I’m probably not alone in preferring to work indoors whenever it’s cold and wet outside; and in going absolutely bonkers if I can’t get outside whenever the sun is warm and the air is soft and lovely. But from now until late May, June we have to be in both places – in the greenhouse and out in the gardens – at once so we made sure to grab for the first opportunity to get outside while the getting was deliciously pleasant.

Yesterday, after potting on a few trays of last fall’s tender-perennial cuttings, Mary and Pat (Florabundas), and Gail and I went out to tidy up the Moon Gate bed. It’s so much easier to cut epimedium and lily turf (Liriope muscari) back before they start to grow and luckily they hadn’t yet. – Of course it’s not so easy to cut back liriope if there are miniature daffodils growing incognito inside of it… (Note to self: don’t plant drifts of liriope too near drifts of miniature daffodils ever again. I would give half a thought to cutting the liriope back in the fall and forgo its winter-evergreen-ness if I didn’t enjoy a challenge.) Next on the list is rose pruning – climbers first. After that, in the next couple of weeks, we’ll get going on to cleaning winter out of all of the gardens.

It’s time.

We’re not the only ones to take advantage of the first opportunities – bees were out working the open snowdrops; birds are LOUD; and something – several things? – is filling my face with pollen. As powerful as my sneezes are, I could guess that I’m not providing an efficient pollination service for these plants. The wind-born really don’t need me or anyone else to help. (What is blooming so invisibly perniciously right now? – Arborvitae? Cryptomeria? Yew? Incidentally, there was a really interesting article about allergenic street trees in the NYTimes last year. I still have the deciduous wind-borns to look forward to… )

Have you had your first fair weather opportunity to get out in the garden yet? What have you done so far? (Is anyone else plagued by their favorite season?)

Along with taking a good look back at last year’s successes and failures (I’ll get to those later maybe) we gardeners take this time to look forward and dream a little. (Incidentally, we are probably at our most optimistic right now: in January – the “dead of winter.”  Just before another storm pig-piles more snow on the garden.) Gail and I have been gathering our thoughts before we open the catalogs, and started to volley some ideas for next years gardens back and forth across the table. (This might well be the very best part of our job.)

We have both come to realize that we’re not interested in gardening just for our own or our (human) visitors’ pleasure. I haven’t forgotten that is a public garden – stick with me here: we have just started noticing that we habitually use words like “nature”, “habitat”, “environment”, and “ecosystem” and of course you already know that we are head over heels for pollinators. In truth, welcoming pollinators, insects and birds into the garden is ultimately self-serving because wildlife is good for the garden and what’s good for the garden is great for its visitors – as well as its gardeners.

So this year we’re considering buying or making bird, bat, butterfly, toad, and mason bee houses and as usual, we’ll be planting a lot of flowers. We’ll also make some changes to our maintenance practices to allow more seed heads to remain. All of these intentions will be part of how we form our designs, which we have every hope, will be as abundant and beautiful as ever.

And because we’re still on the sustainable gardening bandwagon (and can’t imagine ever hopping off of it) we’ll make a concerted effort to reduce our water needs by selecting plants with last summer in mind; we’re researching low growing and steppable lawn alternatives to plant in one of the Display Garden beds; and planning to keep invasive weeds out of the native wildflower area behind the summer house in the Bosquet. And because we love our human visitors too – and couldn’t do any of this if it weren’t for you, we’re imagining shady relief from blazing summer sun in our container bed, and planning to install more crowd pleasing roses as well as irrigation in the Rose Garden.

Are you starting to look forward and plan this year’s garden? Do you have a particular area of focus or any new intentions? Is there anything you’d like to see at Blithewold that I haven’t mentioned?

Some blooms just don’t know when to quit and others are coming back for more. Although we’ve had our frost – and even a light dusting of snow, I guess it hasn’t been quite cold enough to turn off the sturdiest annuals/tender perennials like Salvia guaranitica and pineapple sage, agastache, and nicotiana. A few perennials and shrubs (such as the unstoppable Daphne transatlantica not shown here) are still putting out for the bees and there are a few – possibly confused – plants blooming a little bit all over again just in case. Their effort is paying off because the honeybees at least are still out and about taking whatever they can get before hunkering down for the winter. And it may be beside nature’s point, but we gardeners are enjoying the show too. I’m very happy to have so much to show off for Garden Bloggers Bloom Day, graciously hosted as always by Carol at May Dreams Gardens. (Despite the fact that there are still blooms galore, I’m sorely tempted to show more fall color. Maybe just one gratuitous sunset shot?) Mouse over for captions and click on for a larger view.

Do you have lingerers – or comeback blooms – in your garden too?

By now you probably know that Hurricane Earl gave us a miss. The wolf at the door turned out to be a tiny puppy who made a scritching sound just like crickets in the middle of the night. When we came in the next day to check for “damage” and to un-batten the hatches, we found the gardens looking refreshed and perfectly lovely. We certainly needed the rain (Earl dropped an inch and a little) and were desperate for a temperature change. I think all of the gardeners on the eastern seaboard could be thanked for fending off a potentially terrible storm because we so diligently prepared for it. Turns out that bringing potted plants inside, staking the tall plants and cutting back the brittle ones is just like lugging rain gear on a hiking trip: insurance that it won’t have been necessary. (We’re accepting thank you cards and gifts.)

Now that the weather has broken, I’m noticing all sorts of new (and old) blooms in the gardens and visitors are too. The most asked about plant in the Display Garden this week has been the bush clover, Lespedeza thunbergii ‘Edo Shibori’.  I’ve been surprised by the questions because my eye tends to pass right over this plant. This cultivar has tiny white blooms with a pink stripe that, to me, register as beige from a distance. I actually don’t think it’s very handsome at all. But it hums! Any plant that has its own soundtrack is certainly remarkable and worth another look – or listen. Bumblebees (more than any other kind of bee) can’t seem to get enough of the tiny pea blossoms.  The more I think I don’t like the plant, the more I find I do. (Is that a gardener thing or just me?)

Bush clovers bloom in late summer to fall – most are a pretty pinkish-purplish – on new wood. What that means for the gardener is that even if it doesn’t completely die back in the winter (which lespedeza tend to do in this neck of the woods), they can be cut back hard (within inches of the ground like a buddleia) to maintain a graceful hoop-skirt shape. Like any belle of the ball, they don’t want to be crushed into the backseat and don’t look as graceful crowded. Best to give it room to flounce and show off. They like well-drained soil (who doesn’t) and don’t bat an eye at drought. They don’t even need – or want to be fed. – Plants in the legume family are generally able to fend for themselves. Sweet peas excepted, of course.

Do you have a lespedeza? Do the bees love it? Do you? (And do you whack it back or let it go?)

Like everything else, the garden air show seems to be happening a little earlier this year than last and I think it’s more entertaining than TV. I wish I had moving pictures to show you the swallows scooping mosquitoes off the Great Lawn and hummingbirds feeding on monarda, gladiolus and crocosmia. There are dragonflies and butterflies and moths lighting on the every delicate stem and an easy dozen species of bees and wasps working nearly every flower. There are so many of us tending the gardens that it’s really a wonder that we don’t all get in each other’s way.

As a matter of fact (I’m knocking wood with my feet as I type this) I have only been stung 2, maybe 3 times in the 7 years I’ve worked in these gardens. And not yet by a honeybee. I may simply be lucky but for what it’s worth, I also have a profound respect for all of our busy pollinators. I do my best not to get in their way or deadhead flowers that are still being worked on. That said, I do have to admit that one of my stings was from from a startled solitary-bee when I accidentally grabbed it along with a helianthus flower that wanted deadheading. It is curious that they all seem to go for flowers we might think have already gone by…

We were so happy when Jeff from Aquidneck Honey started dropping off honeybee hives. Gail and I were utterly captivated watching him casually knock a colony into a new box and wish the “girls” good luck. His bees have settled in to their new home and we’re getting used to having a little more buzz and excitement in the gardens with five hives in place now. If Colony Collapse Disorder can be said to have any good side, I think it’s that more people have learned to be respectful and interested in bees rather than afraid of them.

We all know by now that honeybees only sting in self or hive defense, and sacrifice themselves by leaving an essential body part behind (so to speak) — which should be removed immediately by gently scraping the sting site. If the bees ever sting, we’re prepared. There is ice in our freezer, baking soda and a sting-stop ammonia pen in the greenhouse first-aid kit. I’ve also just learned that parsley and basil are effective sting-pain relievers if crushed and rubbed on as a sort of poultice. Anyone who has been in the vegetable garden knows we have plenty of basil especially. For the 2 or so percent of the population that is allergic to bees, I hope you travel with an epi-pen and never have to use it.

I am a little bit afraid of wasps because they can be vicious if provoked. Interestingly, the enormous Eastern cicada killer, which is one of the scariest looking wasps is also one of the most docile. According to my research, they will sting only if they’re grabbed or stepped on. Like the easy-going bumble bee, cicada killers are ground nesters. And that right there is why barefoot gardening is not for me.

Have you been stung much while gardening? Do you have a preferred sting relief remedy?