Adding and Dividing.

5-8-17 VERMONT: I’m taking a break from gardening to do this post because it’s hailing at the moment. They’re small hailstones, the size of lentils. Otherwise today is overcast, in the low forties with gusty winds and drizzle. This is the kind of day that makes New Englanders dour and taciturn. Yesterday was warmer, and it only rained a little, but the black flies were out for the first time. Today is too cold for the flies. We had heavy rain on Friday.

I’m figuring out what died over the winter, but it’s still a little early to assume something is dead when it might just be dormant. I did buy and plant a few item from Brown’s Nursery. A clematis, C. vino pulvo9290, went in the little bed on the north side of the deck. Two hollyhocks, Alcea rosea ‘Spotlight Sunshine’ and Alcea ficifolia ‘Happy Lights’, went in the bed below the deck and a delphinium, D. elatum ‘Wilson Flopless’ went next to the other delphiniums in the rock garden.

Yesterday and today I divided the hostas by the front porch. They were so big that they covered the walkway and soaked your feet if you walked through them on the path. The parts that I removed were transplanted to spots that needed hostas. This is the only time to do this task because the hostas are up about a inch and can be seen, but not so tall that you can’t see what you’re doing.

New blooms: star magnolia, service berry, violets, trout lily.


Star Magnolia is just opening. This is the only magnolia hardy in this Zone. With a few more years of Climate Change we may have Southern Magnolias growing here.

Service berry is the taller, white-flowered bush on the left and the Star Magnolias are on the right.

Equisetum, Horse Tail, is a remnant plant from the Carboniferous Period, some 300 million years ago. Trees, like this plant, up to 100 feet tall, dominated the forests and swamps also populated by giant amphibians. Those forests ended up as coal. This little guy is truly a living fossil. These brown stalks are about to pop open with green fringe.