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?

One of our most frequently asked questions is if we have a problem with deer. I can very clearly remember being able to say cheerfully, “No – we don’t!” Even though when I said it I always crossed my fingers and knocked wood, and always had compassion for other gardeners’ woes and tried not to gloat, over the last probably 5 or so years, I’m now sorry to say that the deer have finally clued in that this is prime real estate. They have nosed around our tulips eating a few buds here and there, tromped through garden beds as if they were pathways, munched hosta like salad greens and sampled a few shrubs and vines, but nothing (yet – knock wood) has been completely demolished. I know we’re very lucky.

That said, this fall a buck moved in. He has marked his territory like a cat does, though much more destructively, by rubbing his antlered scent glands on a few young trees. And of course this doesn’t do the trees any good at all. He has scraped clear through the bark to the tender cambium, wrecking the tree’s ability to transport water from the roots to its leaves. If he had rubbed around the circumference, the trees would surely die. As it is they may not be able to fully recover and thrive and some are young enough that even a little damage is too much, sadly.

I caught the blurry Sasquatch-like shot of our fellow leaving the property around mid-day. That’s an unusual time for a sighting but I think he may have been flushed from his bed by the machinery (if not the machinations) of Fred and Dan blowing leaves near the summerhouse. I know they are worried about Blithewold’s trees and would be glad to see the backside of our buck, gone for good.

Do you have a problem with deer in your garden too?

The closer it gets to the holidays – and as the weather slides to the darkest, coldest time of year, the more I think about food. I know I’m not alone. Birds are hungry too. We don’t hang feeders here – there would be no way to keep up with them not to mention we’d need a separate and sizable budget to fund them. But we do offer a few natural breakfast buffets in the gardens and grounds. And after walking around looking for bird food, I have a whole new list of plants that I know need in my own starving garden.

Rather than cut everything back for the winter we leave some seedheads – like rudbeckia and echinacea – in the gardens because they are goldfinch favorites. Seed-eating birds also enjoy certain grasses like the Panicum virgatum ‘Heavy Metal’ planted at the Carriage House (matching the color of the cedar shingles exactly right now) as well as the goldenrod growing wild at the edge of the Bosquet.

Cedar waxwings love their namesake eastern red cedar (Juniperus virginiana). I had a hard time finding berries to photograph, perhaps because the birds have already come through, or the squirrels got there first, or maybe it just wasn’t a good year for berries with all the heat and drought. I wonder too about the bayberry (Myrica pensylvanica) because I couldn’t find a single berry on any of our plants (and I’m sure we have some females among them). The waxy fruit ripens in September (I have to admit I’ve never paid attention then) and it’s possible birds – any of dozens of different varieties – found them long before I looked. Virginia creeper (Parthenocissus quinquefolia) and Boston ivy (Parthenocissus tricuspidata) berries are already stripped too.

Winterberry (Ilex verticillata) and crabapples (Malus sp. – especially ones with very small fruit like ‘Prairifire’) are into-winter favorites for a lot of different birds. The fruit has to freeze and thaw before being soft enough to gobble up, which gives us gardeners a chance to glean some (visual) sustenance too during our darkest, starved-for-color season.

I know this is a short list – I didn’t touch the viburnums… What do you have in your garden that birds love to eat this time of year and through the winter?

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?

It’s always a little frustrating for me when Garden Bloggers Bloom Day (hosted by Carol of May Dreams Gardens) falls on the weekend. So much more will be open tomorrow! But for the very nearly middle of May, there’s plenty to see and much more on the way. It’s actually amazing, considering how many things are blooming on the property – and blooming early – that we’re experiencing The May Gap.  We typically cross the gap at the end of the month.

The North Garden and Rose Garden are on the quiet side today. That said, in the North Garden the Trollius ‘Lemon Queen’ and perennial bachelor buttons (Centaurea montana) are blooming more exuberantly than I’ve ever seen them. And there are still a couple of clumps of tulips in the picture. I have to say that Tulip ‘Jackpot’ gets my vote for all-around-best tulip this year. It was among the first to arrive and is the very last to leave. – Not winning behavior for an overbearing party guest but we certainly appreciate it in a flower.

The Rose Garden gap will close in the next couple of days as roses (a couple of them are starting!) and Oriental poppies, allium and peonies open. I waited as long as I could for this poppy to open… I might have to stop through the garden again on my way home…

And in the Rock Garden, the tree peony which looked like this (below, right) this morning, is probably wide open now that the sun has come out. Maybe I’ll take a walk down there too… The last couple of years, the tree peonies opened 10-12 days later.

In the Water Garden, the best blooms are in the water – there are gajillions of tadpoles! (They are such tricky little buggers to try to photograph. Click on the photo for a larger view.)

Are you surprised by any of your mid-May blooms? Did you jump up and down or otherwise intervene to get any to open just a little sooner? (Not that I did that. Well, maybe just a little.)