I wore a hole in my good leather gardening gloves grubbing out the weeds in the stone walk, dropped a garden fork on my toe and ruined the polish, my arms are itchy from from weeding among the rue and the shrubs, but all in all it's a good day.

Too late to take a picture, though.

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© 2011 written for Ilona's Garden Journal. An excellent blog.

Today People Are Looking For...

the candle growth

Today people are looking for information on how to prune a mugo pine. That is the Google interpretation of what people want from this garden journal. It is just a little too late to be asking that question.

But it is just the right time to prune other things, like the Spring blooming shrubs:

Lilacs, viburnums, forsythia, weigelas, et al ... all those shrubs that just finished flowering last month and could use a good trimming up? The time is now, and I have just the post for you:

Quick Review of Important Pruning Tips

Ask me how I know? I was out of town when the time to prune the mugo pines was in season and I missed it. I had pruned off about half the candles of the one nearest the porch, but then got busy getting ready for my trip South and never resumed the job. The other mugo... the one that is already grown out of bounds on the other side of the house... didn't get pruned at all. I think it is a tree, now.

Its location is fine for its growth, but still, I had not intended for it to be more than a shrub. It got away from me.

This has been a year for that, so far. I started weeding the stone walk yesterday. The front garden will get mown (held off until bulb foliage matured), and will continue the front yard recovery act. At least the weather has been nice.


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© 2011 written for Ilona's Garden Journal. An excellent blog.

A lovely summer day

Summer Day
Potthast, Edward...
Buy This Allposters.com



 It has been a long time since I have waxed poetic... that expression only manifests when the time is given for long reflective periods, when the beauty of atmosphere can saturate my very skin and sink deeply into my mind. There it ferments, as I turn phrases in my head, mix metaphors and then hold them to the light to sort them out, and rephrase until the words hold the feeling and the meaning in an intelligible way. Then... if the mood is right and I am left alone to write it before it all evaporates away... is something that I can feel happy to have written. something that captures and then gives away a glimpse into what was shown to me.

I have not had days like that for a long while. The days have been busy, and productive, but with weeding and work, not with words, dreams, and thinking processes. I spent much of today happily clearing walks of vegetation and sweeping them neatly, trimming the lilac, and clearing beneath it. I hedged back the sage. Raked up the debris and considered it all time well spent. Then I simply enjoyed the warm sunshine and perfect June weather we are having, sharing some of that generally beneficent feeling with the cat... who seemed to enjoy walking around the garden with me.

The vegetable garden is getting some grooming and even though I had left the newly planted tomatoes to fend for themselves... it seems only two were lost- to who knows what! And all others are growing thriftily now that the temperatures have finally warmed.

It will take awhile to brood over my blog writing, I still have so many garden chores to catch up on, and for some reason it gives me a rather more clipped communication, something like the newly hedged sage plants.

Til later friends... with pictures. Everything photographed is either the spring pictures or the beach.


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© 2011 written for Ilona's Garden Journal. An excellent blog.

When Should I Transplant My Garden Plant?

The rule of thumb for transplanting any sort of plant is:

The best time to transplant a plant is when it is most dormant.

That rule seems simple enough, and for most plants, dormancy is in spring before the leaves appear, or in late summer or early fall when they are getting ready for their winter sleep. For those of us in cold climates, we are taking chances when planting any later than the beginning of November.

But as simple as that general rule is, there are caveats and exceptions with particular plants.

Take a tree like the magnolia, for example. These flowering trees are very popular for their fragrant large flowers and beautiful leaves. Northern gardens usually have to settle for some of the smaller varieties like the M. stellata or the Magnolia x soulangiana instead of the stately M. Grandiflora. For the Northern gardens, such as in Ohio, springtime is the best time to plant these trees with their shallow, fleshy roots. It gives sufficient time for the tree to settle in before the ground freezes.

Early spring Magnolia stellata

Horticultural advice for magnolias

Some plants go dormant in the summer, such as German Iris, and they are best divided and transplanted in mid to late July.

Horticultural advice for German Iris

Peonies are long lived plants and they don't like transplanting, but one of the better times to move them into a new place in the garden is in August. Tehy have fleshy roots with growing points called "eyes" and this trasnplant schedule gives the roots time to settle in and to grow through the early winter and late winter to establish well. You still won't see good bloom until the following year or two, but after their sulking period, peonies give you the bloom they are famous for... and lasting beauty for many years.

Horticultural advice for peonies


Photo credit: katmystiry from morguefile.com


My plant profiles for :
Iris is a star perennial.

Scented pink peonies in full bloom

Peonies in My Garden
Magnolia stellata for Northern gardeners.




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© 2011 written for Ilona's Garden Journal. An excellent blog.

June 2011 Report for Flatironed Acres

Flatironed Acres is what I have decided to call this place because it looks like God took an old fashioned flatiron and smoothed it out without fold or wrinkle.

Some passing thunder rumbled, but it proved an empty threat of rain. I had taken note of it this morning and continued my efforts at reclaiming my gardens from weeds that had grown while I was gone for two weeks. Two weeks in the growing season and it might as well be two months! I've made good,sweaty progress however, and the lavender walk again looks like a feature instead of a sad mistake. The mosquitoes took advantage of my efforts under the Cameo quince bush, where the Quack grass loves to take hold.

I am puppy-sitting for my daughter, and Brutus is an energetic romper throughout the garden with frequent dives into the garden pond. He loves it when I'm pulling weeds- and tries to catch each handful that I throw backwards from my advance into the garden bed. Annoying only when he decides the garden fork is his sworn enemy and goes on semi-attack. I have to stop and speak sternly at that point. He found an errant tennis ball and is leaving me alone...for now.

Spring Pinks 2011

There are so many shades of pink in the spring, they stand out against all the intense green and are luminously in harmony with the heavenly blue skies. This year the blooms were a bit late and held tight buds for longer than usual.

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© 2011 written for Ilona's Garden Journal. An excellent blog.