The guys have just about finished with “phase 1″ of the Display Garden redesign. Gail and I really didn’t know how they were going to deal with a tricky grading issue in the last bed (the last new bed for this season – more later!) and only got half a clue of what they were up to when they started delivering stones. They worked out a way to terrace the slope with sizable stones dug out the deep elsewhere on the property, gave us perfectly spaced steps for working within the bed and created a mini megalithic structure just for the fun of it. Gail and I have been hoarding plants for the day we can finally plant the bed and even though we thought we were exhausted and creatively drained — we’re not! It’s like getting a blank canvas and new paints and finding that the muse was just waiting at the easel. Our new baby bed should start to take shape with volunteers’ help by the end of the week. It’ll just need a name…

Gail started the greenhouse exodus on Tuesday – the container bed is starting to take shape. Every year is new and different even with the same plants. One of my favorite things is finding transformation in repotting a world-weary specimen and finding new companions for it in the container garden.

The roses are coming! — the roses are coming! Here are a couple of new ones — it’s too early to tell if they’re going to be all around winners but they’re ahead right now! Rosa ‘Fourth of July’ is a climber and particularly perfect for Bristol, RI (home of the oldest 4th of July parade in the country). And Rosa ‘Champlain’ is a gorgeous red-red.

And a not quite new favorite: Rosa mutabilis is a delicate color shifter. It’s marginally hardy here but our 3 roses have taken moves and cold winters in stride.

A couple more photo worthies today: The Allium bulgaricum and Amsonia hubrectii in the North Garden horseshoe and a pair of frogs chilling out by the big pond this morning. (It was chilly!)

A lot of visitors have been asking lately “what’s wrong with the Giant Sequoias?!”

For those of you who aren’t familiar with Blithewold, we have one of – if not the - tallest Sequoiadendron giganteum this side of the Mississippi. Ours is a just a baby, not quite 100 years old and only 90 feet or so tall. It’s definitely a feature on the property – people who don’t notice it rising above the Enclosed Garden asked to be directed to it and just last week I heard that a (must have been very romantic) marriage proposal had occured right under it (and was accepted).

Anyhoo, this winter took a noticeable toll on the tree as well as the dozen other smaller babies on the property. They’re brown! Sequoias are prone to Phytophthera fungi which can destroy terminal growth. But that’s not our problem (knock wood). We suspect instead that it has to do with the bizarre nearly non-winter. Temperatures remained weirdly warm through December and a lot of plants didn’t get properly notified to quit growing for the season. We think that the sequoias had tender growth that was hit by the late but sudden freeze.

They’re starting to green up again so never fear! The big one is still a beauty and well worth a gaze and maybe even another romantic moment…