Sun, Stones and Cedar Mulch

The raised beds inside the rock walls are looking more green every day.  Though full of perennials, they look so bare until late May, when the earth comes alive with plants that the winter had driven underground.  There are innumerable trucks towing boats rumbling down the road to the boat launch at Nut Point Provincial park.  They get to see me digging dandelions out of the flower beds, and the occasional slow-driving sightseer seems to appreciate the effort.  

Last night, I put four bags of "Natural Cedar Mulch" into this flowerbed adjacent the driveway.  I had a bit of mulch here before, but nearly the entire bed is mulched now.  Not only does this smell wonderful, but I find the mulched areas have minimal weeds and require less water.  Of course, it looks great too.  Cedar mulch contains oils that repel bugs and it is one of the longest lasting mulches, breaking down a lot slower than the other types of wood mulches.  There was also mulch available in black and a tandoori-red, apparently dyed in these colors for people that need their mulch to look more vibrant or whatnot.  I don't really care for the dyed ones, though I can't find that they are harmful.  One website even offers a spray-on dye to renew the color that your mulch came in.  That just seems dumb.

Newly mulched flower bed.

Grape hyacinths in the raised bed.  These are a great little naturalizing (multiply freely) bulb.

The large raised bed.  The foreground highbush cranberries (Viburnum trilobum) have not leafed out yet.

Alpine garden with all its white spring blooms.

 The alpine garden is bright with the masses of spring blooms, including Erigeron compositus, Cerastium alpinum, and Dryas octopetala.  Of these, Cerastium and Erigeron spread rapidly, and I occasionally pull bunches of them just to maintain the aesthetic.  Dryas is nicely behaved and slowly creeps over adjacent rocks.  Erigeron seems to spread by seed and is easy to pull, so I don't mind it much. 

Dryas octopetala, a nice evergreen creeping groundcover flower in the alpine garden.

Phlox subulata "Herbert" is said to be one of the lowest creeping phloxes available.  It certainly is an attractive little specimen.  Even the flowers are miniature.

Erigeron compositus, a generously spreading plant that I have let have run free in the alpine bed.  Sometimes you have to let something take over just so that the weeds don't have any available room.

Lots of Northern Blooms

We've had some nice sunny weather and mild biting bug levels this week. The raised beds are finally looking more green than brown, and the flowering bulbs are showing themselves. I had these grape hyacinths marked as daffodils, but they look great there nonetheless:

Primula auricula in the shaded flowerbed, a dainty yet striking hardy perennial flower:

I planted up my Escheverias in their concrete pot last night. I remade my monochromatic container planting of last year from the leaf cuttings of last summer's plants:

A wild shrub just behind our house produced these interesting flowers. It looks like a wild berry by the foliage (we have various wild Ribes and Rubus shrubs around here), but I'm not sure what it is:

My Fritillaria meleagris is still showing its artsy checkered flowers. This plant nevered flowered after 2009's horrendous winter, but clearly is still alive and well.

My rugosa rose suffered major damage in the winter of 2009 and now seems to be producing only new growth from near the ground. If it looks embarrassingly unattractive at the end of this season, I might think of replacing it.

Dryas octopetala "Alpine Carpet" is one the nicest plants in the alpine bed. It has glossy evergreen leaves, and creeps slowly, forming a nice low mat between the rocks:

We took a little drive around some newer properties in town last night. One large and very attractive house was for sale, with a yard consisting of dirt, weeds, and rocks interspersed with junk. Resident-lawnmower-man pointed out how some modest landscaping could add a significant value to the house, and why hadn't the homeowner thought of this? Sometimes I feel that "landscaping deficiency" is a new epidemic. I wonder if more and more younger folks just have no interest in landscaping their yards or spending time in the upkeep of a yard. Only marginally better are the houses with only a lawn that extends from road to the house, with nary a shrub or perennial or flower bed of any sort in sight. I could understand that older folks might not have the ability to maintain a yard, but I know that a lot of these places are inhabited by young people in our town. RLM is hoping that landscaping is somehow infectious, and that our yard is inspiring other folks to enhance their own properties. I'd even donate divided perennials to anyone who wants them! Here's to a beautiful town this summer.