Sweet Pea Chronicle

Garden 2008, Spring: Upside, Downside, Upside

April 2008 has been an odd -- and very busy -- month. True to the character of the season, there have been definite ups and downs.

On the up side, the weather was dry and sunny for about 2 weeks, which is not at all like the usual April in Maine. Although the 103-inch snowfall from winter meant there was plenty of moisture in the ground, the plants that sprouted seemed rather tentative about leaping ahead with growth, possibly because a couple of those days the temperature hit 80 deg F. Except for the leafless trees and shrubs, it seemed like the end of June at times.

Many of the things I planted last year survived. Woodland plants like trillium and Virginia bluebells seemed to come from nowhere, since they spent most of the last year settling in and are only now sending up foliage.

Other woodland plants, like bottle gentian, Celandine poppy, goatsbeard, monkshood, black cohosh, and Jacob's ladder, are making their second appearances, and I'm glad for all the laborious watering I did last summer.

Most of the lilies and quamash and all of the allium bulbs have sent up foliage as well.

Best of all, the serviceberry seedlings survived winter and are leafing out, albeit with some snow damage.

It is a big relief, and a bit of a surprise, to see that most of the work I did last year and this winter is paying off. Until now, I've had only a mental image of how things will be when all of it started growing together. Now it's actually happening, I have a sense of, Hey, did I do that? Sweet!

It's good to enjoy things in stages, because this year the garden will change again.

Almost all of the winter sown perennial seeds have sprouted, including mountain mint, giant purple hyssop, showy tick trefoil, bush clover, purple milkweed, and campanula.

Likewise, 90 percent of the annual seeds I placed outdoors sprouted (except, oddly, the blue woodruff) and are doing very well.

Seedlings on the light table are about 3 times as large as these, having sprouted much earlier, and because they get far more light. The outdoor seedlings were so small that, during the 2 weeks of sunny weather, I had to move them back into the shade because the heat fried a few of them. As they grow, I'll move the flats back into the sun.

The lovely weather allowed me to plant the new bed with 14 bareroot North American natives (some of them Maine natives as well) over the weekend, after the Prairie Moon order arrived on Friday, April 18. Five of the 19 plants in the order went into other beds. All had foliage, and most of them have begun to green up already.

There is, of course, a down side to all this good news. Some things planted last year have not begun to grow yet, and it remains to be seen whether they will at all. The bog sage I was so hopeful about, which is reputedly hardy only to zone 6, is the biggest question right now. I'm afraid the harsh winter got to it without the vole's help, in spite of the sunny moist spot where it was planted, 3 inches of cedar mulch, and uninterrupted snow cover from December to March. We're finally getting some spring rains (2 to 4 inches predicted over 48 hours) and if that doesn't wake up the bog sage, nothing will.

Some of the six mapleleaf viburnums, which were very small, did not make it either. The beautybush which was trampled mercilessly by the gutter contractor has approximately two good branches that appear to be leafing out and will probably require extra care through the summer.

Saddest of all, the optimism I felt after surveying the vole damage has vanished -- as have nearly all the perennials I planted last autumn in the border below the raised bed at the back of the garden. An established aquilegia and one of two coreopsis, plus all of the plants I added, are nowhere to be found. Only a few bulbs are making an appearance.

Although it seemed at the time that the voles' work hadn't directly damaged the root systems, I think what happened was that the furrows displaced mulch and soil and exposed the roots to winter cold, and newly planted things just couldn't withstand it.

As the days wore on and nothing appeared, I grew discouraged. All that work --- pfft! The tags in the ground look like headstones in a cemetery.

However, after I planted the new bed, I realized the voles may have done me a bigger favor than I originally thought.

This expanse of border was a mishmash of leftovers from the previous owner and tentative first steps of mine. It played host to quite a few mistakes: sun-loving bulbs shaded out by trees and neighboring perennials, semi-shade plants that were blasted by summer afternoon sun, and things from the local nursery that I couldn't resist although I really had no place to put them. Even the things I got last autumn were chosen by bloom color and put wherever there was room in the hope that they might work out.

Now that stretch of garden looks like a blank sheet of paper. Except for a couple of perennials and some waterlily tulips and late daffodils, it is soil laid bare.

I already have a 'preliminary sketch' of the new version of the bed in my mind. On the sunny, dryish side, I'll plant more bare root natives from Prairie Moon; as the sun diminishes to shade under the pine tree in the corner, the local nursery carries an excellent selection of woodland natives.

And, along the front of the strip, where they will receive early sun in spring and can't be shaded out by upright perennials, I'll plant dozens of bulbs.

As an imagined garden, it seems perfect.

I can only hope that reality cooperates!

List of vole casualties after the jump.

Landscaping by vole

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about winter damage in the garden, which became apparent as the deep snow cover melted and revealed bent, twisted, and broken branches and ground that looked like a war zone.

As it turns out, only the shrub damage was caused by the snow and rain. The furrows in the ground, which I had thought were due to water streaming below the surface of the snow, were too extensive to be made by random bursts of water, and resemble furrows made by one or more meadow voles. The hole that I said resembled a burrow probably is one.

I've also found tubular holes through the snow that made the snow pack hollow enough to collapse under human weight once spring melting started, and a mass of grass that was probably a nest next to one of the raised beds -- and more plant damage.

The critters tunneled over the centers of a Stokesia laevis and a Scabiosa columbaria, severing foliage so that the plants appear destroyed. That was when I began to worry about the parts of the garden still under snow. In the lawn around the bird feeder, the furrows look like a maze, curving back on themselves and leaving only an inch or two of undisturbed soil between.

It looked, and still looks, horrendous out there, bad enough to depress me for a few days while I waited for the snow to melt. I could see furrows winding in and out under the melting snowpack but not tell the actual extent of the damage. I read articles on the Internet that prophesized horrible things -- voles 'irrupt' every 3-5 years, and can carry tularemia, plague, Lyme disease, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, they girdle and kill shrubs, destroy roots -- and I worried that the border would look as bad as the ground around the feeders.

After all the work I did last year, I also wasn't sure how to react if I did find a lot of damage. On the one hand, it is a wildlife garden; we have seen skunks, raccoons, opossums, hawks, and even a fox in our yard, and they can't be there just for the slugs. I'm sure the meadow voles have been around for a while.

On the other hand, it is a wildlife GARDEN, not a preserved landscape, and I really would not look forward to redoing even half of that work. Here I was thanking the zephyrs that our neighborhood is too suburban for deer, and then the meadow voles invite themselves to dinner and potentially destroy it all.

Of course, there were alternatives. Mouse traps near the furrows. Zinc phosphide, applied by certified pesticide handlers. Granulated fox urine. One Web site (written by a Master Gardener) recommended setting the house cat loose in the yard, because 'even a well-fed cat will hunt.'

But all of those things are too much work, and none of those things would repair the damage already done, which was the real problem.

All winter the garden was still, covered by a seemingly inert layer of frozen white stuff. Who could tell all this furious activity was going on below the snow?

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Icicle bird

We're still getting storms that mix snow and rain and leave behind a lot of ice. After a recent bout, Cuthbert captured a photo of the rarely seen icicle bird, flying low near the garage.

We haven't seen it for a few days, so I think it migrated north for the summer.

First blooms 2008

This is another Van Bloem selection. The package was marked Crocus chrysanthus 'Advance,' but having checked out photos of 'Advance' on the Intertubes, I believe these were mismarked. They look much more like 'Zwanenburg Bronze,' particularly because they lack the orange anthers of 'Advance.'

Still, I'm glad now that I didn't force these in pots, as originally intended -- this is the earliest I have ever had flowers in the garden.

Update, April 10, 2008: Each of these individual plants now has 3 or 4 flowers in bloom, and the colors have softened toward a butter-yellow. The effect is quite lovely.

I think Iris reticulata, also blooming now, interplanted with these crocus would be utterly striking.