Mulching in sunny, 87° weather proved to be a bit daunting. Correct me if I’m wrong, but the calendar read May 8th yesterday. Too hot – much too hot for this time of year. It looks as if it will be with us for a few more days. Still a bit under the weather, but much better, I unloaded 5 bags of mulch throughout the garden beds; dumping a bag into my new cart, scooping, carefully arranging it so as not to damage the base of already established plants, scooping and scooping some more.
I took a couple of breaks, drank lots of water, stopped for lunch, but let me tell you, I was exhausted at the end of the day. I supposed it was a combination of the heat, a still recovering body, and pollen. Lord, do we have pollen. But I couldn’t let it go much longer or I would have had to thoroughly weed everything again.
All the while, however, the scent from the lilacs kept wafting in my direction.
Oh. my. heavens. Such a glorious scent. This particular lilac is called the Pocahontas Lilac and it has deep purple blooms. This year, in particular, there are a lot of flowers. I planted it on Mother’s Day in 2008 (not long after I started this blog.) Seven years later, it is nicely substantial. As I was writing this, I wondered just when it was that I planted it, so I searched the blog posts and found my answer. A blog turns out to be a very nice way of keeping track of events!
The two big rose bushes are questionable at the moment. One shows some green leaves coming in at the base. The other, older bush is still bare. I wonder if this winter was just too much for it? The thought of digging it out of the ground is daunting. Keep your fingers crossed. I’m hoping that the late spring is the culprit and that some growth will show itself soon.
The peony shoots are about 10 inches high, so it looks as if we’re right on track for bloom in and around the first week of June. The trees have all leafed out and the catalpa is starting to show baby versions of what will become giant heart-shaped leaves.
Thank you so much, everyone, for alerting me to the fact that my ‘dogwood’ was really a crabapple! That’s one of the wonderful things about blogging, this sharing of information. I don’t begin to pretend I know everything about gardening, or trees, or rose bushes. And one of the areas in which I know next to nothing is flowering trees, perhaps because we didn’t have any of them in my yard when I was growing up, and we still don’t have them here – save for what turns out to be a baby crabapple tree.
But I’m actually more excited about the crabapple than I was about the dogwood, because I’ve always thought them to be so beautiful. So now we know: dogwoods have 4 petals, which are really leaves/bracts, and my little tree’s blossoms had 5 petals. Once Nancy alerted me, I googled ‘crabapple photos’ and there, staring at me, was just what I was seeing through my own camera lens.
Let’s see, last year I was certain the big bush over by the shed was a wiegela and it turned out to be flowering quince. This year, I was certain my little volunteer tree was a dogwood and it turned out to be a crabapple. We never stop learning, do we? I love it.
Today, maybe some weed whacking. Or wacking. I’m never sure just what it is.
Maybe a trip to our local nursery. Definitely a trip to the grocery store.
Happy Saturday.
