Notes From Zone 4

We spent much of Sunday clearing for the future orchard, and found so many of these little guys. They are trillium, woods flowers, shade loving, endangered. I think they’re one of Frank’s most favorite flowers. I’m pretty fond of them myself. We have to move them, because they can’t tolerate the sun at all, and with all the cutting we’re doing, they’ll get too much sun, quickly. Haven’t quite figured out where to put them though. And we probably found 50 of them in this area alone.

So eventually I guess I’ll quit taking pictures of the yard, eh? Not much difference yet, really, though we finally broke down and bought a sprinkler because all the irrigation that we had put in last fall isn’t actually hooked up yet. And it’s been so dry … and amazingly enough, I swear the grass got greener in the few hours we had the sprinkler on.

Speaking of being really dry, we found out the hard way today that the state is under a burn ban. So nice to have the nice fire warden come by the house to explain it to us! We’re so rural that we never have anyone “just come by”. But evidently, the watch tower looks over our place quite nicely. Then driving around the area, we of course start to notice all of these signs everywhere.

A couple of shots from the driveway. We have an 800 foot gravel drive leading from a dirt road up to our house. We put surepack around the circular drive right up at the house. This driveway needs some serious work too, I think. But in the spring like this, it’s not quite so tunnel like as it’ll get later in the summer.

Hard freeze warning tonight. It’s been in the 70s during the day, and I’m so tempted to put my window boxes out, but sure enough, another hard freeze tonight. I had been putting out some of my wintered over plants out on the patio, and forgot them the other night, killed them all because of the freeze. I think this is the hardest part of being in Zone 4 — waiting until it’s safe to put out the annuals.

What a difference just four days away makes! I had a trip down to DC and Philly, and when I left on Tuesday morning, the trees didn’t have leaves on them. Spring sprung while I was gone. It was such a beautiful day today. The temps in the 60s, so a little chilly. We had just a touch of rain overnight, which cleared out the hot weather we’d had all week.

There’s even a bloom on the rhododendron [PJM Rhododendron, acid loving, partial sun to shade, cold hardiness to -25]. I wasn’t sure any of these new plants were going to bloom this summer. I’m still really unsure about the forsythia. I think that blooms on the old growth, and since it’s just a baby, I don’t think it *has* any old growth on it to bloom on.

The bulbs are starting to come up everywhere. We’ve seen tulips, daffs, iris, lilies, hyacinth. None of them blooming right now. I guess those crocuses I saw last weekend are really short bloomers. They were cute little things, though.

I haven’t given up completely on the new lawn. I guess I was just being too impatient. It’s definitely starting to sprout, in some areas much better than in others. There’s no question that it’ll still need a significant re-seeding, but it’s looking more green than dingy gray now. There are cute little baby blades popping up all over.