I’D SAY YOWZA IS ABOUT RIGHT

YOWZA. That’s the botanical latin term for the state we gardeners find ourselves in right about now. May is when the signs of advanced mental illness strike even the strongest and most experienced among us. . .”  -  Margaret Roach

I am a huge fan of Margaret Roach.  Her blog, A Way to Garden,  has inspired me on countless occasions.  Margaret gardens to my complete envy in Zone 5B, in the Berkshire/Hudson Valley.  This would appear close to heavenly perfection by the likes of her musing, compared with my almost arctic zone (4).  I’ve life-long felt the ideal would be a glorious and temperate 6.  But we always have dreams of the other, don’t we?

Another inspiration has been Ulla Hennig, who documents the seasons from Berlin, again a more temperate clime than mine.  Ulla’s reportage reminds me of our youngest, Jessica (whose photos you will see very soon in a post still in preparation).  Ulla and Jessica both notice.  They see the things that we do, but in a different way.  Ulla’s mind must be like a perpetual zoom lens, focusing in and out, with breathtaking results.

But Patricia’s “I Love Flowers” is really the inspiration for this post.  “Flowers never fail me,” she writes in rhapsody with photos from her garden.  And what a kaleidoscope of treat it is!  Flowers never fail me, either, Patricia.  From toddling behind my father with a coffee can to dig worms, to the days of 4-H under the watchful eyes of mother leaders who believed we should all know the joy of planting seeds until now, more than half a century in the future, I’ve rarely not had a garden.

Ladies, I’m a month behind you all.  A month of ice going out on Minnesota lakes, a month of barren contrast, a month where the temperature ranges from freezing (last Saturday) to 89 degrees (tomorrow), a month where the leaves have finally popped out.  I am drunk with the fragrance of lilacs, giddy with birdsong, and stupefied by breakneck growing.

I’m officially at YOWZA.  So what else?  I made Pete photograph everything yesterday.  Without further ado, behold:

This is my beloved yearling, an Eastern Redbud (Cercis canadensis) tree.  Shhh, it’s not supposed to be hardy here.  But, the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum makes it happen with abandon near the terrace where we were married.  So off we set on my birthday last year to get me one.  Not everyone gets a tree for her birthday! 

This little baby’s show is such that we had a stranger visit on Sunday, asking what it was.  Is it too prideful when passersby stop and comment?  Most of them know me only from my backside and grimy face, so perhaps that is cancellation.

The redbud makes a vivid purple stencil in the landscape, with a more spare approach than other flowering trees.  The buds crawl along the larger branches instead of twigging like crabapples and cherries, which are the more common flowering trees in Minnesota.  It has a horizontal effect like that of a Pagoda dogwood, but the sparseness of an Asian tracing, so delicate.  The leaves when they come are fan-shaped, almost gingko-like. Can you tell I love this tree?  We drive up and I exclaim over it like a new discovery every time.

The redbud punctuates this garden, which is in its third year now.  We reclaimed a strip of crabgrass and god knows what else between two driveways.  I planted hundreds of bulbs, and provided a home for a rose bush that Pete had given me years before, which I – ahem- appropriated upon moving from my previous house.

Last year this garden in particular got pummeled nearly to death by the mother of all hail storms.  Baseball size hail came in almost horizontally, and in the space of 30 minutes, everything was a wreck.  The tulips have returned this year, but not to their former glory.  The honeysuckle twining on the pyramid attracts lots of hummingbirds.  High winds have already knocked it over this year, so Pete devised an anchoring system for it.  We are ready for Mother Nature this year!  (Well, no, we’re not.  I don’t want to have to replace siding and roof again.)

What I like about this garden is the layering and staggered bloom times.  I tried to plan it so something would be blooming in profusion throughout the season.  These little tulips poking up among the daylily spires are backed up with flaming gold mound spirea.   Next up will be the peonies in June.  We’ve got herbs tucked in among the flowers, and the shrubs – spirea, cranberry, burning bush, and dogwood – add height and dimension.  Sedum and black-eyed susans, along with colorful annuals finish off the season.

My dad put in a kitchen garden in my earliest memory.  This was so he could step out the door and add a tomato or herb to whatever was cooking.  This is my newest version under my kitchen window, with viburnum, coralbell, lamium, lilies, daisies, lemon thyme and a fairy house.

How do you like this fabulous yellow-leaved coral bell?  Isn’t that stunning? The others I have are the color of its veins.  I like coral bells because they’re so plucky.  The bloom shoots up like candy on a stick from an otherwise unassuming plant.  This version takes center stage, especially against a darker backdrop, while the darker ones recede.

In back, I stole three trellises that Pete had used in the vegetable garden previously.  I lined them up against the back wall of the garage and created a new vignette.  This is about as formal an arrangement as I’ll get.  Generally, I go for more asymmetry.  But I like this little mix of climbing clematis, textured shrubs, and petunias.  Some of these plants are recovering from last year’s hail disaster.  Daisy is gazing off into the distance in this picture.

This is pulmonaria.  Like a charming Liberty print, the combination of blue and pink with variegated leaf is one of my favorites.

I marry bleeding heart with wild columbine and lupine in groups.  When I’m lucky, they bloom together and the effect is long-legged dancers among colorful poles.  This year, they don’t bloom together, but I’m still fortunate this thigh-high beauty survived the hail.

These wood violets naturalize in our lawn and get mowed far too soon.  I’m glad they pop up in other places so they can be spared the cut.  Aren’t they gorgeous?  Such a lovely gift from Wisconsin, where they’re the state flower.

I don’t know the name of this woody shrub, but it’s a vigorous grower, and was part of the landscape I inherited at the previous house, too.  In Minnesota, if something wants to grow, you tend to want to get out of the way and let it for the most part.  It can be really tedious trying to coax more retiring bloomers. 

These lilacs cascade over the wall next to our underground garage, enticingly out of reach.  The spikes range from 6 to 12 inches long, on 15 to 20 foot branches.

I like to fill the house with lilacs.  At my last house there was a hundred year old white lilac tree.  I loved that gnarly old thing.  Some new lilacs are out that bloom all summer.  Would we love lilacs as much if we could have them as long as we wished?  I don’t think so.

Pete made these window boxes three years ago and I think they look great with the new color scheme.  I try to go with a patriotic red-white-and-almost blue combination every year.  This time it’s happy geraniums, dracaena spikes, petunias and white licorice plant, which will trail over the sides.

Approaching our front door is a tiny rock garden.  The speckled thing is some kind of wort.  What a great sentence to say!  There are impatiens, white and pink bleeding heart, white clematis, and coral bells here.  I like to sit on the steps and look down on the little world in there.  Even though the door itself is red, feng shui wants more red for good chi as you enter, so we might as well give it to ‘em.

That’s our tour!  The chore list is still quite long, and includes more planting, mulching and planning.  Perhaps this year we’ll get a deck and firepit – at least that’s the plan.  We’ve also had visits from orioles, finches, a hawk, and chickadees have roosted in our birdhouse.  A robin’s nest has appeared on top of one of the lights on the back of the house as well.  Hope you enjoyed a peak at our “urban farm.”  We’ll be working away to bring you more as the season progresses!