This is spring...

This is spring....at least for today.

Forsythia, in bold spring bloom. Branches arching out over my old wooden fence. No frost to kill the buds this year. I love the natural look of forsythia. You can still prune and shape it but let it take on it's natural habit. Small, square or round forsythia all boxed in make me feel sad. It's like they didn't get a chance to live up to their potential.

These bright green leaves bring hints of what is to come. Yummy, raspberry deliciousness. Yes, they can become out of control, spreading beyond their allotted bounds. The sweet sun ripened berries make the extra work worth while. Hopefully the girls won't get to them before me this year.

We have a "problem"...

Example 1. This lovely collection of moss is on the top of my piano.

Example 2. This dinner plate full of moss.

Example 3. and this plate of moss have happily established residence here in the Rapplings' kitchen. I have two more planters also growing moss. My love of all things green and growing seems to have infected the smallest girls here with an uncontrollable need to collect every piece of moss they can find. But I seem to be able to keep these alive in my darkish kitchen much better than house plants!

Surprise!!!

Today I discovered that my shade garden is already in bloom. This lovely Pulmonaria that I added to the garden last year for it's fabulous spotted foliage, has flowers. I loved the surprise! I expected flowers but not until later in the spring. Happiness is a surprise in my garden today.

Pick one up for yourself May 7 -9th at TBG's Spring Plant Sale.

Phenology... what's in bloom.

Last year I learned a lot about phenology from the Ohio Master Gardeners. Updates on bloom time were kept by a dedicated group of gardeners. This would then give us cues on what else in happening or about to happen in our garden. Here is the definition of phenology.

phe·nol·o·gy

Pronunciation: \fi-ˈnä-lə-jē\

Function: noun

Etymology: phenomena + -logy

Date: circa 1884
1 : a branch of science dealing with the relations between climate and periodic biological phenomena (as bird migration or plant flowering)
2 : periodic biological phenomena that are correlated with climatic conditions

So it's all the "common sense" things our grandparents knew. They were a little more aware of how nature worked and would use signals from the garden to tell them when/what to plant and what pests would be appearing too. Here's a link to a great article, from Horticulture magazine on the subject. Here are a few out of their list...

• When daffodils begin to bloom, sow peas.
• When oak leaves are the size of a squirrel's ear, sow corn.
• When maple leaves reach full size, sow morning glories.
• When apple trees shed their petals, sow corn.
• When dogwood reaches peak bloom, plant tomatoes and early corn.
• When crocus bloom, prune roses.

Love that this common knowledge has actually become a field of research. By the way have you pruned your roses?

This is the garden being created at the Notre Dame Preschool. It's a sensory garden, which means this garden will be letting the children, smell, taste, touch and hear the plants. Okay so the sound part of the garden isn't as easy as it sounds, Ha! There will be wind chimes and a small water feature plus a few plants.

These lovely ladies are Christine, the garden's designer, and Denise Gehring, the garden's motivation. Christine's design is very fun with paisley shapes throughout. Sorry no photo but trust me I'll put a completed garden shot up in May.

I asked Kate to take photos she of course had to get the rototiller. It's bigger than ours so must be recorded as part of the day. Me raking, the day involved much digging, weeding, raking, sod replacement, placement of edging.... basic gardening. Fun to be out in the sun, and wind, working with great people.

The girls had a picnic and enjoyed the play ground. The high point of their day was when they were allowed to play in the preschool for a few minutes, there was a ball pit involved. Heaven for little girls. An amazingly beautiful preschool.

Plant Science, Weeds and Inspiration

Today I enjoyed another five hours with Becky McCann and the wonderful world of plants. We talked about adaptations that plants make.Here's my favorite one and GASP! I know where you can buy your very own. This is a Lithops plant...or pebble plant... or living stone. If you would like one of your very own visit Mary, at Bensell's Greenhouse on Dorr.

I spent an hour weeding outside...hundreds of this little beauty.... shepherd's purse.

Apparently this is my new weed of the season. Curious how we covered it in our weed identification portion of class today.

Gardening inspiration for the day... the Crack Garden in San Francisco.... see how far $500 can go.

On the other end of the spectrum check out these vertical gardens.

So that's all for today lots and lots of plant knowledge accumulated. Fed the girlies, did the laundry and now for a well deserved rest.