Crocus Carpet

Yesterday, the winter crocus bloomed in a fabulous carpet across the backyard. Caley went out and knew not to walk on them. They're extremely delicate and short-lived and she seemed to know that.

I cleaned up Mom's Garden and the Kitchen Garden. Today, I plan to pull out the pachysandra, but I loose an hour today and I have way too many things that I want to do. The Putterer

White Sofa and a Cup of Coffee

I'm snuggled into my comfy, white sofa. A great cup of coffee warms my hands. Gardening magazines are all around me and I'm content. Work went well this week. I was a production machine whirring my way through the days. Now, Saturday looms large. I have multitudes of chores to do and many options. All good. Last night, a great "Friday Night," at K and Rs, though a guest was there, H, who wasn't one of my favorites. Enough said.

Today, in the garden, I have numerous options. I should continue doing clean up and pruning. Mom's Garden and the Kitchen Garden both need it bad. And the bushes out front, the Cherry Laurel and the Nandina need to be pruned. I have to finish cutting back the liriope. And it would be a great weekend to slap some paint on the white fence. I could also begin taking the pachysandra out.

But, I need a haircut. I simply must go for a run. I need to get to the jeweler and pick up my ring and my necklace. And, of course, softball practice begins today. P has to be at the field by 9:45. Just an hour away and she's completely sound to sleep.

I think I'll pour myself another cup of coffee, breathe deeply, and enjoy the peace of the morning because it's going to be a full day, I think. The Putterer

The Late Winter Garden

The late winter garden is the most gorgeous of all gardens. It's the garden that you clip, prune, dig out and imagine, once again, the possibilities. It's a garden made of resolutions. I will be more diligent against the weeds. Or better yet, I will accept the pokeweed as a friend and let him grow, too. It's a garden filled with opportunity. If I dig out all the pachysandra there, then I could grow my tomatoes here, and possibly squeeze in some endive there? What about carrots? Should I try those again? (The last time I grew them, they all grew in a nasty lump and my husband said they looked like an old man's junk.) It's a garden filled with discovery. Now look those buddleias are making baby buddleias everywhere and here's a sedum that I planted two years ago, what was I thinking? And finally, it's a garden filled with anticipation.

Yesterday, I pulled on my running tights and over those, I pulled up a pair of insulated pants. I layered up my shirts and jackets. I tucked my Ipod into my pocket and budded up my ears. I'm so expert now that I have all my tools in a canvas bag, hanging by the door in the mudroom. I swung the bag over my shoulder and out the door I went at 8 a.m. And then, like a woman on a mission, I worked my way around the backyard, counterclockwise. Starting first, pruning the Japanese maple, trimming the liriope, racking away the detritus and sorting it into the mulch pile or into the trash bag.

And all the while, Bruce and Dylan and Mary J. Blige and Johnny Cash and Lauren Hill and Dolly Pardon and Robbie Robertson sang their country ballads, hip hop umbrage and folk poetry into my soul. Anyone watching me would have been amused by the plump little lady wielding clippers, bursting into song and stopping for an occasional shoulder shimmy to accompany the beat of the music.

And I was so happy.

I spent about six hours out there and only quit when my fingers wouldn't squeeze the clippers anymore, my hamstrings seized up and I grew so thirsty that I couldn't swallow. But after a bubble bath and some deep and long stretches, I settled down at the computer and continued my perfect garden reverie. I ordered my plants. The yarrow, the columbine, a majestic white goatsbeard, two whispy astilbes (ostrich plume and white gloria), a crazy daisy and a love plant (for J!), some campanula, digitalis, echinacea, monarda and some lovely "lady becky" rudbeckia, also a lobelia and a Mrs. Moon pulmonaria.

As the afternoon sky turned gray in the window and my family started making inquiries about dinner, I sharpened my pencil and drew out my now familiar garden plan. Always starting with the steps down from the lower deck--the point of entry. This time with a practiced eye and my expert estimations of how big the plant will grow, I charted out the places where I'll plant. My mind's eye carefully recalling the empty spots from last year's garden and from memory, I carefully calculated the amount of sun to fall in one dappled spot or that bores down on another.

The sun faded in the sky and I poured a glass of wine. A perfect day. The Putterer

It Wasn't Gardening But It Felt Good

What I needed was a Tom Sawyer. My white picket fence was covered by a green sheen of mildew and I just knew that I had to get it quickly cleaned. Because before long the plants will be in, and I won't be able to get access to it. So now with a nasty remnant of bleach in my clothes and on my hands, I am celebrating a job well-done. I think I'll slap a bit of paint on it next weekend, just to finish the job.

Note: I can see the tips of the peony. The mini daffodils are popped through in the front yard. And the first of the crocuses bloomed in the backyard. The day was a lovely sunny, but chilly Sunday. I ran for the first time in a couple of weeks and now I'm stiff and ready to relax. We're off to the movies tonight in a race to see all the Academy Award contenders before the ceremony.

Fine and Fit in February

Sixty-five for a high today and spirits soared. Last year as Thanksgiving and Christmas plans crowded my calendar, I happily left the garden to its own devices. The leaves did as they do, fell and turned brown, the flowers drooped and dried out or turned to a white fluff of seed (the anemones). So today, I talked J and P into joining me for some cleanup. P brought her new camera and picked up some wonderful patterns and textures in the dried grasses and seedpods. J pushed the mower over the leaves that I gathered and we diced them up and put them into the composters. Tiny green tips of the early crocuses were already coming up under the leaves. It is time to trim back the old plants but I haven't the heart. They still look beautiful so I think I'll leave them another few weeks. The bones of the garden were revealed as I racked away the leaves. I'm studying the place where the pachysandra grows so well in front of the vegetable garden and I'm starting to think of what else I might do with that space. It's a shame to tear out all that pachysandra, but that's what I'm thinking. The peach tree is looking robust, but the poor apple tree is crowded against the ornamental cherry tree. I wonder if I could transplant the tree. It would take a very strong back to dig it out. Down in the meadow the Joe Pye weed is a mess. The dried reeds are all which a way. I'll have to spend a whole day, I'm sure, hacking my way through there. Last year I just cut everything back and left the stems on the ground and a profundity of plants just grow through and around them. A tip: never do more than you have to. Cleaned up now and J and I are off to the movies. Tomorrow, 65 for a high again. I can't wait! The Putterer

The Puttering Begins

I am a gardener, or so I like to think. A few years back, I began a journal on my experiences in the garden, keeping track of the first freeze, the hard freeze, the arrival of the first green shoots of my hostas and the ants showing up on my peony. From time to time, it would come up in conversation and when I'd casually inform my dinner guests that last year's hard freeze was on November 18 or that the day lily Lady Rebecca Staunton was in bloom on July 2, they'd marvel at my memory. (Yet I can't remember some parts of a conversation that took place only moments ago.) It was because I'd kept a careful record of what I had done, planted, planned, even screwed up. And sometimes some none garden stuff got in there. Like the year, I had breast cancer and chemotherapy. And I always kept track of my daughters' sports teams and their wins and losses. My children are a kind of garden metaphor. I put a lot of care and energy into helping them grow, too. So this year, I'm digitizing my garden journal. I doubt I'll give up entirely my pen and pad. I sometimes carry it with me to the garden stores, or bring it out back and write in it after I'm so exhausted from gardening that my last gasp of energy is reserved for only the movement of my pen. So welcome any stumblers to this blog. But largely, it's just for me. The Putterer