot (Brunnera macrophylla) on the right. I use Brunneras in the shadier parts of my garden because they somewhat resemble Hostas but are much more drought tolerant, which is important in my semi-desert region of the country.

The only fly in the ointment so far is the weeds. They have gotten a big head start on the rest of the garden in breaking their dormancy. That human ability to forget the bad things in life often extends to gardening. Every spring I am shocked at how fast and furious the damn weeds spring up, and I get so busy trying to eliminate them I rarely have time to actually enjoy the garden.

Damn weeds getting a jumpstart on the other plants in the garden.

I went ahead and pulled the tarps off of the patio furniture and got the cushions from out of storage this week. Perhaps you’re thinking; “isn’t that a little premature MrVintageMan? After all, April in the 2nd snowiest month in Colorado”. You might be right, but I got sick and tired of looking at the boring tarps, and I want to be able to sit on the patio when the days are warm and sunny. Should we get hit by a spring blizzard in the meantime, so be it. That’s springtime in the Rockies for you: heavy coat and mittens in the morning, flip-flops and shorts in the afternoon.

Nothing says spring like breaking out your patio furniture. I don’t care what the thermometer says or the fact that April is the 2nd snowiest month in Colorado.
It’s Springtime, dammit! So, by God, I am going to act like it’s spring.
First bloom of Spring: crocuses entertain a visitor.

So that’s it for this week. Would love to hear any comments or suggestions. If you would like to have pictures of your garden posted on my blog, send your photos and descriptions to Mrvintageman2@gmail.com

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