False Spring

Garden Journal Week 5

Scheduling changes due to extreme busyness, the garden got shifted to the back burner which is why I didn’t journal the fourth week in the year. Then, I got some help, got some things done, pulled a muscle, and careened into February. It’s hard to believe we’re already in the second month of 2025.

The garden is facing false spring, as the temperatures rise after we did get some rainfall last week. We got a measured total of 0.16” of rain which is not enough. I’m going to take advantage of the warm weather to get my drip lines finished up and turned back on. I’d winterized the lines due to cold, and may have to do that again when the weather inevitably turns cold again, but I’m not going to let the dry stop me in my tracks.

The fencerow orchard, the new Quince is the yellow-tagged stick near the pot and plastic.

I was expecting an order to arrive in mid-February, but to my surprise and pleasure, it came in just at the end of January. Lat year I’d ordered from Ison’s Nursery and when that order arrived, it had obviously suffered a delay in shipment where the plants inside the box had broken dormancy and were seeking light. Most, but not all, that shipment survived although not thrived. This year, I’d taken a chance on ordering again because they had the elusive Quince trees I’ve been trying to get for years. I’m very happy with the order from Ison’s this year, the bareroot trees are a healthy size, still safely dormant, and had good root systems. I got two quince (Rich, and Pineapple), along with Blackcurrant, Red Lake Currant, and Pixwell Gooseberry.

The last Day of January I had help in the garden. A friend’s son is knowledgeable, understands my garden plans, and available for hire, so hopefully I’ll get him a couple of hours a week to help! We dug out the last two Nandina shrubs on the north side of the house, and replaced them with the berry plants. Currants and gooseberry are nominally hardy in this zone, so I’m hoping that the cooler microclimate there will help them to survive. I’d really love to get berries from them!

Hard to tell, but there are two bareroot berry plants where the yellow tags are, the bucket is my winterized hose bib, and in the center are the daffodils shooting up!

I was irresponsible on the first day of February, and brought home berries from the big box store. They had jostaberry, which I wanted to add to the currant row, and honeyberries, which I have been wanting to try. I am, um, not sure where those will be planted just yet! I did restrain myself and didn’t buy a nectarine tree. I don’t have anywhere else to put fruit trees. I think. Probably.

I do have to remember I’m not thirty any more, or even forty. I tried to get the last Nandina at the eastern corner of the house dug by myself, and discovered that there is a Waxleaf Ligustrum entwined with one of them. The ligustrum were likely the original foundation plants or hedge planted around the house in 1950 when it was built. They are marginally hardy to this area, and in the Big Freeze in 2021, they were killed back to the roots. Some of them are sending up shoots at this point. I’d like to remove them, or what’s left of them, but 80 years of growth means they have monster rootballs and trunks the size of my thigh, only harder. As I was working around the bushes I was trying to dig up, I managed to pull a muscle in my back, which put me out of commission for most of the rest of the weekend in the garden.

Still, progress was made. I have a lot of cleanup to manage, somehow. My son is coming home for leave at the end of the week, and asked me to have projects for him so he can help and have stuff to keep him busy while I’m working. Oh, I have projects! It will be very good to see him.

Inside the house, the geranium I’m overwintering in a south window is happy enough to bloom, adding red to my pink kalanchoe cheerfulness.