LysmachiaMoon's blog: Green time before the explosion

Right now, it's the "green time" in my garden, that period between the great early blast of color from the spring bulbs and the blossoming trees and the big explosion of color that comes from the early summer performers. The very first of the pale lilac-colored iris (Iris pallidum) are open, the peony buds are big fat globes. I spent most of yesterday afternoon setting up my "peony girdles." I found that the best way to support top heavy peonies in full bloom is to simply drive in two sturdy post at 2 and 10 o'clock, then run a length of fencing between them, to form a sort of supporting girdle about halfway up the plant. The flowers still flop a bit over the fence, but they don't sprawl onto the ground and the look is natural. After a couple of days you can't even see the stakes and fencing.

Right now, the stars of the garden are the tree peonies. My white tree peony is in full bloom and is absolutely glorious this year. The pink bloomed (2 gigantic flowers) early, in late April, followed by the red which is just now going over. No buds on the yellow, but it's looking very strong and healthy after being moved in 2021. If I spend $$$ on my garden this year, it's going to be on getting another tree peony! They are slow growers and take a while to get flowering, but once they do, they are amazing. I'm so pleased that the pink bloomed; I really thought I'd killed it a few years ago, but it came back as a tiny stem and has been growing well since. One of its flowers was a full 8 inches across!

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Put in another line of potatoes (russets) and a short line of peas (Laxton Progress, from a packet someone gave me). I desperately need to weed my strawberry bed. I had been admiring it as I walked by for weeks now, thinking wow it's really growing well....then I realized yesterday that a lot of what I thought was strawberries is in fact the "wild strawberry" that produces those little yellow flowers and inedible fruit. In addition to the garlic mustard, for some reason that wild strawberry has also become a rampant weed this year. It's everywhere and growing like mad.
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Got to work on some of that couch grass. I snipped it off to about 2-3 inches all along the Veg Front Flower Border and sprayed it with Roundup. Seems simple, but it took all day. First, i couldn't find the spray bottle filled with Roundup. I found another one, cleaned it out, mixed new solution, filled it. I got 2 squirts out of it before the handle broke. Found another sprayer, an empty gallon sprayer that something or other came in. Cleaned that out, tested it, it worked great. Filled it, got maybe 6 squirts out of it before it stopped. Took it apart, cleaned it, etc. etc. No go. Found the original spray bottle I had been hunting for. Yay! Got 3 squirts and it broke. Finally, I got a mostly empty tiny spray bottle of hair product and used that. My vow: Dig out each and every spray bottle/container in the entire property, test it rigorously, and toss it if it doesn't work. I'm going to save the empty spray bottles from cleaning products and use those rather than buy more of these bottles that either don't work or stop working after a few uses.
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The South Long Border, where my white tree peony is in full bloom, was looking a bit ragged and i thought she deserved a better setting so I got out the hoe and cleaned up a foot-wide strip along the edge of the bed and tidied up the cut line of the edge. With a newly sharpened hoe, it took about 40 minutes and it looks terrific. And most of the weed was that same wild strawberry. Today I want to do the mirroring bed that runs along the outside of the south side of the veg. That bed is only about half as long as the South Long Border.
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Our township is providing free mulch again! YAY! During the winter the entire mountain of mulch disappeared and we were told that a company bought it AND the big grinding machinery as well. For a while, we were concerned that the days of free mulch were over, but the man at the recycling center told me to help myself, that they were back in business. I was up there to drop off some recyclables and it was a very busy day so I did not get any details, but I'm so relieved. Me and several other people I know really depended on that mulch. I only had two big tubs with me, so I filled those with mulch. I also got a big bag of grass clippings to mulch my early cabbages. I plan to make a trip up there on Thursday and bring home as much as I can haul.
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Finally, in honor of King Charles III, I've decided to call the new bit of garden under the old apple tree the Coronation Garden. Wasn't that ceremony something? I thought the choice of Penny Mordaunt to carry the sword of state and present it to the king was inspired. And that outfit she wore was so absolutely perfect: teal blue with gold palm leave designs on the shoulders and matching headpiece. The whole look was so very "Lady of the Lake" and who better to present the sword to the king? I think she stole the show. God Save the King!

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