The Burrow

Over Easter dinner, a friend talked about Philly's four nor'easters. This morning on ESPN, announcers in sweaters were cavorting in a snowstorm. Snowy hikes are making a comeback this week on Facebook. Auntie Em, enduring an East Coast Spring, has mentioned several times that she loves my snapdragons.  I love Auntie Em and I love my hardy snaps, so here we are.  Spring after Spring, although they are sold as annuals. they reemerge from a severe winter pruning, thicker and healthier than the year before.  They may not be an exotic species, but I'll take anything that gives me reliable color and deem it the most beautiful plant I've ever seen. Yes, I'm easy that way. You would be too if you gardened here. Little Cuter, photographer extraordinaire , calls this lighting The Golden Hour, These 36" newbies were planted with expansion in mind.  I have high hopes that they will cover the area between the Heavenly Bamboo ( nandina of some var...

I spent this afternoon upgrading the irrigation system.  A contractor's special,  the entire 1.3 acre lot hosts a single very long supply line governed by one timer.  In practical terms, this means that every plant which is irrigated by this system is watered for the same amount of time.  This makes organizing a xeriscape somewhat of a challenge. Xeriscape, as I remind TBG every now and again when he sees me adding water to the desert, does not mean zero-scape .

It's raining. The lightning is 2 or 3 bolts at a time, some vertical, some horizontal, some seeming to cross one another. The irrigation system and I both watered this morning, so the ground was ready to send this new moisture deep down to where the root systems live. I wonder where the lizards and the bunnies are hiding. I'm typing during their usual dinner hour and I miss their antics. The ground squirrels have been increasing the size and number of their burrows in the front yard; I'm not worried that they'll get wet down there. I'm watching the places where the water's collecting, and deciding how to berm it once the weather cools off. If I make little aqueducts I can funnel the rainfall to the trees which lie outside the irrigation system's reach. That's xeriscape gardening -taking full advantage of nature's bounty when she deigns to share it with us. In most of the rest of the country, gardeners are making plans to put their beds to rest for th...