Spring garden

Same Campanula on March 25

Campanula on March 15

Cold has rolled in for the last few days, but you couldn't tell it from the growth in the garden.  Despite the cold, the perennials and herbs are rising taller by the day. Even my propagated plants are making big progress. When I moved here I brought many plants with me from New York. I should add, very cold and rocky New York. Some of the plants struggled to survive there at all. My previous garden was a beautiful shade garden, sheltered by huge trees over a hundred feet tall ,with funnels of light strong enough to support a few sun-loving flowering plants. Divisions of every substantial plant I had in New York came with me, many of them thankful for new residence. On a walk through the garden today I found that quite of few of them are flourishing in a way that they failed to do in the rocks and the shade of our previous digs. This Campanula arrived at the shore with four or five leaves. It has spread out to the large ground covering mat it is supposed to assume. Come late spring purple bells should be adorning tall stalks; a great companion for orange day lilies.

Stella D'Oro Daylilies March 15

Orange native daylilies March 15

                   

Because my New York divisions were shade plants I had a ton of Daylilies. Daylilies are my idea of the perfect plant. They tolerate a plethora of growing situations. They are beautiful, healthy, hard to kill, and can create a killer color show if you have enough of them. Time them right, and you can fill your garden with color for just about the whole season.  Many of mine are darn big already, others like the small yellow-orange Stella D'Oros are still very diminutive. Some of that difference in size has to do with where they are planted. I find that comparing the growth at this time of year gives me a lot of information about the ambient light in the spot they reside in, and I use that as a guideline for other plantings. For example, take the native orange daylily. If it is tall in one spot and short in another spot on the same given day, there is a reason why one is short and one is taller. At this time of year my guess would be that the shorter one gets less light and is a colder spot. The native species are about ten inches tall already, as seen in the photo above, and many are being surrounded by the campanula mat...all good in my estimation. Ground cover is my friend! Giant yellow scented daylilies, are planted in along with the orange ones and they are bigger yet, though planted in the same place. Hence some differences in size are purely due to differences in species.

Hostas on March 15

Hosta growth in same plant ten days later, March 25

My early Hostas, Plantain Lilies, sometimes called Funkia are crusing right along here. Its only March 25 and they are up. I definitely would not be seeing them popping out of the ground for at least another six weeks in New York. Above  is what they looked like on  March 15. Today on my garden stroll I found them growing like crazy, as seen on the right here. In this case too the variety is effecting the time of emersion from its winter hibernation. Hosta was one of the major players in my shade garden so I brought a great collection of them with me. The collection ranged from a tiny three to four inches tall variety to very tall four feet by four feet wide variety that has giant leaves with lots of crinkly definition and blue color with huge white bell shaped blooms born high over the plant.  

Starting a new garden in a new location is quite a learning experience. All the rules change. In this case I went from a shady, rocky garden with lots of clay, little soil and tons of tree roots, to a sandy, dry, extremely windy location that is pervaded by wire grass and is totally devoid of organic material. So there is my mandate. Lets see how it goes...