I guess once or twice before the weather got beautiful I walked around the yard surveying the havoc winter played on the property, picking up dog bones and broken limbs, moaning at the sight of the rough rock-strewn areas left behind by the snowplow. But when spring finally gave us that first really warm day, I couldn't wait to get outside. Housework just doesn't compare to yardwork. I know I've written about the first warm spring day before, probably more than once, but it is such a glorious experience for the gardener, I have to do it again.
I donned my white dress gloves ($.25 a pair at the thrift store), threw a trowel, a piece of foam to kneel on and two buckets into the garden cart and headed out to the perennial border. Since I never put the border to bed in the fall, the stalks of phlox, asters, Shasta daisies, black-eyed Susans and even astilbes were still standing surprisingly straight and tall, considering all the snow that covered them this winter.
Breaking them off at ground level was a snap. Their new leaves were barely showing. Just think how long it would have taken to clip each individual stalk had I done it in the October! They don't rot well in the compost pile though, lasting through two or three turns unless I break them up and mix them with old leaves and weeds.
I filled the garden cart with stalks and the two buckets with old leaves that had blown into the border, plus little clumps of grass easily uprooted, and oh, dear, a lot of dog poop. Two winters ago the dogs used the vegetable garden as their bathroom, but I fenced it off last fall so they apparently decided the border would do. Wow, about three months worth of dog fertilizer!
I'd cleaned up two whole sections of the border when I came to the first peony bush and realized I needed my clipper. Old peony stems are too stringy to break and must be cut. I also needed another bucket for stones. Did you know that during the winter big stones have broods of little stones? Frost heaves bring up these babies. Most are small enough to throw over the fence into the sheep pasture, but here and there are bigger ones.
I'd been working for about an hour so I got up. No, I tried to get up, but having been on my knees all that time (and of course not using my kneeler because it would have crushed one tender plant after another) my jeans were soggy and my knees frozen in the mud. Eventually I got moving, got the clipper and the bucket, got sidetracked long enough to quickly plant some lettuce seeds in the cold frame, then hurried back to the border.
I couldn't wait to tackle the next section of the border. The thrill of seeing two delphiniums sending up new greenery, the first leaves of the tulips I planted last fall, and a lupine poking its little green hands out from under the old leaves made my knees a minor irritant.
The next section of the border is where run-off from the pasture rips under the fence, washing away the soil. This occurs every spring, but this year's early rains made it far more damaging than usual. The roots of half a dozen perennials had been laid bare, only their tips still clinging to the subsoil. The bulbs of the three tulips I'd planted in that section last fall were completely naked, but were bravely sending up their first leaves, despite the lack of soil around them.
Time to get some compost and cover up all those poor roots and bulbs. I wheeled my garden cart, full of stalks and buckets into the pasture and dumped its contents down onto the compost pile. With a great chorus of baaaaas, the ewes came running to see what goodies I was bringing.
"Sorry, girls, nothing very green in this load. Oh, oh, hello!" I'd forgotten all about the rent-a-ram whom I'd greeted all winter with a strong fence between us.
Rams can be very dangerous critters, but this funny looking fellow seems very gentle. He's a redhead from Tunis, and provided he's done his job, we'll soon get some red-headed little lambs. I watched him nervously as he came toward me with his head down, but he merely inspected me and my cart and went around me to join his ladies.
I was planning to dig some compost to replace the soil washed out of the border, but the well-rotted pile hadn't been turned and was covered with grass clippings. Where to find enough dirt to cover my poor perennials was a problem I pondered as I continued cleaning up the border. It wasn't until that night when I went up to the long shed to find the rake that I saw the solution - nine buckets full of beautiful compost! My yard boy Logan and I had filled them last fall and stacked them at the back of the shed.
I didn't have the strength to lift them, probably a good thing as I'd definitely overdone, trying to finish cleaning the border. My bare-rooted perennials would have to wait until the weekend when two grandsons were coming who would give old Grandma a hand. Ah, but what a satisfying end to my delicious day in the garden, finding all those buckets full of compost.
I hope you enjoyed your first warm day outside as much as I did!
