Why I Oughta...

'Tis the season for the start of garden cleanup.  Well...it is probably too early to do MOST of the cleanup, but I did start with a few 'chop and drop' experiments. First, I cleaned up a couple of Autumn Moor Grasses in the new front porch bed extension .  Then, I moved on to the raised vegetable bed on our back patio .   The most recent little slice of the garden that I started clean-up on was hinted in this post showing the tulip tips from earlier this week .  Those tulips are down near the sidewalk in the IB2DWs (extended) bed.  That's also where we have (now) two Panicum grasses ( I divided one that was struggling last Fall ) and the 'mystery' blue-ish Moor Grass that I moved out from the front porch bed .  I clipped off the grasses at the ground and cut them up into smaller pieces.  And, like the other areas of the garden, I left them in place to provide a light mulch layer.  See below for a couple of photos showing this area:  Thi...

The (dang) rabbits are indiscriminate with their gnawing this Winter.  Beyond girdling my Belgian Fence trees , they're also eating away at the green tips of my other shrubs, including this Matcha Ball Ash Leaf Spirea.  I planted this one in Fall of 2023 and really liked the fern-like, almost Japanese-Maple-like foliage .   Below is a picture showing the newly exposed centers of some of the branches on this shrub after they've been clipped right off by these furry pests. This shrub came back just fine last Spring and leaf'd out .  But, then something weird happened and it struggled with (I think) drought stress.  It dropped many of its leaves.  Then...in November...it set buds that STARTED TO OPEN (eek!) just as Winter was setting in .  Drought stress. Confused bud burst. Now, rabbit pressure.  This is one to watch this Spring. 

The damage from the (dang!) rabbits isn't contained to our backyard.  They're also working on things in our front yard including one of the small conifer trees - a Weeping Norway Spruce - that is planted IB2DWs.  I was out in the garden this past week when I spotted this strange site:  a spruce 'tip' that was laying next to the tree.  See below: One of those (dang!) rabbits gave this tree a try this Winter and it seems didn't care for it that much.  

Yesterday, I posted some photos and details of the very early 'chop-and-drop' that I did with a couple of the Autumn Moor Grasses in the new front porch bed extension.  I found a little bit of time in the early evenings this week to try a little bit of clean-up.  I wanted to get it started now because I wanted the time for that newly, mulched material to begin to decompose.   While I didn't finish the ornamental grasses in front (yet), I also moved on to a different spot:  the raised vegetable bed on our back patio.  Just like the grasses, this bed had some stems and seed heads that I left behind from last season's plants.  Tomato bushes.  Herb stems.   I took my pruners to those and cut them up into small segments.  And left them on the top of the bed.  You can see the 'chopped' mulch in the two photos below.  I typically top this bed with a couple of bags of compost and/or mushroom compost, so this plant litter will get...

This week we're facing our largest snow storm of the season with anywhere from four-to-twelve inches of snow forecast to fall in our neighborhood.  But, the past few days, the late afternoon temperatures have hovered in the upper thirties - which feels like a balmy, Spring day to me right now.  Because of that - and some pushing from this post from Dr. Jared Barnes where he showed he was getting a start on his annual garden clean-up - I decided to go out and try a few things in the garden. I grabbed a pair of gloves and some pruners and walked into the front yard.  I opted to start with a couple of the Seslaria Autumnalis (Autumn Moor Grass) that are planted in the front porch bed.  Now...I normally wait until a bit later in Winter to begin clean-up.  Everyone says to...'let it lay' until the harshest part of Winter has passed.  Leave the leaf litter and stems to protect the plant crowns from cold.   And that's what I've done - for the most part....

A year and two weeks ago, I was able to get out with a shovel and start to dig and excavate for the beginnings of the foundation slab of our backyard pizza oven.  This post is from late January showing how the ground wasn't frozen .  Right now...the ground is frozen solid.  What a difference a year makes. Time to get going on the 2025 task plan for the pizza oven.  The order of operations is already baked .  Now come the details.  

Down in the IB2DWs bed near the sidewalk are now the home of one of the FIRST signs of Spring.  Some of our tulip bulbs have sprung tips and they've emerged in a purple-ish cone-shape that is peeking through the soil and mulch.  See below for the first couple of these Spring flower bulbs arriving.   Last year, we had a very mild Winter and the tulips emerged in early January .  Yes..January.  We're about a month-or-so behind 2024.   We're CLEARLY NOT done with Winter, so these will stay in this state for a couple more weeks before putting on any vertical growth.  But, seeing these sure warms my gardening heart and makes me remember that the season is right-around-the-corner.