WHAT THE FOX DRAGGED IN (AND OTHER GARDENING TALES)

Gardening is happening, people. That's the main reason for my absence so far this week. We've had amazing weather recently, but no mosquitos, so I've been gardening pretty much any time I'm not at work or sleeping and it's still light out. And I've been taking hardly any pictures. That's the problem when you really get in the zone: There is no time for picture taking or coming up with blog post ideas in your head.

The Lemony Lace elderberry was looking just perfect in the evening after a rain shower. I can't say enough about this great plant that has such amazing texture and color.

Despite all the time I've spent in the garden recently, it still looks pretty shabby. The weeds are flourishing and I'm trying not to add mulch this year (it's an expense I'd like to avoid if possible this year) so it's a constant fight right now. I did get the bed on the north side of the house divided in two with a mulch path and I'll show you that once I get it planted up a bit more. I'm happy with that change.

The 'Ann' magnolia I planted last year is blooming and looking lovely. I have 'Bluebird' clematis growing up it and frankly, it's a bit overwhelming for poor young 'Ann' so it will get a pretty aggressive pruning after it finishes flowering. It will be just fine with a bit of a chop although I'll sacrifice some flowers for next year. 

The annual garlic mustard weed nonsense continues. I've done pretty good staying on top of it this year, but white flowers (which means seeds) are starting to pop up on the perimeter of the property and I always feel bad about "sharing" that with my neighbors so I need to get out there and take care of that.

I've planted very few things so far because I'm waiting for the soil to warm up just a bit more before I start plunking annuals in the ground. Most are hardening off now and I hope to tackle some of that project over the long holiday weekend.

It's still too early to plant tomatoes here, but I did get some kale, celeriac and parsley in the ground (in addition to the things I direct sowed several weeks ago). I'm trying to have pretty veggie gardens this year, so I'm trying to space things more appropriately and maintain lines vs. my habit of plunking stuff in wherever in the past. And that's why I noticed something strange in one of the raised beds last night. There was a mound of soil that I know wasn't there the day before. When I went to investigate, I found feathers sticking out.

(WARNING: Pictures of parts of birds follow)

Hmmm, I don't remember planting that.

Ew.

With hands fully gloved and tool in hand I started digging and I realized this thing was buried pretty deeply. It was big! I believe it was a chicken wing. The neighbors have (um ... had?) chickens so that makes some sense, but why in the world was it buried in my garden?

I did a little googling and apparently foxes are known to bury parts of their kill that they don't immediately consume to come back for later. There are at least a handful of foxes in our neighborhood (they are welcome residents because they keep a good handle on the rabbit and rodent population), so again, I'm guessing the culprit was a fox.

I didn't dig that hole.

I dispensed with the wing and smoothed my garden over last night. And then I came out this morning to find the celeriac a bit disturbed and a rather significant hole dug where the wing had been. Apparently whatever buried that wing did indeed come back looking for it. I so wish I had a trail camera to set up in the area. Now I wonder if he or she will be back again. I really hope this doesn't become a habit because gross, plus that's not going to be easy to grow veggies there.

That's the update from my garden. What's happening in yours? Isn't it fantastic to be consumed by gardening again?

A FEW NEW TREES

Don't forget this is the week of all my favorite giveaways. Click here to for the soil knife giveaway and here for the Perfect Garden Hose.

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I garden in cycles. Every couple years, I create a new garden area (i.e. last year I redid the back yard), which is a ton of work, and then the next year I think to myself, "Oh I'll just do maintenance this year." What really ends up happening is that I just seem to buy with somewhat reckless abandon because I don't have a specific plan or "budget" (that word is always in quotes when it relates to my garden) to guide me.

From afar, the columnar apple looks like a big stick, but up close there are signs of life to come.

In addition to the ridiculous number of dahlias I bought over winter, many of which are currently in pots in my house as I wait for them to sprout, I also went a little tree crazy at the nursery a couple weekends ago. I brought home one tree that fit in my car: a columnar apple. This replaces a sickly 'Fine Line' Buckthorn that suffered the fate of living in shade for too long and it just couldn't recuperate. By the way, I love the idea of planting small fruit trees right in the middle of an ornamental garden because I think they are beautiful. An apple blossom might be the most romantic flower in the world.

That's what the fringe tree looked like when we planted it back in 2011.

And here it is now in it's new location, looking quite shrimpy with the big beech in the background.

The fringe tree off the deck has been moved. It can't say I didn't warn it. Because I did. Of all the small trees in our yard, that one takes center stage because of its proximity to the deck and prominence in the back yard. I planted it four years ago and I feel like I've been more than a little patient with it. Sure, it's grown a little, but it's still sort of spindly. Worse, it gives me approximately two lame flowers a year and I've not seen any sign of that number getting larger over the years. Sorry, fringe tree, you're going to have to put on a better show than that if you want that coveted spot.

Yes, part of this is my impatience coming through, but more and more, I just don't have a lot of hope for this tree. But it's not the end of the road for the fringe tree. He (or she, and that may be part of the problem as far as the flowering goes) has been moved to a lovely little spot by the creek, which is actually sunny now, thanks to the removal of a couple of very large trees last year.

With luck, we will see a few flowers on 'Ann' this year.

In its place is Ann. Magnolia 'Ann,' that is. She's part of the "Little Girl" series of magnolias that stay quite compact but put on the kind of show you'd expect from a magnolia. They do tend to be a little shrubby, which is not what I'm looking for in that spot, but I was able to find a tree-form 'Ann' that will allow the canopy to hover a few feet off the ground. Truth be told, I really wanted 'Jane,' which has pink blossoms that open to white, but it wasn't available in the tree form and I felt that was more important.

It's sort of fugly, but perhaps 'Ann' will grow into herself. The green stake was temporarily holding the clematis that had been growing up the fringe tree. I had to carefully untangle it from the fringe tree and temporarily tied it to the stake and then reattach it to the new magnolia.

I will admit, when I got this tree home I wondered what I was thinking when I chose it (honestly, I was exhausted and they only had two left to choose from). It doesn't have great shape (it has almost no branches on one side), but once you've borrowed a truck to drag a tree home via a one-hour drive, you're pretty much planting that sucker. Four years from now we might be in the same place, but for now I'm giving it a chance and hoping for the best.

We also added a crabapple, again in the newly sunny area made possible by the removal of diseased or damaged trees last year. Not only will it offer some additional screening from our neighbors to the north, it will be a perfect focal point from our living room window.

To be honest, crabapples scare me a little. Is there any other tree more well-known for its disease problems? And for every gorgeous crabapple I've seen, I can think of two that look terrible and are badly in need of a restorative pruning. I started my search for the right tree by looking for disease resistance and size. I also didn't want one that would get too horizontal.

It looks like very little so far, but hopefully it will become a star in the yard.

I'm fortunate to have an excellent tree nursery near me that has great information online. In their plant reference guide they have a chart on crabapples and I used it to narrow down my choices to two: 'Coralburst' and 'Royal Raindrops,' both of which have excellent disease resistance. Ultimately we went with 'Coralburst' just because we liked the flower color better.

All of the trees are planted and none of them look like anything yet because they've yet to flower or leaf out, which is why the pictures (admittedly hastily taken early in the morning), but I'm hoping the early-season move will ultimately be beneficial to them by shocking them less by the move.

And it's nice to have it done. It's always fun to get a tree, but planting a tree is a chore.