Gifts From The Lutherville Spring

It’s officially spring, the 2008 growing season is well under way, and I’m doing something I feared I wouldn’t be able to do this year after moving — enjoying a spring garden. Leaving the Overbrook garden behind at the start of winter, I thought I would also be leaving behind all of my seasonal markers and harbingers of spring – no more witch hazel to brighten the cold eternal stretches of February, no intoxicating scent of daphne to drink in late warm days of winter.
And while I did miss many of my old garden’s first blooms of the year, the grounds surrounding our new home have provided many gifts of spring and growth.

About a month ago, while following a stream along an easement in back of our property, I came upon naturalized drifts of Galanthus nivalis. Since the Lutherville garden showed no signs of early season growth at that point, I dug up some clumps and transplanted them “in the green” along the main path down to our stream and along our front walk. The transplants took wonderfully, and a few weeks later skirts of white revealed inner petals striped with green. The last of their blooms have just fallen and I’m considering going back to easement to transplant more for a stronger showing next year.
Along with the drifts of snowdrops in the back woods was some naturalized winter aconite, which I lassoed into the confines of my garden. While planting this on the hill above the stream, I discovered a small stand of crocus at the edge of the stream and stalks of daffodils rising from the sea of ivy and pachysandra. I now have at least five varieties of daffodils blooming in my garden. I was disappointed when I thought I would have to pass a spring without their blooms, their scent embodies all of the hope of spring. Just these little bits of early spring blooms have made all the difference and make me feel like I have a new garden of my own just four months after abandoning the old one.

I also started digging in the first transplants from Overbrook and planted the butcher’s broom, Ruscus aculeatus, under a spruce along with some sacred lilies, Rohdea japonica, Euphorbia amygdaloides var. robbie, and a cast iron plant, Apidistra elatior, in the upper back yard, which appears to be my driest patch of land. The variegated Buddleia 'Santana', went in a newly dug front border that I hope will provide enough sun.
And why stop with transplants? Time to spend some cash…some good looking and cheap specimens of Rhododendrons from the local big box store went in among the pachysandra on the hill above the stream and I found an $8 pot of my lost favorite, Daphne odora ‘Aureo-Marginata’ and placed that along the front steps. It’s small, but I’m hoping for just one bloom with its intoxicating fragrance next year. But for now I am grateful to be a gardener in Lutherville this spring.

I Hate Forsythia

I hate forsythia. Always have. Swear I always will. Its big draw, gaudy yellow flowers, last a couple of weeks in the spring, then drop, leaving a non-descript shag of shrub – no distinct leaves, no autumn color, scraggles of artless twigs in winter. Why have it?
And just as my luck would have it, I’ve inherited a backyard full of the stuff, right where the sunny spot of the yard is. So it has to go. I start hacking it from the ground. My sister stops by during this undertaking and laments, “But how could you? It’s about to bloom in another couple of weeks. Can’t you wait and tear it out after that?”
No. By then my transplants from the sunny Overbrook garden will need to sink their roots into their new home. I need to have it ready for them. So I continue to hack. There’s so much of it, I unfortunately have to space the job out.
We then plan a “Welcome Spring” party, and I get to thinking, isn’t that hideous, gaudy yellow a symbol of spring in these parts? So I cut a few branches and take them inside – for the irony. Four days later, just in time for the party, the twigs burst forth in bloom. Maybe it’s the inside light, but the shade of yellow isn’t as harsh as I thought it would be. The blooms kinda resemble jasmine, one of my favorites. And maybe it’s because the blooms are the only show going in the final bleak days of winter. Reluctantly, I enjoy the blooms.
A few days later, I return to yard to finish off my forsythia clearing. While ripping a huge scraggle of the stuff from the ground, a smaller root ball breaks free. I look down at it, then look around to make sure no one is watching, and take the renegade root ball to a far, less prime part of the yard and throw it in a hole. Maybe it will die, maybe it won’t. But if it doesn’t, I guess some of its forced blooms might come in handy this time next year.

A Quick End To My First Garden

Just a month after bidding farewell to the Overbrook Garden, my first true attempt at a garden, a tragedy has befallen it and half of it is already laid to waste. I expected to do occasional drive-bys and watch the garden slowly change and possibly fade under the stewardship of new and inexperienced hands. Perhaps the new owners would maintain the enthusiasm they showed for the garden at the time of purchase and it would grow into their own.

But their real-estate agent called this week and asked if we failed to disclose any problems with the sewer line. It seems that the drains in the house started spewing dirt. The whole line would have to be excavated and re-laid, which means a good deal of the front beds in the path of destruction.
I can’t imagine how I would have reacted if we had stayed and the failed sewer line had been our curse. I would have tried to rescue as many plants as possible, but such an undertaking at this time of the year would most certainly have led to many casualties. I can’t imagine the new owners even attempted to save the Salvias, Hellebores, Spegillias, Geraniums and numerous other perennials that were just starting to look established.
I drove by today and the front yard was a wreck of uplifted roots and ugly orange clay brought up from the trenches. I wonder if it will just be seeded with lawn in the spring. Well, as I previously stated (with thanks to Joan Didion), Goodbye To All That…Pictured: The Overbrook Garden in happier, infancy years, with Ms. Mama to Be and Baby Belly E.

From Scratch: The Lutherville Garden

I begin, alone, staring out on some despicable forsythia, a few pines (or are they spruces? I’ve had little experience with such evergreens), and a whole lot of bamboo, pachysandra, and ivy. I rake fallen leaves from a weedy silver maple into outlines for beds and kick rotted green walnuts into the stream. As I play with the shapes of these tentative beds, deer peer out from the woods and survey my handy work, salivating with anticipation of spring’s fresh, tender young shoots.
The beds I have outlined are expansive – silly, really, since I now have diminished energies and finances and should probably stick to a front bed of inpatients and dusty miller. Gone are the well established Hellebores, sages, and shrubs thriving in a Bambi-free zone. I am embarking into futility. But even the simple act of creating beds from fallen leaves, impermanent and wind-blown as they may be, sustains and carries over the feeling that I am creating. I am beginning. And I am in love with the water, branches, and earth.