oof

Well, COVID-19 has eaten all my traditional spring gardening outings. The Spring Garden Fair is cancelled, and per order of the Governor, all nurseries are closed until at least April 30 (to be re-evaluated then). The garden centers at Big Orange and Big Blue are still open — I may brave Orange to get a few bags of my usual mushroom compost.

Thanks to Jannine Cabossel over at giantveggiegardener for the updates, and leads on alternate plant start sources!

How about some pictures? All the dead growth from last summer in the east bed was bugging me, so I took down the bamboo "fence" and cleaned everything out the other day. What day? Who knows anymore? I've been at home (except for dog walks) since March 22 and working from home full time since March 16. The plants don't care about coronavirus tho. The earth tilts on its axis, days get longer, the plants come back. 💚

Before



During (oh, hi there, Philadelphus!)



After

2017 Garden Fair | weekend update

So, apparently, there was construction going on at the Santa Fe County Fairgrounds that severely impacted the spaces where the Garden Fair is held. There was only one building open (usually there are two, plus various outdoor spaces), so there was only maybe one-quarter the amount of vendors/exhibitors as usual, plus only the main plant sale. The Farminista ladies were not there! No food trucks! Boo! Fortunately, there were tomatoes in the main plant sale. Unfortunately, even though I got there by 9:30 am, they had sold out of Sungolds! Gah! I panicked and grabbed two Robesons ($4 each). It was nutso, and really crowded, with everything crammed into a too-small space. Ran into the ever-fabulous Bev, Kathy, and Paul B.!


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To salve my disappointment, I engaged in some additional retail therapy on my way home. First, I stopped at Plants of the Southwest and got a Littleleaf Mockorange (Philadelphus microphyllus). Earlier this spring we had Coates Tree Service out to do some work, including removing the three-leaf sumac outside our bedroom window — it was seriously encroaching and causing problems. The mockorange will take its place.



I've been reading Nate Downey's PermaDesign blog, and back in April, he posted a piece about David Salman, the founder and former president of Santa Fe Greenhouses. (Even though the Santa Fe Greenhouses retail location has been closed for years, High Country Gardens, their mail-order branch, is still going.) Nate's blog post mentioned that Salman is still growing plants for his wholesale business, Waterwise Gardening. Which has public sales! Which I stopped at, after Plants of the Southwest! It was fairly busy, with one greenhouse full of mostly perennials, including a bunch I had on my list to check out as other plantings to go with the mockorange! Judging by the ID tags in some of the plants, Salman still raises plants for High Country Gardens. So these were the same ones I had been considering mail-ordering, for less money, and no shipping fees! Woohoo! I kinda went a little nuts:

• 3 Husker Red penstemon (Penstemon digitalis Husker Red)
• 1 Blue Fortune agastache
• 2 Sunset agastache (Agastache rupestris)
• 3 Serpentine columbine (Aquilegia eximia)
• 3 Leadwort (Ceratostigma plumbaginoides), for the front door bed
• 1 Rosemary

Plus a bag of Yum Yum Mix.


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The day's haul:



Then, at home, I started the cleanup in front yard, weeding the sidewalk bed and along the other side of the driveway. I also trimmed up the chamisa, deadheaded stuff, and trimmed back the yuccas that were encroaching the sidewalk. Then I took a rake and shook a bunch of apricots off the tree. I'm really worried with the amount of fruit that's set and still seems viable, even after the hard freeze we had the other weekend. Sigh. Two-and-a-half hours. Front yard itself is still in need of some serious weeding, but I was tired and the bin was full. Next weekend, I guess.





Also: Happy Birthday, Mom! 😘