Wait 'til the frog croaks thrice.

There's an experiment on frog spawn taking place here

I had a child in tears this morning when he heard that there was snow in the forecast. He is SO ready for warm weather. Aren't we all?

While I was walking the dog this morning, a neighbour pulled over to say hello and this is what she told me about spring: "They say wait until the frogs croak three times." I looked at her, I'm sure, like she'd grown a second head. "They sing, then they stop, sing then stop and the third time you hear them singing, then it's spring," she explained. Apparently we're only on song #2.

I'll explain this to the young plants in the greenhouse tonight when I drape them in some old blankets I keep for days like today. I'll explain the same to the weepy boy, too.

Do you have any adages to share about spring? Please share them, if you do!

April Rocks: Put the Girls to Work

Don't just stand there, get to work!

When we moved to Schoolhouse Rocks, I coined a new name for what I did in the yard: Restoration Gardening.

That's what you do when you inherit a garden with a lot of history and a few years of benign neglect.

I discovered asparagus in one area, some beautiful roses in another. I unearthed what was once a lovely natural stone walkway to a traditional rose garden (roses long gone, for the most part). In September of our first year, a flash of red caught my eye and I traced it to some long-lost autumn bearing raspberries that had been hanging on for years.

Then I tried to transplant the roses and discovered the thick layer of gravel lying under 10 centimetres of topsoil.

Impossible to dig through, yet right where I wanted a perennial bed. What was a gardener to do?

Not yet a focal point... wait for it.

When I saw the wonderful pile of straw and rotted manure the chickens had created in their winter enclosure, I had a thought: let the girls make the garden!

So we moved the coop and the enclosure to where I wanted the new garden and gave the ladies their orders. Scratch. Dig. Poop. Make a mess. Enjoy.

In other words, do what you do.

My job will be to toss in cut straw and compost and let the whole thing build up. The end result will (hopefully) be a raised bed that I can plant up. When it's done, the girls will be moved to the other side of the future walkway.

I, too, have some doubts.

I'll report back in a couple of months. Fingers crossed!

Cold frame: success!

The cold frame is wonderful! Arugula, radish, rapini and mache are growing, and I've hardened off some rapini and brocolli I started in the house. The coir pots will get slit (the packaging says they can be planted as is, but I like to give the wee roots as much help as possible) and placed into the vegetable garden. I'll keep an eye on the nighttime temperatures and stick a cloche over the young plants if it gets too cold.

Photo Credit

I have also used plastic bottles to make a small greenhouse by cutting the bottom off the bottle, putting it upright in the ground, and removing the cap for ventilation. Not pretty, but cheap!

Speaking of cheap....

A couple of years ago I bought some white plastic markers for the garden. They were inexpensive, durable and easy. Somehow, though, a lot went missing over the winter and I had nothing with which to mark my spring plantings. I put my eldest to work and he made me these stakes from branches pruned from the apple tree. Aren't they gorgeous? To make matters even better, I JUST saw the chamomile sprouting in the path at the back of the picture. It's self-seeding, bless its tiny tea-licious heart.

April Rocks: The Strolling Garden

For full map, click this link.

It's so close I can barely contain myself. The Last Frost Date for Schoolhouse Rocks is April 21, and Sunday night when I went out to close in the chickens, I heard my first spring peeper. In spite of snow being forecast for this week, I know we've broken the back of winter and gardening season is well under way!

asknature.org

As tempting as the garden centre is with its displays of pansies and just-a-bit-too-early perennials, I am continuing to practise restraint. Spring is a wonderful time to work on the hardscaping of your garden. The blackflies have yet to make an appearance, the mosquitoes are still stumbling about their kitchens waiting for the coffee to be done, and the plants are still safely tucked into bed. At Schoolhouse Rocks, I finally figured out what to do with a problem area in the yard.

The problem area is planted with mature trees (spruce, yew, maple, birch, poplar), but underplanted with myrtle, common daylilies, goldenrod, pachysandra and another ground cover which wants to move into my house. The problem is that it's so dense it defies anyone who wants to meander through it. It had become my habit to stand at the edge of the space with my weedwacker in hand and weep.

Lacking heavy equipment, I needed some inspiration:

You need to read this book by Evelyn Hadden (Timber Press, 2012)

What I needed to do, I realised as I read Ms. Hadden's lovely book, was to stop thinking of it as a mess, and starts thinking of it as a garden in need of some understanding. And a shovel. And some rocks. A lot of rocks. Hey, use what you've got.

The entrance to the *NEW* Strolling Garden

The problem area needed something to draw you in, and while getting rid of the extraordinarily healthy ground cover is never going to happen in my lifetime, a narrow, winding path is easy for me to keep tidy.

A bench for reading and dreaming.

 Initially, I used a rake to mark where the path should go. After the first bend, I went straight down the slope, but standing back I saw that it was all wrong. Never take a straight path through a garden: the trip is over too quickly. So I added another bend and discovered I had also found a perfect place to put a bench. That gigantic pile of mulch I introduced you to in March still has plenty in it to cover the path.

So now I have a no-mow garden, which I can brighten up with some early bulbs (late ones will never be seen through the daylilies) and some shade-happy shrubs. I will add some hostas and other low-growing perennials to drape languidly over the path, and perhaps experiment with clematis and a few lovely stumps that need dressing up for the summer.

Now for tea and another read-through of that book. I still have half an acre to decide how not to mow.

*More and more homeowners and gardeners are opting for eco-friendly lawn options. Traditional lawns waste water and require fertilisers and pesticides that harm everything they touch. My 'go with what grows' philosophy of gardening turns out not to be laziness at all! For more information, please visit Less Lawn, or the  Lawn Reform Coalition. Another exciting project is the Edible Garden Project, which promotes replacing front yards with front gardens. Check out their inspiring ideas!