S'up planting?

Now that yesterday’s invasion of British Columbia smoke has passed through, the Better Half is planting annuals in the planters next to the front stoop. The question is: will we or won’t we have to cover them one or more nights during the next few weeks to protect them from frost? Only time and temperatures will tell.

our patchy back yard

Photo by J. Harrington

Yours truly has adopted a modified No Mow May regime. The back yard needed to get pocket gopher mounds harrowed level. Leaf cover was sparse compared to the nearby woods. We mowed after we harrowed and the place looks better and we can try over seeding bare spots and watch for fresh mounds so we’ll know where to set traps. Meanwhile, in the front yard, No Mow May continues because we don’t want to mow the violets among the ground ivy. I wonder if any native species of ground cover adapted to shade coud outcompete it.

The planting plan we were beginning to develop yesterday has hit a major setback. We can find neither plants nor seeds for either species of Draba we hoped to plant: Draba reptans (Carolina Whitlow-grass) and/or Draba nemorosa (Yellow Whitlow-grass). We’ll keep looking but it is discouraging. On the other hand, trying to sort out better alternatives to non-native turf grasses is kind of fun. I just wish I’d started 20 or 30 years ago instead of relying on benign neglect.

Now it’s time to replant bergamot seeds and see if there's success this round.

Planting the Meadow

By Mary Makofske

I leave the formal garden of schedules 

where hours hedge me, clip the errant sprigs 

of thought, and day after day, a boxwood 

topiary hunt chases a green fox 

never caught. No voice calls me to order 

as I enter a dream of meadow, kneel 

to earth and, moving east to west, second 

the motion only of the sun. I plant 

frail seedlings in the unplowed field, trusting 

the wildness hidden in their hearts. Spring light 

sprawls across false indigo and hyssop, 

daisies, flax. Clouds form, dissolve, withhold 

or promise rain. In time, outside of time, 

the unkempt afternoons fill up with flowers.

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