Gardening for the Season Begins

OK, I know it’s early and I can’t plant anything new, but I can start cleaning up as the snow melts. That’s what I’ve been doing the past few days. I’m calling it all gardening because it’s about cleaning up the yard to get ready for actual flower gardening.

Driveway stone got plowed over the lily garden. I'm raking it
back to the driveway.

First up was raking the driveway stone that got plowed from the driveway onto the lawn and flower gardens. Most of this was the lily bed. This type of driveway is new to me and during the nicer seasons, it looks nice and it doesn’t get muddy in the rain, but snow plowing scraped off where the driveway was curved for water run-off. 

I’m picking at this project a little at a time to get the bulk of it back to the driveway. The smaller particles will be mixed in with mulch in the garden beds. 

I love this time of year because it’s exciting to see what the melting snow reveals. Sometimes it’s not so good, but I love finding new growth. I’m amazed to see what plants have been greening under the snow.

This week I found the first green of a few daylilies poking out of the mulch and I was totally surprised how much green is on the Jacob’s ladder. There is even a few green leaves on daisies that were over taking the garden last fall. On the other side of the front porch, the coreopsis, fully revealed yesterday, has green leaves amid the dark winter-soaked leftover fall leaves. I’ll have to get the pruners and trim that up. 

I don’t want to do too much yet. There’s still the potential of below freezing nights and possible snow. But it feels so good to get out there.

This year’s plans (at least right now) is to do some work in the back yard. The house was built on a manmade rise and slopes down in the back to the brook. The outer deck edge is a good 10 feet from the ground. The area was left to be totally natural although I did have someone come in last year to do some basic clean-up of scrub and bushes. 

This year I want to do more clean-up starting with deadfall and broken limbs. I’d also like to take out a few other trees and saplings. There’s a mix of beech, oak, pine, and hemlock. Ground cover, besides previous years’ leaves includes clubmoss (which I knew as princess pine as kids growing up) and something that grows low to the ground like a holly or winterberry, but I’m not sure exactly what it is.

I’ve ordered hostas to plant around some old stumps I like. Other than that, I just want the area cleaned up and looking nice. I don’t know how much I will actually do because all I need is to see one tick on me and that will do me in.