Nasty little native

While I love native plants and try to incorporate them in my landscape scheme,  there is one native that I'm just not that fond of--poison ivy.  In addition to the typical weeds I usually find in my backyard this time of year,  there has been a bumper crop of poison ivy seedlings.  The good news for me is that I'm not seriously allergic to it; I can handle it without gloves as long as I diligently wash up when I'm through with it.

Just to make it a little more interesting, there is another native vine, virginia creeper, that looks almost identical to poison ivy as a seedling.  Knowing how to tell them apart could save you from a nasty allergic reaction.  Here they are; can you tell them apart?

The poison ivy is on the left and the virginia creeper is on the right.  You can tell them apart because the poison ivy leaves are always in the cluster of three and the virginia creeper grows in a cluster of five leaves. 

May you always be successful at telling them apart!

Its a great day to pull weeds

We had a good rainstorm last evening.  That means that today became "weeding day."  When the ground is wet, those weeds just pop right out of the ground.  I've learned to do all my weeding projects on the day after it rains.

Weeds have seasons too.  May is generally the season for tree seedlings.  I pull a lot of privet (a tree if it gets away from you), maple, and oaks seedlings this time of the year.   However, this season has produced an abundance of pine seedlings.  I've pulled hundreds of them!  Many of my gardening friends have reported that they've had a bumper crop too. 

Like all babies, they are cute when they are little. 

Better late?

One of the lessons I learned in the soil class for my Master Gardener certification is that we should not disturb soil that is saturated because it damages the soil's structure.  Experience has taught me this lesson too.   After it dries, the saturated soils I've dug around in become crusty and don't absorb moisture properly.

Normally, I do my planting during the last two weeks of April but this past April was the 6th wettest April on record (according to ABC 33/40) in central Alabama.   The soil in my backyard was completely saturated the entire two weeks that I would have done my planting.

Eventually, I began to wonder what would be worse, planting in saturated soil or planting late when our summer temperatures begin to heat up.  I decided to wait to plant, with a deadline of mid-May.  If the soil was still saturated then, I would begin to plant anyway, disturbing the soil as little as possible.

The first half of May turned out to be completely dry--no rain in my backyard at all.  I went to work.  It took me three weeks to get all my new plants and seeds in their beds and containers.  I didn't finish until around May 20th.

During these early weeks in May, I also picked up some good gardening essays about timing for planting.  They emphasized that the most important factor in determining a planting schedule is soil temperature.  They asserted that most of us are planting too early because we plant according to air temperature, which in the spring is usually warmer than the soil's temperature.   Reading these articles made me feel a little better.

What has made me feel much better has been watching my newly planted seedlings and seeds take off in this last week.  Seeds that usually take a week or more to germinate (with an April planting) are sprouting within days.   I can almost watch the tomatoes and pepper plants growing.  They all have buds, and the early tomatoes already have fruit.   If you came to my garden, you would never know that I just finished planting.

Perhaps in this case, it really is better to be late.

Life lessons from larkspur

A few years ago I picked up some larkspur seed from a Master Gardener seed swap.  I didn't know what they were but I like to try new things.  Not knowing anything about them, I germinated them indoors like a tomato plant and then transplanted them to my garden.  Only a handful survived but the stalks of bright blue flowers really popped in the garden.  I heard that they were self seeding so when they were finished, I covered them up with a layer of mulch and waited for next year--nothing came up. 

If I wanted to grow larkspur again, I needed to do a little research.  What I learned is that annual larkspur (delphinium consolida) want to be planted where they are going to grow; no transplanting needed.  They will happily reseed but only on bare soil; mulching is counterproductive.   They also don't require supplemental watering or fertilizing.  They want the weeds pulled in the early spring and then they are happiest to be left to grow on their own.

After just two years, they have filled in a solid block in my garden, tall stalks covered with  blue flowers, accented with some pink and white.  I even have a few random larkspur plants scattered nearby, all with only a few minutes of weeding in early spring.

My experience with the larkspur also teaches me a lesson about my relationship with God.  So often, I want to live life my way, fixing things the way I think they should be arranged; and the results are disappointing.  God has a plan for my life and when I step back and follow his guidelines, (which are very simple) my life overflows with beauty and joy--just like my larkspur garden.

What won't grow in my backyard

It is hard for me to imagine that there are plants that won't grow in Alabama.   Because our winters are mild, we can grow most cool climate plants during the winter while we grow hot weather plants during the summer;  we can find a season to grow just about anything we want if we are willing to put a little effort into it.

However, after many attempts, I am now convinced that there is one plant I wish I could grow here but have failed miserably at cultivating in my backyard--rhubarb. 

I love rhubarb.  It grows vigorously in cooler, northern climates, almost achieving "weed-like" growth.   Its growth habit is similar to a caladium, with bright red stems and giant leaves.   Not only is it pretty, it is also edible! 

In my home state, Minnesota, rhubarb stalks are considered a "fruit" and used in every conceivable form of dessert.   As a child, I had permission to pull up a stem to eat as a snack whenever I wanted.  Rhubarb is extremely tart so eating it raw from the garden was a treat only for the best "dares."

The challenge of growing rhubarb in Alabama is our long, hot summers.  Rhubarb requires full sun and although it will tolerate short heat waves, it needs cool evenings even during the summer.  I tried deep mulch to keep the roots cool but "cool" soil was not cool enough.  I even tried potting some rhubarb; setting the pot out during the winter and setting it on top of my AC vent in a sunny window during the hottest days of summer.  This produced a few spindly stalks but not enough to fix even a single recipe.

While cruising through the produce section at Publix the other day,  I discovered that they had a basket full of rhubarb stalks.  They were ridiculously expensive (people in Minnesota cannot give away their rhubarb) but my craving for ANYTHING made from rhubarb overruled my frugal nature and I HAD to have some rhubarb.  I purchased three stalks; the cashier had to ask me what they were before she could ring them up.

I made a simple rhubarb sauce, which I enjoyed with my Mothers Day cheesecake.  It reminded me of home and my own Mom, who still makes the best rhubarb-strawberry pie on earth.

Clematis crazy

This week

I'm very partial to my clematis.  Like many of my neighbors, I've planted a clematis vine out by my mailbox; it likes the bright sunshine and doesn't require much maintenance which is pretty much how plant-life survives by the street. 

However, I chose my clematis for its unusual color.  Unlike most of the pastel colors in our neighborhood, my clematis is dark burgundy.  It took some effort to find it but my husband gave this plant to me for Mothers Day several years ago.

Last week

This year, my clematis has outdone itself.  It has been blooming for two weeks already and is still putting out new buds.  The masses of flowers are so dense this week that you can hardly see the green leaves. 

I wish I could claim credit for this marvelous performance but all I do for this plant is keep its roots well-mulched and trim it back a little during the winter.