MarysLibrary

Duncan Garden

The most recent newsletter of the Friends of Manito had a plea for people to help with weeding in Duncan Garden, which is suffering this year from a plague of bittercress. So I went over to the park with my garden gloves and my weeding tool and volunteered.

I spent about an hour this morning weeding the triangle of purple lobelia and dusty miller in the middle of the back of the above picture just to the left of the fountain. At the rate I'm going there will be snow on the ground before I finish that one bed.

The garden is large and the weeds are many. Any volunteers?

My Garden

I'm having serious difficulties getting motivated to do something about my garden. I've been planning to measure and make a map so a friend could help me decide what to plant where, but it's really not conducive to getting out there with a tape measure when there's snow on the ground.

I pick up the garden catalogs, look at the pretty pictures, and put the catalogs down again with a sigh. How can I picture flowers blooming out in back with this blanket covering the ground?

Here it is 5 April and this is what my garden looks like this morning. And it's still snowing.

Update Sunday morning: more snow.

Update Monday afternoon: snow.

Update Tuesday: snow showers and snow in the forecast.

Update Wednesday: light snow showers.

Ferns

I've ordered The Encyclopedia of Garden Ferns by Sue Olsen. I've had the library's copy for the last month and I'm still engrossed, so I think it's a worthwhile addition to my gardening library.

When the landscapers have finished with our yard some time next week there will be nothing out there except a lace leaf maple and a dwarf lilac. The rest of the garden (formerly known as "lawn") will be a desert of mulch. I'm trying to think of it as a canvas on which I will paint with flowers and ferns, but I keep returning to the picture of a barren wasteland.

The first thing I'm going to do is to put in some large evergreen ferns along the side of our garage to hide the foundation. And in front of those I'll put hostas with blue-shaded leaves. And in there somewhere will be some white astilbes.

Karla has offered me some laurels from her yard and I'll put those along the other side of the yard along the neighbor's garage. In front of those I can put more ferns and hostas, mixed in with fritillaries and helebores.

That's the plan so far. Of course that leaves the rest of the yard with nothing. I'm starting to think about annuals for this year, giving me the winter to come up with a plan. This fall I'll plant lots of spring bulbs. And there you have it.

(Oh, did I mention the yard is all shade all the time?)