First Day of March

'Jane' magnolia, rushing the season.

Sunshine all day--a welcome change from too much gloomy weather in February.

I pegged sheets and towels on the back porch lines around noon where they flapped in the sun and wind, needing only a few minutes in the dryer when I brought them in at dusk. 

I peeled off my sweatshirt/hoodie and was comfortable in a long-sleeved jersey to work for several hours in the wall garden on the west side of the house.

I snipped dead stalks from the foxglove and gently pulled away winter-browned leaves to uncover the fresh green crowns. 

The foxgloves raised from seed last summer and belatedly set out in one of the black bins near the veg garden are looking far gone; I'm hoping a few will revive.

I did some cautious pruning of the clematis vines on the big trellis, likewise the wiry tangle of thyme at the base of the trellis.

Dead stems of monarda and purple coneflower cut away, then grubbing in the endless weeds that choke that bed. Henbit or the related dead nettle thrive through the winter along with various other evergreen and maliciously spreading ground cover weeds whose names I look up each spring and promptly forget. 

I labored over that small tiered garden for several years before a DVT in late March, 2021 put an end to my crawling about on the ground.

I can't call the area a success and don't know how to proceed to achieve something manageable that will preserve the foxglove and several roses along the wall. 

I suspect the large white-flowered butterfly bush will have succumbed to the weeks of bitter cold, as also the magenta -flowered pair in the raised bed alongside the greenhouse. 

I've replaced buddleia in three Kentucky gardens over our years here. When I grumbled to my favorite nurseryman at Homestead Gardens he suggested I consider dividing the initial cost of the shrub by the 3-5 years that it usually winters over, which makes for a modest investment against the pleasure of the luxurious blooms and the delight of visiting butterflies.

It will likely be another month before I can determine if any of the three bushes survived the cold.

Jim collected up more of the branches that were brought down by the weeks of ice and cold, used the chainsaw to remove some broken limbs over-hanging the lower lane.

I'm cautiously making a mental list of tasks I'd like to attempt in the coming week, the first in several that I've not had church duties for which to prepare.

I need to go through an accumulation of opened seed packets and speculate which may still be viable.

There are letters I should write, both as emails and to send out by regular mail.

Still a few more items in the pantry to be sorted and either culled or rearranged.

My bedroom wants tidying, as do the shelves to the left of my desk--and how about my clothes closet?

Given my puttering inefficiency at such things, add in the usual household chores of cleaning and cooking--maybe I'll just decide to go downstairs and take up my sewing!

Three seedlings of Lauren's Grape poppies have emerged at the edge of the old raised bed by the steps. 

Three more have braved the narrow rim of hard-packed soil along the south-facing barn door adjacent to the greenhouse. None have yet appeared in the graveled walkway just inside the door, but I can hope.

I had several lovely poppy varieties in my first Kentucky garden; only the one kind moved with us via seeds randomly shed in neighboring planters;  most years some lodge between the pavers near the front steps and bloom.

I've purchased fresh seeds each year but none have germinated. 

However: late last autumn I found a packet of seeds I had overlooked. and sprinkled them over some exposed soil. I'm hoping this is a poppy and not the winter-shriveled relative of a weed. 

Jane magnolia.

Jane

Monarda, holding its own in the mat of ground-cover weeks.

Coming home yesterday from lunch with Matt and Gina, Jim chose a meandering route, finally lumbering over a narrow dirt track that in three places crossed a shallow creek.

With no fear of oncoming traffic he stopped the car so I could record this profusion of wild daffodils.

[I refuse to call them by the local name of 'March lilies!']

Here I sit, an elderly woman, pondering how to make a garden, listing the tasks I want to accomplish--small personal things that have no import in any larger sense, a sort of self-absorbed plodding while [as my Dad would have remarked] the 'world goes to hell in a handbasket.' 

Ending on a pensive note: a scattering of red feathers just inside the greenhouse door and the soft body of a titmouse at the edge of the back porch: little deaths.