Where the #$%@ is spring??

Another 1-3 inches of snow again?!

The forecast calls for snow again tomorrow! This will be the fourth time it has snowed here in the past two weeks. The average last snow date in this part of Iowa is around the end of March, which isn't to say that it never snows in April -- just not four times! And April 18th is getting to be pretty late in April for snow -- by this time last year, temperatures were nearly 80°F.

But I'm hopeful that this will be the last time it snows this spring, and that warmer days are coming after tomorrow. The ten-day forecast looks pretty good: mostly sunny and temperatures in the 50s and 60s, which is what they should be in mid-April.

Despite the frequent bouts of snow, a few stalwart bulbs have been blooming, although not completely unaffected by the unusually cold temperatures:

Daffodils next to the house in a south-facing border.

More daffs on the east side of our house.

Some hyacinths are blooming in the North Border, although I think the cold has stunted their growth. They're only a few inches tall and look ridiculously stubby. But they still smell nice though, way down next to the ground.

These crown imperial fritillarias are similarly afflicted -- not quite blooming yet, but still only about ten inches in height. They don't smell as nice as the hyacinths. :-)

I'm hoping that the sun and warmth will encourage more perennials and bulbs to emerge from the ground. Things are definitely coming up in some areas, but not everything yet, and not everywhere.

It's not just that I want to enjoy warm spring days -- although I do, of course. But also, I'm itching to get started on the new garden area that I'm planning. And I can't do that until I can move some perennials and late bulbs around, which I can't do until they're all up and I can see where they are. It's kind of frustrating -- I feel sure you understand.

Plus, I'm also worried that I have so many things that I want to do in the gardens this spring, and that despite the late start to spring, it will still get too hot to work outside comfortably, and move plants safely, by the end of May as usual. We may only have a five week window to work, which sounds like an awfully short time to get everything done.

I have already been able to work outside a few times this spring. Several days in March were nice enough to start cutting back and raking out borders. And then last Thursday was the first pleasant day since March: 75° and sunny! It was a glorious respite from the cold (but alas, followed by more cold, rain and snow last weekend). I did get quite a bit done (and enjoyed being outside doing it) on that beautiful day, though.

And today was pretty nice, nearly 50° and sunny, so I pruned my roses and did a few other things outside. With any luck, there'll be more days like today later in the week, and I'll soon be able to get started on my garden plans, which I will tell you about in a post soon.

I hope you are finally enjoying some warmer days in in your own gardens, and spring is arriving for you with beautiful weather and many spring flowers. Thanks for reading! -Beth

Greenhouse Travails: How do I make this thing functional?

93°F, and it wasn't even that sunny. Yikes!

I've been trying to figure out how to make the most of my new 4'x6' greenhouse, and it's been a saga of uncertainty and adjustments. I hope I'm on the right track though.

Here's a timeline of my progress:

August 2017: Brand-new and all in one piece. What could go wrong?

October 2017: Knowing the fierce winds on my hilltop location, I had the foresight to get my builder to make a solid base to attach the greenhouse frame to the south side of my garage. So the frame stayed in place. The same can't be said for the polycarbonate panels and the door (seen leaning inside), all of which blew off in what was actually not a very high wind.
They were strewn across the lawn. Sigh.

November 2017: I used two rolls of tape to bind the polycarbonate panels in place.

March 2018: Last month, since a few panels continued to come loose despite the tape, I wrapped the entire lower part of the greenhouse in a single 15-foot-long sheet of heavy plastic. Not pretty, but now the lower panels aren't going anywhere.

March 2018: I also adjusted the automatic vent window opener, so that it would close all the way at night, but open during sunny days. These are pretty cool: some kind of expanding material pushes open a piston that levers open the window --
no batteries necessary.

March 24, 2018: I installed a small heater, and began to experiment with how high to
set it to keep the temperature above 50°F at night, but not too warm.
(Embarrassingly, the first few nights I didn't realize the extension cord wasn't plugged into
the outlet in the garage, so the heater wouldn't come on no matter how high I set it.
Plugging it in really helped -- all part of the learning curve....)  :-)

March 31, 2018: One of the top panels blew partly out in a storm the night before, and needed
to be taped more securely. But by this point, the greenhouse was staying above 50° at night,
and was nice to sit in during sunny days (the overturned bucket with paving stone on top
at lower right is my makeshift seat -- I read in there for a while and it was quite pleasant).

April 1, 2018: 64° is much more acceptable -- although the 104° high from the previous day is somewhat worrying.
I wonder how accurate the thermometer is though.

April 1, 2018: Since the next ten days are forecast to be overcast and cold, and the greenhouse
shouldn't get too hot during the day, I decided to throw caution to the winds,
and moved some potted starts from my basement into my new operational greenhouse!

I've only moved things in that aren't too sensitive to low temps, in case the heater should fail or heat the greenhouse inconsistently. As spring progresses, I think I'll be able to move more warm-season starts in there.

And I will definitely have to open the door on sunny days to prevent the temperature inside from soaring to 100°F. I've ordered another thermometer to check the accuracy of the one I have.

I've also ordered and should receive in a few days:

1. An inexpensive remote thermometer with alarm, so if the heater or electricity fails, I will be alerted. I'll sleep better at night.
2. An electricity usage monitor, so I can calculate how much it costs to heat the greenhouse.

I'm determined to make a go of using a greenhouse, despite my total lack of experience and the many challenges. How can I call myself a real gardener if I've never grown anything in a greenhouse? (Even a very modest 4'x6' plastic greenhouse like mine?)

My learning curve will continue as spring progresses -- stay tuned for further adventures in greenhouse growing.

Hope you will enjoy warm spring days in your gardens soon. Thanks for reading! -Beth

On a more cheerful note: I found these pansies in a local greenhouse, and they are highly scented. Since it's still too cold for them outside, I put them on my kitchen windowsill, where I can enjoy their bright, cheery color and lovely fragrance up close for a week or so. Soon we'll enjoy this kind of color outside too!

Spring Wake-Up

Winter aconites (Eranthis hyemalis).

Springtime is slow to arrive this year, but it is arriving. I've been enjoying some warm, sunny days over the past weeks here in Iowa, and have been starting to cut back and rake out some of my garden beds, as well as start seeds and make garden plans for this year. But the ground remains colder than average this year, and early blooms are opening nearly a month later this year, compared to last. We impatient gardeners are always raring to go in spring, but I suppose this teaches us to be patient and concentrate on doing other things that still need to be done inside.

Caution: Falling Figs!  A huge Mysore Fig (Ficus drupacea), the largest in the United States
at 102 feet tall and 305 inches circumference. Our visit to the Edison & Ford Winter Estate in
Fort Myers, Florida was fascinating.

My husband and I spent four days in southwest Florida in late February, and that was a wonderful escape from winter and a preview of summer -- no wonder Thomas Edison and Henry Ford had winter estates down in that part of the world! We visited the Edison & Ford Winter Estate and the Naples Botanical Garden on our trip to Cape Coral, Fort Myers and Naples, and collected shells on the beaches of Sanibel Island, and it was a lovely trip.

But back to reality.... Actually, I was quite happy to return to Iowa to see our spring unfold, and it was sunny and 65°F when we returned (we really did bring back some of that Florida weather!). 

The little irises were blooming last week. (And something -- I suspect rabbits -- has been munching our tulips... Grrr.)

And one miniature daffodil has bloomed!

But I woke up this morning to this:

Ice, sleet and snow blowing in sideways with 30 mph gusts of wind!

Trees covered in ice.

Everything covered in ice, including the Yellow Garden, in which not a trace of yellow
can be discerned.

I was supposed to work at my store today, but as I live in the country on gravel roads and there's a severe winter travel advisory, my store will be closed today (along with many other businesses in town). It's a Snow Day! (A good day to catch up on reading garden blogs, to see what everyone's up to as spring slowly arrives.)

So I'll continue to stay inside, where it's cozy and warm, and enjoy my indoor garden:

Starting seeds inside. I'm still working on making my new greenhouse habitable for some of
the seedlings as they are potted on.

My Calamondin orange has both fruit and blooms.

My Dipladenia has been flowering during most of the winter -- much better than the Mandevilla I grew that stopped blooming and immediately fell prey to some sort of blight as soon as I brought it inside.

Even when it's not sunny, my sunroom is still a pretty nice place to be. On a sunny day, it's simply glorious. It's definitely
my Happy Place!

I've been making plans this spring for a new garden area, and eliminating several other areas that haven't been as satisfactory. I'll reveal my plans as soon as I have made some progress (which, with any luck, will happen in the next few weeks).

Until then, I hope you are are enjoying warm, sunny springtime days in your own gardens, as plants pop up and flowers open. I look forward to reading about your own spring plans, and I'm so glad you stopped by -- thanks for reading! -Beth

Autumn Catch-Up

Autumn greetings from Iowa! It's been more than six weeks since I last posted, since, as I mentioned in that last post, I've been overwhelmed with all the work of remodeling a new space for my retail store, moving everything into the new space, and organizing it all, but things are finally starting to get settled there. My house went mostly uncleaned and my gardens completely untended for more than six weeks, and blogging had to fall by the wayside -- but now things are once again tidied up indoors and frost has taken care of many things outside, so I have time to make a quick report.

The big new addition to my gardens are the new greenhouse and cold frame that my handyman and I put together next to the garage. I felt that I really couldn't be a serious gardener unless I had at least a very small greenhouse in which to start seeds in spring, so I ordered one online last May, and finally assembled it in August:

The shiny new greenhouse, back in August, on a
paving stone base that I laid myself. The new cold frame
is just beyond.

Unfortunately, all the panels blew out several times (we live on a windy hill in open country), and this is what the greenhouse looked like by October. Even the door blew off -- Grrr. I had gotten the builder who remodeled my front porch into a sunroom to build a wood base around the bottom and to firmly attach the frame to the side of the garage, using spray foam to seal the gaps, so at least the frame didn't blow away. But the panels just wouldn't stay in, despite my buying extra clips to attach them, and then trying to tape the panels to the frame and to each other.

By last week with frost approaching, I decided that I simply hadn't used enough tape, and used a whole roll on both outside and inside to hold the panels in place. Not beautiful, but it seems to have held together thus far, and it's better than looking out in the morning to see polycarbonate panels strewn across the lawn.... I think I'll further batten it down by wrapping the whole thing in plastic sheeting, held on by -- yes -- more tape.

Since we got such a late start, all that's in the greenhouse this fall is a lone, sad-looking
tomato plant. It was mostly eaten by tomato hornworms (giant green caterpillars that my husband
picked off at least two dozen of ) so we have scant hopes for ripening tomatoes.
However, it's an experiment, to see how long the unheated greenhouse can keep the
tomato plant alive as temperatures get colder.

My husband also planted some lettuce and chard in the cold frame, but again, we got a pretty late start because the cold frame wasn't in place until late September.

We plan to use the both the greenhouse and cold frame only to extend the growing season in both fall and spring, and may heat the greenhouse only minimally, if at all, in springtime. My sunroom is pretty good for starting seeds until about the first of March, when the angle of the sun is too high to shine directly into the sunroom very much. At that time I plan to transport seedlings to the greenhouse to grow on, and a heater might not be needed much, if at all. (I did install an automatic opener on the venting window on the top of the greenhouse, to control for too much heat.)

At any rate, it will interesting to experiment with using the new greenhouse and cold frame, and I'm glad I finally have them -- I feel like "real" gardener now!

Some other scenes:

By late October, my Scented Garden around our patio, which I designed and made this year, was starting to look pretty over, despite some last blooms of the annuals. 

But alas, it was struck down by frost last week. The Four O'Clocks were utterly destroyed overnight.

In advance of the approaching frost, I had over the past month been bringing many potted plants inside to their winter home in my sunroom, which is pretty full again. A number of plants will also overwinter in my basement, under florescent lights. 

More house plants, back inside for the winter.

A nice spot for home school lessons with my two kids, as well as for reading alone and napping (preferably with cats). On sunny days in winter, this is my paradise, my tropical vacation right at home.

But very sadly, our outdoor cat, Little Kitty (next to the newly-planted Scented Garden in May) developed pneumonia, and despite my veterinarian husband's treatment, she died last week. We buried her at the edge of our windbreak. She was my outdoor gardening companion, often purring next to me as I planted or weeded, and is greatly missed.

There is still garden work ahead of me this fall -- bulb planting, some potted starts that I desperately need to get into the ground, tidying up annuals, etc. -- which I hope to do in the next week or two. But I actually find myself looking forward to winter spent among my plants indoors -- the sunroom has made all the difference.

I hope you are enjoying a gentle autumn in your own gardens, and settling cozily into warm sweaters and comfy slippers as winter approaches. Best wishes for the coming holidays, and Thanks for Reading. -Beth

My New Scented Garden

Hello everyone -- I'm sorry it has been such a long time since I posted. Perhaps I haven't mentioned it before, but I own a small retail shop, and my one full-time employee has been on maternity leave since early July, so I've had to hire temp workers and spend more time there than usual. Additionally, the building in which my store leases space was sold and I've had to find a new space, which I'm preparing to remodel and move into in about a month.

Not to make excuses, but I've been distracted by all this, and unfortunately, my gardens have been somewhat neglected this summer, as has been this blog.

But one bright spot has been my new Scented Garden, which, perhaps because it's right next to my house, I have managed to look after, weeding for a few minutes now and then as I water the new plants. So even if the rest of my gardens don't look great, I can at least post about this one area that I've been enjoying all summer. Here's some background:

BEFORE: Last year, the patio was surrounded by roses (at right), perennials such as phlox and self-seeded hollyhocks, and annuals. This photo looks very pretty, but the rear beds were full of grass and weeds and needed to be re-done. Plus, the seating wasn't working for us -- the couch was placed there temporarily while our front porch was being enclosed into a sunroom, and the cushion always seemed to be damp or dirty. It was time for a re-vamp of the beds, and perhaps a table and chairs at which to have tea and enjoy the garden.

Last winter, I greatly enjoyed thinking about and planning a new garden to surround the patio. I read a number of books about various kinds of gardens and enjoyed considering how they could be achieved here in Iowa:

• I first thought of making a tropical garden, full of bananas, cannas, potted palm trees and other exotic things that don't grow in Iowa without protection.
• I also considered making a Mediterranean or Islamic garden, filled with fruit trees and some scented flowers, as well as some kind of water feature in the center.

But then the idea of a Scented Garden began to appeal to me, and I read probably a dozen books about fragrant garden plants. Scented plants are best placed close to the house, where they can be enjoyed the most frequently, and there are many plants of lovely fragrance that I hadn't grown before. So I planned what I would include, started annuals and perennials from seeds, and ordered several plants online to be delivered for spring planting.

Out with the old, in April.

In early March, I dug up most of the roses and moved them to other beds. I also moved a peony, a small patio peach tree and a mock orange tree from other areas to these beds, before they started leafing out.

Then in April, I got down to the real work outside:

1. I dug out all the remaining perennials (except for two boxwoods and one of the original rose shrubs) and moved them to other beds
2. Then I painstakingly dug through the soil to remove every last strand of runner grass 
3. I next installed a plastic edging inside the brick edging to try to keep the grass from growing back into the beds
4. Lastly, I added a thick layer of leaf compost to improve the soil
5. By late April and early May, the beds were ready for planting

A clean slate, except for the plants mentioned above (and a few tulips I couldn't bear to dig out just yet!). I also left the grape hyacinths, as they are fragrant.

By mid-May, most of the plants had been planted. The mock orange shrub can be seen leafing out at left, several potted plants that overwintered in my house are on the patio, and I had bought a new table and chairs for the area. 

Here is a list of the many scented plants that I planted:

Shrubs:

• Mock orange Philadelphus 'Innocence' (moved from another part of my gardens)
• 'Bloomerang' reblooming lilac
• Rosa 'Sharifa Asma'
• Rosa 'Jude the Obscure'
• Rosa 'Golden Celebration' (two divisions that I moved from another location)

Perennials:

• Dianthus (Pinks) - Fringed 'Rainbow Loveliness', started from seeds
• heirloom Iris 'Queen of May'
• heirloom Iris 'Plumeri'
• Clematis montana 'Mayleen'
• Chabaud carnations, started from seed
• thyme
• lavender
• Berlandiera lyrata Chocolate Flower (a yellow daisy-like flower smelling of cocoa)

Bulbs:

• Polianthes tuberosa Mexican tuberoses
• Hymenocallis Spider lilies (these still have not bloomed, and show no signs of doing so)
• Cosmos atrosanguineus Chocolate cosmos
• Gladiolus acidanthera Star gladiolus
• Oriental lilies, pink mixed

Annuals:

• Mirabilis jalapa Four O'Clocks 'Marbles Mix'
• Zaluzianskya capensis Night Phlox 'Midnight Candy'
• Petunia 'Old Fashioned Climbing' (so incredibly fragrant!)
• Antirrhinum Snapdragons 'Royal Bride' (a white, scented variety)
• Matthiola longipetala Evening Scented Stocks
• Malcomia maritima Virginia Stocks 'Spring Sparkle'
• Sweet Pea 'Cupani's Original'
• Sweet Pea 'More Scent' (the name doesn't lie!)
• Centaurea moschata Sweet Sultan 'Imperialis Mix' (sowed directly -- I don't think these ever came up; I'll try them again next year)
• Nicotiana alata flowering tobacco 'Jasmine' (these were lovely and fragrant at night)
• Nicotiana sylvestris flowering woodland tobacco (these were humungous plants -- 5 feet tall)
• Heliotrope 'Fragrant Delight'
• Basil
• Lemon basil
• Helichrysum italicum Curry plant
• Wave petunias (I've noticed that the dark purple ones are highly scented, while other colors barely have any scent)

Potted tender plants:

• Trachelospermum jasminoides Star jasmine (I've had this plant for nearly a decade and it's wonderful every summer)
• Jasminum sambac 'Maid of Orleans' (this everbloomer was in my sunroom all winter and is one of my favorite plants)
• Mandevilla laxa -- Chilean Jasmine (this was disappointing, as it bloomed only briefly and I could barely smell any scent -- I'll overwinter it in the basement and give it one more try next year)
• A large orange tree of unknown variety that someone was getting rid of  (it was decadently fragrant in my sunroom in early spring, but has not borne fruit)
• Calamondin orange tree (I just bought this, and it hasn't bloomed or flowered)
• Gardenia (a swooningly heavy scent -- acceptable outdoors, but it would be overpowering inside)
• Lemon verbena (I've had this shrub in a pot for almost five years, and its leaves are strongly lemon-scented when rubbed)

By the end of June, the Scented Garden has begun to fully bloom.

Another view from the opposite corner of the garden.

Sweet peas 'More Scent,' Snapdragon 'Royal Bride' and Old Fashioned Petunias growing on
a thrift store obelisk with Rosa 'Jude the Obscure'.

Ten-week stocks (Matthiola) that I started from seeds inside.

Potted Lemon Verbena, Jasmine sambac and Star Jasmine, all overwintered indoors. All smelled wonderful in July.

Flowering tobacco 'Jasmine' started from seed and planted along the fence. Fragrant at night

Polyanthes tuberosa Mexican tuberoses, dianthus, heliotrope, Curry plant, lavender and snapdragons.

Cosmos atrosanguineus Chocolate cosmos.

Four O'Clocks 'Marbles Mix'

Some leftover 'Naked Ladies' Lycoris squamigera sprouted up among the petunias, Four O'Clocks and patio peach tree.

Not everything that I planted in the Scented Garden grew well or has flowered, but most of the plants have done better than I hoped. My biggest complaint has been the unusual number of Japanese beetles that have devoured most of the rose flowers (but they seem to be fewer in number now, so perhaps I will be able to smell the roses if they bloom in autumn).

I was a bit worried about planting too many different scented plants in one area, that perhaps the scents would clash or be overpowering. But that hasn't been an issue, as they've largely bloomed over different periods or were most highly scented at different times of day or evening.

The overall effect of the garden has been delightful! There have been times when I could smell an intoxicating wave of scent from the old-fashioned vining petunias as I walked across my driveway toward my house. Late in the evening, the Nicotiana flowering tobacco opens its intoxicatingly scented flowers. And the 'More Scent' sweet peas have an innocent, lovely scent and have continued blooming even through the heat of summer here, aided by nightly watering and twice-weekly cutting for scented bouquets. My husband and I have enjoyed drinking our afternoon tea surrounded by scented plants this summer, and we occasionally sit outside here in late evening, especially when friends join us.

I've greatly enjoyed experimenting with growing new kinds of scented plants, and plan to continue trying still more plants and scents next year. I think my Scented Garden has been a wonderful success.

Thanks for reading! I promise I will try to post -- and read your posts -- more regularly as we go into autumn.... -Beth