Posts Tagged: sweet cicely
Sweet Cicely and The Maple Part II
Sweet Cicely Appreciates Shade
With the end of each season comes sales! As autumn wears on, nearly all garden centers in the northern part of the United States typically discount the remaining summer stuck of plants significantly. I desired a smallish hardy shrub to go in the center of the raised bed where I had been attempting to grow my sweet cicely. The cicely is growing along the right edge, so I wanted something that grew up to 10 feet high x 5 feet wide. I perused all the shrubs and came across a bush cherry that was 50% off.
I took out my phone and did a quick bit of research. The variety I was considering was the Juliet Bush Cherry. This beauty is happy to Zone 2! It grows to ten feet high and 5-7 feet wide. Perfect! To top it off, one plant can eventually produce 25 pounds of cherries once mature. Quite a delightful bonus, wouldn’t you agree?
Interlude to share the delight of chickadees in the garden
I started creating this post on the 13 August of this year. With that in mind, here’s a moment that happened as I was writing that day:
I am sitting outside writing this and the sun is now in the west which makes it difficult to sit in the shade under the pergola. Because of this, I am sitting on the couch which is still shaded. I have a bonsai with a tray underneath that catches water. The chickadees love to drink from this tray. I am sitting right next to it so now and again I can hear wings fluttering near my head. The chickadee flapping around wanted to land but didn’t like my being so close. I moved down and stole these photos.
I absolutely adore the chickadees and have more dedicated feeders for them than any other bird.
Back to the Story
I purchased the Juliet Bush Cherry and once home, I created a respectable hole and planted it in snugly into the little raised bed. Digging and planting finished, I removed my gloves, sat down and immediately started looking forward to the day when it would reach maturity. When that day arrives, my sweet cicely will have ample shade and I can harvest fresh cherries as an added bonus!
Because winter would be arriving soon, I added an entire bag of soil pep mulch to the entire area.
Spring Arrived
Though the bush cherry is still relatively small, it did seem it would provide some decent shade for my (hopefully) soon to be emerging sweet cicely. But, would it be enough to allow for success?
I believe it was the second or third week of March when I noticed the little fern textured leaves poking through the ground. Though optimistic, I did not allow myself to get too excited. I had seen the foliage emerge in a similar fashion in years past. It did not take long for me to realize that this year was going to be different however. More and more leaves began to emerge and then! I was blessed with flower stalks. The little umbels were similar to that of Queen Anne’s Lace and their very presence allowed for the type of elation only a gardener would understand. When you try for something so long within the garden, an occurrence such as this is wonderful validation for years of hard work.
Why Was I Successful This Year?
I wish I had a photo to show you, but I cannot seem to find any of the photos I took when the flowers formed. With that said, here is a photo from Wikimedia Commons that is a fair representation of what I saw in my garden.
Sweet Cicely, courtesy Wikimedia Commons
I am not entirely sure why I had such success this year. It could be everything combined (clearing out competing plants, providing a bit more shade, etc.) but I am convinced that the main reason is due to adding the soil pep. I say that because I added soil pep to other parts of the garden. In each area where soil pep was added, the plants flourished. I absolutely love this product and plan to mulch the entire garden with it throughout the rest of this autumn season.
This concludes the Sweet Cicely portion of this series. I still owe you a story about the maple and that story shall be told in the third and final part of this series.
I thank you so kindly for reading.
Until next time, happy gardening and thank you for being a part of my community!
As always, here are some photos of my garden for you to enjoy.
This is just one of the many sunflowers that volunteered in my garden this year.
Rudbecia flower against fence
Hey! Look what I found! This is a photo of the cicely happily growing in my garden!
Borage flower. The leaves taste of cucumbers
Tragopogon dubius (Yellow Goat’s Beard) flower
Tragopogon dubius (Yellow Goat’s Beard) in seed. I gathered some seeds a long while ago during a road trip. I am now blessed to have these flowers growing everywhere.
Dear Friend and Gardener
Dear friend and gardener. It’s been such a long while, I know. I feel it important to explain my absence somewhat. To put it bluntly, I have, for the most part, become disenchanted with the whole idea of writing anything. Despite this lack of inspiration or desire, I have been contemplating the idea of creating this blog entry for weeks now. Each Sunday, within my mind, I presented the idea of creating an article. Then… self-doubt would creep in. ”What would I talk about?” and my personal favorite, “What’s the point?” Hardly anyone wishes to read blog posts about gardening these days!” Well, at least, not the story-based articles. There are blogs-a-plenty that give basic gardening instruction and it would not surprise me if they were all written by bots. Yes, that’s a thing now… automated robot writing. It’s quite probable that you have read an article or news story that was written by some sort of AI program. So, what chance does an actual human writer have? I digress and must resist cynicism!
With all that said, my garden this year is in fine form ~~ exceptionally fine form. More on that in a later post but this is worth mentioning because it is a driving factor for my writing.
Today’s Source of Inspiration
Buried within my self-deprecating shadows of doubt, still lives the unyielding desire to write about and ultimately share the various happenings within my humble garden. I just couldn’t figure out how to emerge from the rubble and create… until this evening.
Each evening before I turn off the lights to go to sleep, I enjoy reading a bit from one of the many books that consider my nightstand home.
Not pictured because it is resting right beside me is Dear Friend and Gardener Letters on Life and Gardening by Beth Chatto and Christopher Lloyd (not THAT Christopher Lloyd from Back to the Future!). This book is absolutely delightful. It is an exchange of letters between two gardeners with two very unique styles of gardening. Each letter is like all the essential oils on a canvas that when mixed together portray the perfect scenes from two very beautiful, yet different gardens in different regions of England. With each exchange, I could not help but be inspired not only with planting ideas (I really want to try growing the Galanthus ‘Atkinsii’ snowdrop Beth mentions in one of her letters for example) but also to write.
Is Gardening Still Relevant?
One could be forgiven to believe gardening in this modern, digital age to be something vanquished into the annals of historical, quaint pastimes people used to do for leisure or sustenance. Further, the only people who actually garden today are the old human relics clinging to something that serves no real purpose.
At first glance, these ill-informed thought processes could be easily supported by simply looking around one’s own neighborhood. Gone are the glorious flower borders of cottage flowers flanked by various roses ~~ at least for the most part. Instead what we see in abundance are lawns heavily laden with various cocktails of some of the most horrid chemicals known to man. Beyond that, a cursory tree or set of shrubs and MAYBE a scattering of atypical annuals. Not quite representative of the glory of the gardens of our grandparents.
Oh Gertrude! How I long to see more borders like this!
So, does this truly mean gardeners are an endangered species doomed to extinction? No, I really don’t think so.
The Torch Shall Be Passed
May my words I have written this day drift surely and steadily toward a new generation of gardeners. A new generation of gardeners you may ask? Yes. You see, I have hope. Not just the selfish hope that my rather inconsequential gardening blog will one day find its audience but a much greater hope for the pastime itself.
I volunteer at the Denver Botanic Gardens and each year my job is to assist in the water smart section of the sale (planting a xeric based garden is a huge passion of mine). As each year passes, the crowds of people eager to try their hand at gardening grow tremendously. This is a crowd of glorious human beings of all ages (even as young as two) eager to make something of a bit of earth. A large percentage of these people will seek advice and inspiration from those working the sale. That’s where I come in! As mentioned, my passions revolve around gardening with as little irrigation as possible so the idea of volunteering to help sell plants that are water smart and can survive a bit of drought greatly appeals to me. As visitors arrive, they all have questions and I love answering them. Seeing a penstemon or a sedum go home with someone is for me a sheer delight!
So, yes. I have hope and I am inspired.
Thank you Beth and Christopher for YOUR words of inspiration. Thank you for that nudge I so desperately needed to start writing again. May my words keep flowing, may they find their audience and may they in turn inspire another and another.
Thank you so kindly for reading. I have so much more to share and trust me I will share. In my next post I will talk of two of my more significant successes ~~ sweet cicely and the maple tree.
Until next time! Happy gardening!
As always, here are some recent photos of my garden. Moving forward, I will be sharing exactly six images. I love the number six so thought that a good number to share.
I have this viburnum growing behind the elderberries. Each year it grows bigger and bigger and this year I was blessed by an enchanting bloom!
New pea vines growing steadily to escape their container and journey wherever they please. This is the heirloom Swenson Swedish Pea.
Oh yes, one of my absolute, most favorite flowers, the tiny viola. I have them emerging everywhere. I love these flowers so much!
A glorious shot of new rose leaves emerging. I just love the red tinge the new leaves have don’t you?!
This lily has emerged faithfully year after year. It sends up a huge stock which is then graced by a cluster of about four flowers. At the time of writing this article, it is about to open up in all its glory.