The Yellow Farmhouse Garden

Every spring for a number of years now, I and my co-worker, Adrienne, have been putting together a Spring Display during March in the conservatory of the Matthaei Botanical Gardens. Adrienne grows the plants and bulbs in a back greenhouse, timing them so they bloom just when we want them to. Then I and my volunteers put the display together using the gorgeous plants and blooms.

This year’s theme has been “Heirloom Varieties”. We had a classic red tulip called ‘Coleur Cardinale’; an old time all yellow daffodil called ‘King Alfred’; a tiny species daffodil (which means its the same as what was found in the wild , in this case in the 1600′s) with a common name of Petticoat or Hoop Daffodil. It was only 6-8 inches tall with a little trumpet 1/2 -3/4 inches wide with a little frill around it. It was darling.

We also had a yellow tulip with red splotches called ‘Kaiserin Kroon’ and another yellow and red tulip called ‘Rembrandt’. Both of these were antique varieties.

The background greenery of the display was hostas, Japanese Ferns, Ostrich ferns and a perennial called Goatsbeard, that I would recommend for your perennial garden. It has a white fluffy flower, reminiscent of an Astilbe flower but looser and fluffier. It does like a moist spot so choose accordingly.

We had 4 varieties of hyacinth which scented up the conservatory. One variety was called ‘Macaroni” and another called ‘City of Harlem’. Tulips and hyacinths last only a week in the warmth of the conservatory, so we changed the dispaly every week and brought in fresh blooms. Designing with flower colors is one of my favorite things to do, so I enjoyed the whole process. Of course I have 3 to 4 volunteers one day a week that help with the redo. We all savored the first touch of spring.

If you are interested in antique varieties of bulbs, go to ‘Old House Gardens‘ from Ann Arbor for a wide variety. They have summer bulbs such as lilies that you can order now instead of having to wait till fall.

Happy Spring! Bye now, Judy

I had a chance to check the garlic beds yesterday.

If you remember my post a while back about growing garlic, I mentioned that the beds were mulched with straw. Spring is here so now’s the time to peak under their blankets of mulch:

Can you see what I found? Wonderfully, healthy garlic bulbs poking up through completely frozen garden soil:

Frozen soil is a good thing this time of year. Alternating freezing and thawing (which would happen if the beds were not mulched) will “heave” the plants out of the ground and damage their roots. This way, a nice slow thaw can happen without any damage to the garlic. We mulch strawberry plants in the fall for the same reason.

What we can’t see in the photos, are the roots that the garlic put down while under the straw. Encouraging root growth is one of the most important things to do if you want to harvest those nice big cloves we all love.

Happy first full day of Spring to you!!:D

Bob

You know that old saying: ” Everybody talks about the weather, but no one does anything about it!” Not much can be done about controlling the weather quite yet, but there are a lot of people trying to predict it.

Climatologists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) have announced their 2007 Spring Outlook. This forecast is their best educated guess about the weather from April through June.

Taking a quick look at the maps, it seems that our part of the country will have a pretty average spring.

The NOAA website is the place I go every day to get my weather forecasts. There is a ton of information there. If you would like more detail than the simplified forecasts from The Weather Channel then by all means visit their site. After all, it is ours, we pay for it through our taxes. It is an agency of the Commerse Department of the United States.

NOAA is celebrating 200 years of service to our country this year. It traces its roots back to 1807 when Thomas Jefferson established the Survey of the Coast.

I remember several months ago, there was some talk about selling our weather service to a private company. I’m not so sure if that is a good idea. It sounds sort of like selling the Army or the Grand Canyon.

That’s enough for now… my bursitis tells me we are in for a change in the weather!

Bob