Every spring I rediscover my spring/summer wardrobe, my garden tools and the clutter in my garage. My wardrobe and the tools always seem fresh and new—at least for the first fifteen minutes. The clutter in my garage is forever old and daunting. Generally I ignore it in favor of making discoveries in my garden.
This year’s big revelation was the clove currant—Ribes odoratum. I planted it about five years ago after being intoxicated by one at Wave Hill in the Bronx. The Wave Hill specimen was mature at about four feet tall, with lobed blue-green leaves. It was covered with hundreds of small yellow flowers, each one exuding the sweet, spicy fragrance of clove. I wafted home on that fragrant memory and ordered a clove currant immediately. It was in the ground three weeks later. Then I waited, and waited and waited. Last fall I had just about decided to rip out the shrub in favor of something that would pull its weight in the garden. Laziness and Hurricane Sandy intervened to save the clove current and now it is blooming. The show is not astounding, but there are enough flowers to perfume the air around the bush. Fruit will have to wait until I get a clove currant of the opposite sex for hanky-panky and pollination purposes. For the moment though, I give thanks once again for laziness.
As poet John Donne said, “Death be not proud.” It certainly wasn’t for the hardy ice plant—Delospermum cooperi—in my back garden. The ice plant, a low grower, was three years old, with narrow fleshy leaves and gorgeous pink-purple daisies. It grew on the edge of a raised bed and flowed gracefully over the low stone wall directly in front of it. In the winter the leaves turned a lovely burgundy shade. It was, in short, a perfect plant. And then it died—an unhappy revelation in this season of rebirth.
I am not sure why this happened, as it was in a raised situation with good drainage. It probably had something to do with last winter’s weather. In any event, I will replace it with another ice plant and this time add both compost and gravel to the planting hole. I am taking no chances the second time around.
I love the reasonably unusual yellow trillium—Trillium luteum—which is now preparing to bloom in my back shade garden. Its whimsical common name is “wake robin.” The robins in my yard are already awake, but I am sure they appreciate the wake robin anyway. Each plant grows about a foot tall, with a very distinctive cluster of three large, rounded leaves at the top of every stalk. The medium green leaves, splashed and mottled with lighter green, serve as a backdrop for the yellow flowers, which look a bit like small yellow tulips. I hadn’t expected the yellow trillium to bloom this year, and in truth, I had forgotten all about it. Happily, the plant was oblivious to my sieve-like memory and came up anyway.
Nearly a decade ago, I was at a plant conference and one of the sponsoring nurseries was giving out tiny starter plants of a clematis called “Radar Love.” I took one because it was free and I am a soft touch for freebies of all sorts. The name is reminiscent of the psychedelic sixties, but the plant is actually a variety of Clematis tangutica, a native of Asia. This climbing or free ranging vine can grow to eight feet, with a spread of three or four feet. The attraction is the bell-shaped flowers, which are bright yellow and borne in profusion. Mine, of course, has never borne anything in profusion and tends to disappear in the hot summers. I would have ripped it out years ago, but at the times when my ire was at an apex, the plant was nowhere to be found. This spring it is suddenly alive, well and spreading lustily. We will see if this is finally the year when I get a little ‘Radar Love’ of my own.
In the spirit of rebirth and spring construction projects, the resident groundhog has built an extension tunnel, with an outlet in the raised bed by our garage. This is offensive, like everything connected with the groundhog. As with his other excavations, I have filled the latest one with used cat litter. I will add an assertively scented mound of discarded onion grass to the top, possible with a few dabs of Vick’s Vapo Rub, which really does seem to deter garden varmints. The groundhog is a cagey creature. I have no doubt that right now he is taking a page from Tennyson and his young groundhog’s fancy has lightly turned to thoughts of love. I can’t put a stop to that, but if my efforts are successful, there will be no groundhog love shack in my garden.
This is the essence of spring gardening—birth, rebirth, new plantings, discoveries and groundhogs. I rejoice in all of them—except for the groundhogs.