It's that time again: overnight it feels like I've lost control of the garden. Where did all those weeds come from? When did that shrub grow so huge? How, how is there still so much of the veg to "turn over?" It's time like these, it's important to take a deep breath, pour a cup of joe, and remind myself that, one way or another, little by little, poco e poco, it does (mostly) all get done.
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I've been concentrating on cleaning up dead wood and pruning the past few days. Yesterday, I took three big branches off a youngish silver maple that stands very close to the Folly Wall project. Those branches have been overarching the garden area and casting too much shade. Gone.
Then I cut down the two remaining substantial-sized paper mulberries in the Asian/Fairy Glen area. Only about 2 inches in diameter at the base; swabbed the stumps with RoundUp and also pulled out, cut down about a dozen wispy suckers. I don't want to jump the gun, but it looks like the end of years of battling that paper mulberry is finally coming to an end. I want to remain vigilant though because if even one sucker is allowed to grow, it will soon start to throw out roots that create more suckers and we're back where we started. If I can get the Fairy Glen cleaned out, then I'll concentrate more fully on the paper mulberries on the South Border.
I cleaned out a lot dead wood from the east (back side) of the row of arborvitae that stand between the east end of the house and the slope where the Grape Arbor and Fairy Glen are. That spot gets very little sun and the dieback was pretty impressive. Fortunately, most of the wood was so brittle I simply tossed it on the ground and walked over it: instant mulch. The bigger stuff went on the brush fence.
The Japanese Maple I moved last fall from the Below the Deck Garden to the South Border is doing well, lots of new leaves. I took out some expected die-back but the tree looks overall healthy. I'll keep a close watch on it this year.
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This morning I got all the blooming Garlic Mustard out of the Pond Circle's north side. I was very surprised and pleased to see that there is no blooming Garlic Mustard at all in the northern area of the Pine Gap and the new Glade area. I did a major clean out there last summer and it did a lot of good. I'm sure there's going to be more garlic mustard sprouting in there because of the seed bank in the soil, but at least I've definitely broken the cycle a bit and hopefully I can keep ahead of it.
Dug over another section of the veg and planted a short row of Russet potatoes. I thought my Russets had "chitted" (sprouted eyes) pretty well, but when I got into the middle of the bag, no sprouts. So I planted what had sprouted and brought the rest back in the house to sit and chit.
No sign of germination in the 2nd sowing of carrots. I'm going to have to research viability of carrot seed. I'm starting to suspect it's no good after 1-2 years and I think my seeds are pushing that envelope. Seems odd that the first seeding showed sparse germination but I did mix in a newer packet of seed with the older....maybe only the small amount of newer seed sprouted?
Looks like covering the strawberries was a good idea; all the blossoms look good and plants are untouched by frost/freeze. It went down to 29F a couple nights ago. (I learned that if the centers of strawberry blossoms are yellow, they are fresh and unpollinated. Brown, they are pollinated and will soon form berries. Black they are frosted/frozen and will not produce fruit.)
Not seeing many bees at all. I'll have to ask Julie what's up with her hives? I wonder if she would want to move a hive up here to my property?
We've gone into a very cold spell; last night the temps dipped to 35F, tonight is forecast 33F. I brought in my tomato plants from the (unheated) greenhouse and I covered my strawberry bed, which is blossoming nicely. I'm hoping this will be enough to prevent my losing an entire crop of strawberries. I put a double layer of fleece and netting over the berry plants.
Today was a day off. I spent the entire day indoors, working at my job and catching up on Gardeners' World episodes on YouTube.
Yesterday I cleaned up the Mimosa tree near the deck steps, which shades the Jungle Cliff. It did not need much, just a single dead branch to be sawed out and some unruly new shoots pruned off. Then I cleaned up the Korean Dogwood just above the Mimosa, also in the Jungle Cliff. Then the big job: cleaning up the flowering crabapple on the lawn below the Jungle Cliff. It's a beautiful older tree, full of character because when I planted it, I decided not to stake it or train it in any way. Over the years, it's developed an amazing network of branches. Last fall, R took it into his head to "prune" the tree to shape it up. I thought he was only going to take out the tall watersprouts that were coming up from the center top of the tree, but he also cut back a lot of branches to give the tree a rather "mushroom" shape. Not my choice, but not that bad either. ... Until I took a closer look.
First I went thru and removed the long stubs he left everywhere, then I sawed out a single very thick branch that was stone dead. Then it was a lot of up and down the ladder cleaning out a lot more dead stuff. I thinned out the center of the tree a bit, removing the usual: crossed branches, branches growing inward, weirdly shaped branches. I've offered to give R a lesson in tree pruning, but he insists that since he trims our hedges every year, he knows how to do this.
Oh well.
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Not much else going on. The entire garden is absolutely beautiful. We moved from an amazing display of tulips (where did they all COME FROM???), to now full blossom time: apples, crabapples, pears, bush honeysuckle, autumn olives, lilacs. The fragrance is heavenly. And, for the very first time: My tree form wisteria is blooming! 
That plant has been in place in the Grape Arbor garden for years without ever blooming and I honestly thought I'd got a dud. Last winter I decided to give it one more year and then it would have to go. It must have heard me.
Another "first time bloomer" is the climbing hydrangea on one post of the grape arbor. Again, that has been there for years, growing ever so slowly from a very tiny cutting. This year, I see buds on it for the first time. I'm happy.
The word for the day, children, is "Stinky." Stinky is the theme, the trope, the motif if you will. Yesterday, driving east into town to get groceries I passed three enormous tankers hauling liquid cow manure. A second later, I hit the wall of smell that those tankers were laying down. Oh my dear lord. Rolling up the windows did no good. An entity, a Presence, a Juggernaut of a smell. Acres and acres, glistening with dark brown malodorous wetness. The speed limit in that section is 35 mph. Nobody was doing less than 80.
Fortunately, the wind stayed out of the west so we were spared the worst of it at my house, although there was a certain "whiff" in the air early this morning. 
Figuring since we're already stinky, might as well get out the deer repellent and spray the hostas, stumpery, etc. That stuff smells bad, but the odor fades pretty quickly. Unless of course you put on the backpack sprayer and then bend Waaaayyy Over so that about a pint of it squirts out the top and into your hair, shirt, down your back, and all over your neck. Then the stinky sort of lives with you until you shower. 
But there were those cookies that my friend dropped off yesterday, leftovers from a wedding reception. Mmmmmm. Sugar cookies. Except somebody had obviously had them too close to a scented candle or potpourri and the first bite tasted like wonderfully expensive soap. 
The chickens got them.
My gardening ethos has always been "can I find it for cheap/free?" Yesterday, *gulp* I actually spent....*shudder* money on something. I got a big load of (FREE) bricks that I want to lay down around the Pond. But I think that having the pond edged in native rocks will look a bit odd set against the formality of a brick path. So I've been trying to find some sort of "formal" looking edging for the pond and I found it yesterday at Lowe's. These curved concrete edgers that look like cobblestone paving. I .... bought.... them. They aren't perfect; their radius is smaller than the overall radius of the 8-foot diameter pond, but they will work and I think they will give me the look I want.
Got my Yukon Gold potatoes in the ground yesterday. The veg is saturated; I may be able to put in more potatoes later today, but other things will have to wait. Peas are up and doing well; I think I'll take off the protective fencing cages and put them onto regular "pea brush" support twigs.
Asparagus! For the first time in YEARS, I harvested asparagus. I got five nice spears and there are at least a few more coming on. Lots of little first-year spears, but only a few big enough to harvest. I am really surprised that the plants I put in last summer are doing so well; they are already equal in size to most of the 2-year plants.
Cleaned up a bit more in the Asian Garden, but the past couple days have been "run around" days, where I wasn't home much, doing errands. The To-Do list keeps getting longer.
Saturday I worked at finishing up the Folly Wall raised bed and it looks great. I got my husband to come on a "liberation run" to bring home an enormous long, flat stone and it went on as the capstone to finish that dismantled and rebuilt north wall of the raised bed. Job done. Raised bed looks good, pond looks reasonably level, and I moved forward by planting two nice little creeping phlox into the raised bed and then clearing off the area just below it and moving in clumps of Lamb's Ear (Stachys bizantina). Finally, a little forward progress there again.
I found that the old utility sink that I have set into the corner of the south raised bed is badly cracked. So much for that as a water feature. I was going to remove it, then decided to fit a smaller container inside it and backfill around it with soil. I can use the smaller container to hold water for a water plant (like papyrus or reeds) and the backfilled edge can hold bog plants that like it soggy but not standing water (like marsh marigold). I was lucky enough to get 4 plastic storage totes/tubs at Goodwill for only $3 each (they are missing lids, but I don't care about that). One of them is small enough to fit inside the sink; I want to put another one down (black plastic) into the soil next to the sink and THAT will be the water feature. Once I get some plants growing around the containers to disguise the edges it should look good.
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Sunday was beautiful; still breezy and far too hot (we got to 80F) for mid-April, but I gave myself up to a day of "peripatetic gardening." Instead of following any sort of plan or to-do list, I put on my tool belt and gloves and just wandered all over the place, doing whatever came to hand. I LOVE this sort of gardening. This is gardening as it should be, for me. I moved a few hyacinths to close to the deck steps (where I can enjoy their fragrance next spring), put some baby hostas into the ground in the Grape Arbor garden, put two more into pots for the Pot Corral. When the sun got a bit too intense, I concentrated on tidying up the Grape Arbor garden and worked my way back as far as the Asian Garden.
We had thunderstorms roll through last night and some rain. I've got a deadline project to work on, the world is very wet right now, and I dont' know if I'll get into the garden today. If I do, I'll pick up where I left off, tidying the Asian Garden (lots of Annual bluegrass (Poa annua)).
My Bibb lettuce is up and growing. I moved the tomato plants into the greenhouse yesterday to begin their hardening off period. I still need to move a lot of stuff out of the greenhouse and get it better organized. it's really filling up with plants now!
