A Bright Spot

The new normal is stressful. Gardening keeps me sane right now. I imagine if you are reading this there is a good chance you have a garden and, hopefully, it is keeping you sane also. Can we be stressed out and still enjoy the garden? I hope so, for this is an exciting time of year in the garden when leaves form and the early spring light catches them just right, creating an illuminating effect. Also, spring flowers are emerging and bulbs planted last fall are showing their faces for the first time. The veggie garden is starting and there is hope in the air as far as nature is concerned. So, if I can offer up a little joy by showing photos of these magic moments, I will gladly continue blogging about the garden and sharing bright spots in the world. Here we go:

This opening photo shows the berm garden early spring. Most of the perennials here have not surfaced; what you see are what is evergreen - that is, present year-round. The ornamental cherry trees we inherited are blooming which to me, marks a passage from winter.



FLOWERS

Pulmonaria 'Benediction' after three years is forming a nice-sized clump in the shade garden. That blue. Oh, my heart skips a beat. This part of the shade garden is primarily blues and whites when it comes to flower color.

 A sweet Primula 'Gold Laced' given to me by my boss at the nursery a few years ago.

Flowers of Brunnera macrophylla 'Garden Candy Sea Heart'. Does anyone have the story about that crazy name?

 New this year, my colleague and I split an order of Anemone 'Black and White' from Floret Farms last fall. I was quite surprised to see them blooming a few weeks ago - I expected a late-spring bloom.

As the sun warmed the garden, the flowers opened up so you can see the "black" part.

Chaenomeles x superba 'Hollandia' purchased at Gossler Farms Nursery a few years ago. It's still quite small, but I have high hopes for this quince.

Ipheon uniflorum, a tiny little bulb with sweet, star-shaped flowers.

 Here they are open to the spring sun.

I am fairly sure this is Anemone blanda, however I have no idea how it got here. Free bulbs maybe?

Ah, the first of any tulip blooming right now. These beauties were gifts from our DEAR friends in the Netherlands who often surprise us with a gift of bulbs. This one is Tulip praestans 'Shogun'. They know us well. And it's orange, just like the national color of The Netherlands.

This is Berberis darwinii getting ready to put on a show.

Pulmonaria 'White Echo' from work.

Fritillaria meleagris that just developed flowers in a speedy couple of days.

Sweet Cardamine trifolia, an easy and tidy small edge-of-the-path kind of shade plant. It is evergreen and, once established, can take a bit of dry shade.

Flowers of Epimedium × versicolor 'Sulphureum' - a shade ground-cover that definitely tolerates dry soil.

Pretty Veronica 'Georgia Blue', another evergreen ground-cover for shade or sun. I find it does infinitely better in dappled shade, looking smashing year-round. The ones in full sun just don't thrive as do these.

I have many Ribes or flowering currants on the property, the majority are simply our native Ribes sanguineum, which is what is pictured. I find, however, that each one is variable as far as coloration of flowers. They range in shades of pinks with tinges of white.

This one is a named cultivar, R. 'White Icicle'.

This is another straight species, R. sanguineum. See the difference in color? These gorgeous shrubs/small trees are quite adaptable and hello - bring on the hummingbirds. Oh, yes.


FOLIAGE

The foliage is why I have this plant, Brachyglottis greyi, syn. Senecio greyi. It has yellow flowers in summer that frankly, I could do without. Evergreen, full sun, drought-tolerant (I give it no supplemental water ever), supposed to be borderline hardy for me but has done remarkably well in my zone 7b garden.

That foliage! Veratrum nigrum from my friend and fellow garden blogger Alison of Bonnie Lassie. This is a shade lover and a vernal stream lover. OK, I have no vernal stream but it just goes dormant in the dry days of summer.

Carex conica 'Snowline' is hands down my favorite grass for shade. It is just so easy and never needs cutting back and is evergreen. It stays in place and grows slowly. It brightens up dark areas and, en masse, is stunning. I have had three original plants for some 8 years now so fairly long-lived. Since we moved here I've added several more.

Native Sedum spathulifolium 'Cape Blanco' spilling out of a pot.

Foliage of Salix eleganos var. angustifolius, a centerpiece in the labyrinth garden.

THE GARDEN

A view from the driveway. It's shaping up to be a lovely spring.

Just to remind ourselves how far we've come, I've included a "before" photo.

From the top of the property looking east towards the chicken yard. The shade garden has been extended all along the northern fence and will be the focus of much of my attention this gardening year, carefully weeding mossy (keeping the moss) areas to preserve that green look, weeding in general and transplanting clumps of Oxalis oregana and other freely growing shade plants to help it fill in. It's a huge space all told.

The end of the berm garden looking east. Most perennials are still asleep but it looks pretty good for very early spring.

By the fire pit (on the right). I would say the clean up efforts are about 90% complete at this point. Now it's on to weeding and critter control. I love being at this stage in the evolution of this garden - I see my neighbors who are newly dealing with 2 acres and seeing their wheelbarrows in full operating mode all day makes me really grateful we don't have to do that any more. We did, and now it's paying off.

While I'm not a fan of garden art per se, this Buddha was FM's before we met and I have come to love him. He faces east watching the sun rise. He also watches over Lucy's grave.

Green! It won't be long before the field grass is dormant for the summer. I'm enjoying the green today.

The top of the berm with the shade garden on the right and straight ahead.

To cheer us up I busted out the deck furniture for the first time since last fall.


GROWING FOOD

There is a surge in interest in growing your own food, even more so now that we are in the midst of a pandemic. We are lucky in that we learned some basics years ago. If anyone is wanting a little help, Oregon State University's Master Gardener program has offered their online veggie growing course for free right now. Check out the link here.

Pictured is the edge of the orchard. The plum trees are all that are in bloom this early, but soon there will be many more trees in bloom. The mason bees are ready to go for pollination, too.

The raised beds have all been planted - seeds of cool loving crops such as radish, spinach, lettuce, green onion, a few beets, bok choy and other leafy greens. Hopefully, the asparagus will be a good crop this year as this is the fourth year it has been in the ground and the first time we are allowed to harvest spears. Check out the chives already - the green grassy stuff at the base of the middle bed. Yum. I highly recommend perennial food sources such as chives, asparagus, artichokes, tarragon, rosemary, strawberries, blueberries, etc.

I have lots of cauliflower, broccoli, cabbage, onion and a few other starts going in the greenhouse. If anyone needs cauliflower in the future, I think we've got you covered. I counted some 138 starts yesterday. No guarantee they will all be successful, but from where I stand we might be swimming in cauliflower which freezes well, by the way.

Two areas on either side of the raised beds have been tilled up ready to go for their eventual planting. Gooseberry shrubs in the foreground, left.

Artichokes are growing like crazy - the center dark-composty area is the asparagus bed.

In addition to all of this, the nursery where I work is still open so I'm going to work as per usual. It's a great place to work but I have a lot of anxiety about being there. We can self-isolate fairly easily on 40 acres, but still. Mail order nursery business is up and running and most people are choosing to order online and if they are local, pick up at the nursery as a will-call. That seems to be working fairly well and will likely be the norm moving forward. At least we can provide plants for those of you staying at home to have something to do. For that I am glad. We are considered a business that is allowed to remain open, partially because of the capacity to self-isolate.

Gardening and staying at home is a silver lining of all of this. I hope that other good things manifest as a result of this chaos. And maybe people will enjoy the experience of growing their own food. We certainly do.

That's a wrap for this crazy week at Chickadee Gardens. Happy spring everyone, really, and happy gardening. May we all find a bit of peace in nature.