š¼ gardening journal no. 3: year 3, spring
I haven't blogged in a long while, rather it's because I write a couple drafts and then never publish them. But now it feels like too much time has passed to post those entries, so I figured I go back to my gardening blogging.
At some point, I decided to get rid of a hydrangea bush as it really didn't seem to be alive anymore, and it was also in an inconvenient spot where I kept stepping on it. We now currently have two bushes, and both are producing new leaves! I was concerned at first since I couldn't tell if the second one on the farther end was doing well, but today I went out to clear some weeds and give it some new mulch and was pleased to see some new growth. I used Hollytone again fairly recently, so I wonder if the color will push towards a more blue-ish color this time. One bush was fairly pink, and the other was more purple/lavender; I'm curious to see what they're like once summer rolls around.
My spicebush did have a very small amount of leaves last year, though I haven't seen any new growth at all so far this year. :( I wonder if it didn't do well over the winter. Maybe it had too many leaves covering the soil from the fall? Maybe the spot isn't as good as I thought it was? I was told before that it's a slow growing shrub and during its first year, it takes its time to establish its roots. I would hope it developed a solid root system, but it's not obvious if it's alive anymore... I scratched the bark to see if it's green underneath but only saw brown. I think I'll have to speak with the nursery where I got it from and see what they advise.
I did a winter sowing workshop, so I'm very excited to see how these 'experiments' went. I did three types of seed starters: a seed tray, a milk jug, and a refrigerated bag. All of these are to help the seeds go through cold stratification, to expose or mimic winter conditions that help the seeds unlock germination come springtime. The seed tray has purple coneflowers, the milk jug has cardinal flowers, and the refrigerated bag has goldenrods (I need to go back at some point to find which species specifically). The coneflowers and cardinal flowers definitely are sprouting! It's so cool to see little leaves come from seed. Me! Growing things from seed! I've yet to see real growth yet for the goldenrods, but it might take more time as I recently put them in soil. I made little planting containers from toilet paper rolls (they can decompose once in the ground and help protect the roots! Eco-friendly planting tricks.)
I also tried my hand at transplanting/moving some new sprouts into different areas. Sneezeweeds seem to do VERY well once established. I learned to plant the whole clump together and worry about splitting them later. This year, I noticed the sundrops were much more plentiful so I moved some to new areas. I'm crossing fingers that they'll do okay and not die from the stress.
We also have daffodils and tulips for the first time! They seem pretty easy to grow. We planted the bulbs in the fall time and they came up by themselves once it was warm enough. It's nice to have some early spring growth while waiting for other plants to flower. The moss phlox also seem to be doing great. The old ones always seem to double in size, and the new ones take some time to grow bigger. It's nice to see a little more color in my yard this time around.
I'm planning to make a wildflower patch alongside the flowerbed, though I found out way too late that I needed to have bought a meadow mix and started planting them in the fall... so this will hopefully remind me to try to do that for this coming fall.
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