Do you ever round a bend in your garden, maybe coming from a direction you don’t usually, and gasp at how pretty it looks? I hope so because it’s the best, most giddy feeling. Yesterday I walked up to the North Garden from the water side of the house, not my usual route to the garden, and even though it was almost too hot to care, I was amazed at its colors and exuberance. When the garden was redesigned this past winter I was a little nervous about the new corner bed by the stone bench, imagining that those right angles might feel a little harsh. No longer. Now I can’t believe there ever wasn’t a bed and path there. I’m thrilled about how everything has grown in so quickly and am head over heels for a few of our new plants too.

I never really appreciated yarrow until we planted Achillea millefolium ‘Pink Grapefruit’ in the herb bed a couple of years ago. Now I can’t get enough of its clouds and wouldn’t mind seeing them in every garden. There are enough varieties and color choices that we could really shake it up. The one in the North Garden is ‘Terra Cotta’. It’s more golden than I thought it would be but just orange enough for true love.

Turning that corner in the garden I was also able to re-appreciate a couple of plants that I’ve become bored and annoyed with. Long leaf speedwell (Veronica longifolia) is one. I can’t stand that it needs hooping to stand up straight and absolutely hate that we forgot to do that this year. But look at how sublime those blooms are in this monochromatic combo with Geranium ‘Rozanne’. I’ve had just about enough of that one too because we planted it in so many gardens (food for thought regarding my current obsession with yarrow) but removing her is not an option because she’s too darn perfect and willing to bloom for practically ever. As for the speedwell, we’ll have to sacrifice a few flowers and try whacking it back maybe next week. (Annie at Annie’s Annuals recommends offing it 10″ from the ground for a later rebloom.)

Has your garden surprised you lately? What are the plants you’re especially thrilled with right now? Are you patting yourself on the back for making excellent choices? (Or kicking yourself for missed opportunities?)

I would never complain about getting rain when we need it but almost every week for the last few we’ve lost at least one day with our volunteers. It has interfered with our planting schedule and dampness has made us postpone necessary deadheading and weeding to keep from compacting the soil. But the worst part is, this year the volunteer ranks have swelled to almost 40 hardy souls and our time getting to know the newbies and hanging out with old friends keeps getting interrupted. Today, despite the damp dreariness of the morning, some of those hardy souls, newbies and veterans alike, came prepared to lean into the Rose and North Garden from the very edges to deadhead and weed as much as we could reach from arms’ length. It’s a testament to our volunteers’ dedication that they would be so willing to be so sopping.

Last night at Blithewold’s annual meeting we were able to honor one of our most dedicated and loyal Wednesday “Rockettes”, Beverly Christ with the Anne Archibald Volunteer Service Award. As Gail said in her introduction, Bev has been quietly and steadily tending to the details of the minutia of the Rock Garden for well over 20 years, and we have come to rely very heavily on her to start seeds for us in spring. As quiet and tiny as Beverly is, she’s no mouse. She’s tough as nails and doesn’t suffer fools. She takes my cheek on the chin and gives it right back. I love her more than words can say – and that’s saying something.

I know I’ve said this before but it bears repeating over and over: Blithewold is a beautiful and special place because of the people who love it. Like any garden, it wouldn’t be worth visiting if no one poured heart and soul into it. We’re very, very lucky. Because when it rains, it totally pours.

It’s game time here at Blithewold. Even though we’ve been planting steadily since … March (!) the biggest push starts now that we’re well past frost and are desperate to get everything moved out of the greenhouse. What we call “planting week” usually spans a month or more and starts with marathon planting sessions in each garden that never take as long as we imagine it will. We were set back by rain earlier in the week but a powerful crew of volunteers adjusted their schedules to work today and along with the Florabundas yesterday they got us over the first of several humps.

A good 400 annuals and tender perennials including dahlias, salvias, ageratum, helichrysum, zinnias and agastache went in the North Garden yesterday; Dan planted at least 40 tomatoes; and almost 600 cutting garden annuals like tassel flower, amaranth, and lisianthus, and tender perennials and perennials such as lavender, butterfly weed and “Rhody Native” mountain mint went into the cutting garden, herb garden and pollinator bed today. Today’s planting session was completed just in time for a drenching downpour – a half an inch in what couldn’t have been much longer that a half an hour – that watered everything right in.

We try to make the job as easy as possible. Gail, Tricia and I place everything the day before so that no one has to wait while we make up our minds about where it all goes. And mostly the planting is easy – the soil is soft, fluffy cake mix wherever we took tulips out and wherever we evict forget-me-nots and teasel seedlings that have fulfilled their duties as space holders/weed barriers. But it’s still a big manicure-wrecking job that’s hard on the knees and the back and we couldn’t possibly have gotten even a fraction of it done in the time it took without our amazing volunteers.

The more we plant the more space we have under the arbor for hardening off plants as they come out of the greenhouse. I’ll spare you uninteresting shots of empty benches but to Gail and me they are almost as thrilling as seeing our plants go in the ground one by one by one.

Will you spend any part of this long weekend planting? I hope you have perfect weather for it and well-timed downpours – at night of course after the cookout – to help settle it all in. Happy planting!

Despite knowing that pinching new growth makes plants branch into full and sturdy clumps that promise extra flowers, it can be one of the hardest things to do. Somehow it goes against the grain to nip healthy new growth and I just can’t do it sometimes. But then I always wish I had. The nepeta at my house grew so fast I missed my chance to pinch them before the flowers budded and now they’re splayed open and not-so-very pretty even though they’re blooming away. If only I had pinched them back in … April. Or if not in April, then a couple of weeks ago when I realized they were about to bloom. It would have been better to set the bloom timing back a bit for the sake of sturdier, bushier growth. Mental note for mental toughness next year.

Last year our Agastache ‘Black Adder’ and ‘Blue Fortune’ were tall and a little rangy so we determined to remember to pinch them this year. They should end up being a little shorter, the blooms might not be quite as large possibly, but the plant will look much better in the garden and there will be even more flowers for the bees.

We also pinched Aster ‘Lady in Black’, which we bought as spindly single-stemmed plugs. Cutting off the apical meristem, the tip of a new shoot, will send energy into the side shoots and make the plant branch. It feels barbaric to lop off their heads but they almost instantly respond – within a few days anyhow – by starting to branch out from every axil. I hate to think how weak and unattractive the plants might be if we didn’t decapitate them.

And the consolation prize for following through with this necessary but weirdly difficult task is that the pinched tips of annuals and perennials make the best cuttings – as long as they’re not blooming yet. Spring cuttings take much more quickly than fall ones – fast enough that we should have more plants to tuck in later where we need them.

Make sure the cuttings are neither floppy nor woody. Trim off the second or third set of leaves from the top right at the stem using a sharp knife or razor blade. Trim the remaining leaves in half, dip the end of the stem in rooting hormone, and stick it in dampened  sterile rooting medium like perlite or vermiculite. If you don’t have a high-tech mist system like we do, put a low-tech clear plastic bag over the cuttings and mist them with a spray bottle occasionally. Keep them in a bright warm spot out of the sun and they should root in 2-4 weeks. Pot them up for few weeks before planting them out.

Other plants on our pinch-now list are the ones that bloom late in the season like chrysanthemum, which can be pinched again around Father’s Day; Boltonia – I swore last year that I would pinch ‘Nallie’s Lime Dot’, and Helianthus – ‘Lemon Queen’ to keep them from keeling over; and rabdosia (trumpet spur-flower). We also sometimes pinch summer phlox – but only if we don’t want them to get too tall (otherwise we’ll just thin out some stems to give them better airflow); dahlias if they’re up and leggy, Salvia, and potted annuals when we plant them even if they’ve already been pushed into bloom.

What plants are you pinching back now? Are you squeemish about doing it too?

Spring always brings the fast-n-furious out in me. There’s so much that must get done and so much I want to do that I have a hard time organizing my thoughts, let alone my actions. But as much as I might panic and freak out (I do more of that at home) every once in a while I am reminded that spring won’t get ahead of me if I slow down and pay attention.

It’s only April and not only that, it’s early April. What’s my hurry? There’s time to divide and move plants. There’s time to weed. There’s time to enjoy spring as it unfurls. As a matter of fact, seasonally appropriate temperatures have slowed spring back down. The magnolias might have gotten ahead of themselves (our M. stellata is OK because it was planted in a cool shady spot and hasn’t opened all the way yet) but the daffodils will keep peaking probably through the week by the looks of forecast day and night temperatures. The cherry trees, winter hazel, and crabapples, which are all looking pretty close, should stay in a state of suspended animation. There’s plenty of time to take a deep breath and enjoy it.

As for dividing and moving plants, no doubt about it, now is a great time. But take your time. It’s easier – and easier on the plants – to do it as soon as possible before they’ve grown too much but if you promise to baby them, most perennials can be transplanted for a while yet and still bloom more or less on time.

We are trying to be very methodical as we move plants back into the North Garden. We’ll shoot for a couple-three carts-full a day, and are planning our plantings so we don’t do too much head scratching when we get there. We should have everything transplanted within a couple of weeks and we won’t kill ourselves doing it. That last bit is very important. The older we (I) get, the more prone to tweaked muscles we (I) get, particularly in spring and any injury slows us down a little too much.

Are you taking spring slow and steady or do you need the reminder like I do?