Spring Rain, Spring Flowers, and Seeds of Change

This late winter and early spring has been a season of great joy and disruption – I watch my new garden taking shape, without the stress of moving, like last spring. And I ponder the possibilities that lie ahead with my career, as my program at the University of Kentucky was terminated by the Dean of Arts and Sciences, and I am one of 12 staff members losing their jobs (after 10 years – the longest I’ve worked anywhere!). Other challenges and new additions await, and through all of the emotion (both good and bad), I take solace in the earth, in green growing things, and the beauty of once more living on a farm.

Tete-a-tete daffodils and spring beauties.

The fruits of my labors began with feverish transplants last spring, but this past fall I was able to take a more leisurely approach to planning. Pen in hand, I curled up with my catalogs, and ordered 550 daffodil bulbs, 100 allium (Purple Sensation), and 45 oriental lily bulbs. My selections included Narcissus Tête à Tête, Narcissus Golden Dawn, Narcissus Cragford, and Narcisscus Mando (landscape size).

Daffodils in bloom…

I did end up splitting the Golden Dawn, Cragford, and Mando with my middle sister in Virginia, so I only ended up planting 275 full-size daffodils, and then the 100 sweet Tete-a-Tete, which I love at the front of a border.

The allium before blooming…

I may have gotten all of the holes dug, but as usual, I didn’t give much thought to what would happen AFTER the daffodils bloomed. Some are in flower beds, which is fine, but I also love a “naturalistic” drift, which means you have some very high grass growing around the daffodil foliage for some two months after they bloom. I’ve been asked many times in the last week when we can mow over the daffodils….

The allium (and some iris) in bloom.

Then, of course, I planned my seed starting. “Are you  not growing anything useful?” my mother exclaimed, when I told her of my plans. Useful, of course, meaning something edible.

“Nope,” was my response. “Just flowers to make me happy.” (And hopefully to stem impulse buys of perennials at local nurseries.)

Yarrow (cloth of gold), salvia (blue queen), gayfeather (floristan violet), shasta daisy, and blackberry lily are now in the midst of transplant to larger containers, and then to hardening off before they get put into the garden.

Not my photo, but this is what the gayfeather should look like when mature and blooming.

One of the best parts of this blog is learning from other gardeners. One very thoughtful and generous Lexington, Kentucky gardener reached out to me with an amazing gift of peonies that she was looking to “rehome.”

This clump of peonies await divisions into three smaller clumps.

I was lucky enough to be able to get them into the ground during a spate of cool weather, and they all  – two big clumps became six after I divided them – appear to be doing well!

Again, not my photo, but these are the peonies I rehomed – “Krinkled white” is the variety.

Now, I am frantically trying to get mulch out on my new flower beds, and not run away from the avalanche of weeds in the beds I started last spring. The good thing (maybe) is that most of what I thought were weeds are instead tiny cleome and zinnia plants, that self-seeded from last summer. Of course, all of these are at the front of the border, which is not where I want them…

A black maple in our yard, luminous in its spring growth.

Gardening is, for me,  the best therapy for almost any woe. But I also want to try harder to just enjoy the garden rather than always doing. My garden has come a long, long way in just a year, and although I can easily list my failures, I need to also remember to celebrate the sheer joy of the living world, and the butterflies, bees, and other pollinators that reap the benefits even more than I.