The Ugly Truth

Every week I show you what I hope are lovely, perhaps even inspiring, photos of plants and the landscape. But I control the camera, the angles, the leaves that get included in those photos. The truth of the matter is that unattractive moments happen in the garden; that's part of life. I work hard to make the bad stuff go away or prevent them in the first place, but nature has the last say. We had a very mild early-to-mid-winter this year, thus plants were thinking "Hey...it's a zone 9 winter!" The reality is in late February it turned into a zone 7b winter and so all the new growth suffered. Much of this will recover, of course, so it's rewarding to observe all phases of the garden.
I give you the ugly truth.

Arctostaphylos pumila's new growth is obviously crispy. Not the whole plant, but bits here and there. 

This native Pentstemon fruticosus turned a dark color. I have a second one in another location that is green and unscathed, still, I will leave this in the ground to see what happens. I have hope.

Ceanothus griseus var. horizontalis 'Diamond Heights' I know is borderline hardy for me. It's been in the ground a year and a half and has done fine, but it did suffer some damage.

One of several Lavandula 'Van Gogh' that after being really gorgeous all winter and put on a bunch of new growth badly suffered. I don't really know what to do other than leave it and see where new growth emerges, if at all, and then cut back whatever dead growth is above that point. They might be goners.

While this Daphne o. 'Aureomarginata' didn't suffer winter damage, it is clearly being munched on. Another fact of life in the garden - plants are eaten. This doesn't bother me so much if it's not slug damage.

There are several Artemisia 'Powis Castle' in the garden. They all look like this in March. Ick, They will sprout new growth soon. Actually, just over the last week they have put on considerable growth and the uglies are being covered up. I could cut this back to keep it smaller, but I let these grow as they wish for the most part. That means looking at this mess for a couple of months but, really, I don't mind.

Another plant that goes through the uglies is Armeria maritima 'Victor Reiter' . Trust me, it will soon green up and be covered in soft pink pom pom flowers. Just showing you the truth.

My wood chips, while they are thick, have many weeds popping through them. This area will take a while to whip into shape. I need more wood chips, please. Oh, and the birds love picking through them to hunt for bugs so there's always a messy edge to this border and funny little holes.

Many of the gravel paths have weeds coming up. If I had the gravel it would be 7" thick, but gravel costs money. For now I regularly dig these up - I have a method. In time they will go away (if they are growing from below, seeds that blow in on top will still pop up but they tend to be easy to pull).

My NOID opuntia is flopping over. It did this last year too but grew upright come spring. I obviously don't know what I am doing with opuntias. My mom gifted me this one. Advice is most welcome.

Convulvulus cneorum - silver bush morning glory - had a little crispy episode after snow and ice. It actually looks OK for the most part, I think it will recover fine given a few weeks of good sunshine and warm temperatures.

My veggie seedlings suffered this year, too. It's hard to say why sometimes they go gangbusters and other times not so much. Could be the seedling soil, could be the age of the seeds or the temperature and how long they are on the warming mat. They look a little better than this, though, now that we've been hardening them off outside every day.

Rhamnus alaternus 'Variegata' also did the new growth thing, looking gorgeous in January and February. That new growth just couldn't handle the ice and snow from March. I am confident it will grow out of it, but in the meantime we get to look at brown burn marks on the new growth.

The beautiful Lupinus sericatus or Cobb Mountain lupine took a hard hit. I don't know if it will pull through but the live growth on this gives me hope. Again, as with the lavender, I'll wait to see where new growth points are and cut back accordingly.

Lewisiopsis tweedyi (syn. Lewisia tweedyi, Cistanthe tweedyi) should, I believe, be evergreen. I thought it melted this winter and took it for a goner. This little nubbin of growth gives me hope, so I end this post with a bit of post-winter optimism.

I hope this attempt to show other sides of gardening is at the very least amusing. It's important for me to remember who is in control, after all, and that is nature, of course. That means coming clean about some of the damage and less attractive stages the garden goes through. The garden is a living entity after all, not interior decorating, so the sooner I accept that and all of its cycles of life the more I can enjoy it.

That's a wrap for this week at Chickadee Gardens. Thank you so much for reading and commenting and happy gardening, everyone!