Garden Secrets: May
While the calendar says its late May, the weather feels more like late November. Just the other day my 82 year old grandmother was telling me that "in her day" no one planted anything out until after Memorial Day, to which I scoffed that waiting until Mother's Day was long enough! Turns out I might want to start listening to my elders.
This most recent snow did cause me to research the dates of last snowfalls in Boulder and I found that the last time we had an even later last snow was 1951, when it snowed on June 2nd! (Guess Grandma has experience to back up her planting ideals).
I had already planted out over 30 dahlias and dozens of china asters and foxglove in the garden. Then among my annuals my peonies are in full bud form and I have allium and Icelandic poppies blooming.
I hope the dahlias survived and while the peonie stems are fully creased and bent, past experiences tell me that even in this condition-- if left on the plant--they WILL bloom.
A full week before our latest snowstorm I got out to the large cutting garden and, with the help of a small group of determined friends and family members, managed to lay nearly all of the irrigation for the cutting beds. We are more than a week behind schedule but I hope to have the beds all staked and twined off with soaker hoses in place, pumpkins and sunflowers direct sowed, and dahlias and seedlings planted out before Memorial Day (see, I'm still not actually listening to my Grandmother). Come August I hope this 4,000 sq ft cutting garden will be swarming with bumble bees and overflowing with blooms; if it is I'll invite all of you local readers out to enjoy it with me!
With Mother's Day and May subscription deliveries behind us I'm looking forward to June subscriptions and Father's Day next month. I have some fabulous succulent gardens and potted plants up on the website that just scream LOVE YOU DAD!!!
I'm also contemplating another workshop/happy hour at The Arboretum in June-- thinking maybe to celebrate the ever inspiring rose and making the theme floral designing with roses...please ping me if you are interested as spending times with y'all is about the only thing that can motivate me to get the dirt out from under my fingernails and back into the design studio.
Here's to warmer weather and more time in the garden!
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