A cold, foggy January day back in Fairy Holler, you'll be tired when you finish, so grab a cuppa tea or somethin'

I sit here with the soil stains still on the sleeves of my work sweat shirt. There is still a bit of clay still staining my hands, and I feel the cold trying to grab these fingers, but I wanted to just ramble a bit about today's efforts.

Today was a cold-assed, foggy, January day back in Fairy Holler. It's weather like today that makes me appreciate where I live. When it's this foggy, I have to realize that it's probably clouds that are hanging low and skirting across the tops of the hillsides and foothills of the Appalachians and Smokies where I live. This truely is a ridge with a holler, and today's wet and rainy weather was replaced by thick fog. But like I said, I knew these were gray clouds clinging to the trees and shrubbery moistening everything with wet. . You could feel the humidity and taste it.

The birds were all subdued, and out of the corner of my ear, I could hear the tentative creeeeking of a foolish peeper. One of the ridge top's residents, a sleepy, and cold tree frog. The small water frogs are still under slabs of rock and edges of things until true springtime. They're not so foolish to waken as early on a false spring like January day like today.

I had all my tools in the various pockets of my carpenter jeans I always wear in fall and winter. Pruners in case I want to whack at something, and my Maple Appalachian Ball weeder, which I quickly realize is all I'll need. I should have left the pruners in the drawer inside. (no sitting in the garden trug on the potting table for THESE). The excessive moisture we've had recently has softened up the soils considerably, and I am still determined to rip out every piece of vinca major. Maybe not all TODAY, but as much as I could before running outa steam. It was mid-afternoon, after all and I only had so much light left.

The grayness thickened to literal swirling of fogs so thick that I knew immediately that it WAS clouds that were skimming past the south side of the ridge I live on in their trek eastwards towards the southeastern edge of the Smokies and into North Carolina. The birds hushed down a bit more, and only the scoldings of the smaller birds was audible. The absolute still was softened and I was able to listen to every little sound. (it doesn't help when two desperately adoring dawgs are voicing their objections that I'm outside without them....but I wanted them inside this time) The dogs eventually went to aggrivate Squire in the dragon cave where he was doing things on his computer.

Once the dogs left, the skittish birds started venturing back and taking notice of my maneuvers. But I soon forgot their inquiries as I was caught up in the sheer removal of individual growing clumps of vinca. This sounds all relatively simple. Let me tell you......it's not.

I was starting to trace long tendrils back to the central clumps, where there can be as many as 9, and as few as five shoots or buds at the central portion of a joined vine. You have to look closely at how the plant grows and the strategy is to wrap all the vines around each other to form a green rope of sorts and gently tug and work the whole piece out of the softened soil. The roots don't seem deep, but they spread outwards like a hand, gripping the soil, and they go at least a couple of inches deep. The easier ones that just rooted are simple. The older ones are harder. You have to bury your fingers around the central portion. And even then, you'll feel the give of too soon as a root hangs on while the rest lets go.

You get caught up in tracing another vine to yet another clump of buds and sinewy green stuff that WILL throw you off your feet. I got a square foot cleared. Then I got angry and distracted, when I decided I needed to at least get up the piles I'd made of the ripped out vine so far, and put them in my garden cart so they'd not ROOT while waiting for me to pick the stuff up. It's sneaky. I'd not put it past it....

My trip over to the side yard where the garden cart is resting, was full of wonderful rainwater. I can't waste that. The plants inside would LOVE that! Ok, so what do I do......those three cat litter buckets I used to haul manure back to the cart when I cow pie pick are sitting behind the remaining forsythia (the grand daughter of the ancient ones my neighbor has cut down to the ground). Scoop the water into each bucket, and there's still five gallons left. I soak the area with the remaining, and see the advancing carpet of vinca I foolishly planted underneath the Zebra grass and hold myself back and not stoop and tug...later. Later.

Put the water over by the BBQ fountain and gardens to be used later for the indoor plants. Then back to get the cart and load up the bed of the cart with pulled vinca. But first, let me just rid the few remaining strands and clumps from the fig bed. I had successfully removed all of it from out of and around the edges, or so I thought. It's sneaky, like I was saying. I discovered just enough to deter me from just taking the cart to where I had originally started. I began tracing long vines that were trying to root behind my back, and pulled them carefully thru the leaves and fallen debris. Then traced the whole thing back to the central clump, and tugged gently and the whole plant came up. Toss into the cart, and look for more dark, evergreen lush leaves. I love and hate it so.............

When the eye is so in need of green, there it is, but it will not reside quietly if you intend to move thru the area where it grows. This is best planted in a spot where you have no intentions of walking through unless stepped carefully. A place you would plant ferns and little woodland flowers. And yes, it has it's endearments, but let it tackle you just once and you'll finally get tired of it's evil beauty, too.

My back started noticing that it wasn't just merely foggy now, and since it really wasn't fog but clouds,then those clouds decided to do what they normally do, rain a bit. Nothing downpouring, but just started up. A nice dampening rain that allowed the fog to penetrate the clothing that had by now cooled off. I kept pulling. I noticed my hair which gets all frowzy wasn't flying up in my eyes. The long braid that usually hits me in the face, slapped me once, and that was a cold,wet slap, and when I flug it back over my shoulder, it stayed. I had forgotten my hat...... I kept going.

I pulled out all the vinca I saw in the fig bed, again......and along the sides of the timbers that raise the bed almost a foot, and worked back towards the Lady Jane magnolia, Leneii magnolia, Autumn jazz viburnum, Wine and Roses weigelia and the surviving clump of assorted lilacs. It had me stumped. Literally as I pulled a tendril and followed it to it's source of rooting and discovered a particularly tenacious piece had rooted in between stems of the ancient Forsythia and there would be no total removal. I'd have to remember it was there and snip it back until it gave up. I moved on. I had to, or get lost working around the fig bed. That would cause me to follow the growth around to the end of the bed which I used to call the wisteria portion (until the wisteria gave up on me after 35 years, which I missed all but it's last two years). Getting into that tangle would take longer than I had with the waining light.

I finally figured that I'd better drag the cart to the spot where the huge pile was, or I'd be pulling into the night. A quick yank at a few beside the driveway with questions running through my head like 'where the heck am I gonna put all this stuff??' and I pulled the cart out of the first "doorway" into the side yard-garden between the forsythia and trumpet vine and aimed towards the western end of the front bed.

There's nothing more motivating than to come across pictures of what it all looked like before I went nuts and planted every spot. The other night I was poking thru some photo books that I'd put the last 35mm film prints into sleeves. I have no life. It's pictures of flowers, cats, a few of beloved friends and stray family that wanders up here, but mostly flowers and cats and my sweet Rose.

Some clear spots aren't a bad thing, they just shouldn't be writhing with vinca major! Once the cart was parked in the driveway, I realized I'd need to find the rake. I keep things close by and in little pockets all along the dogrun and side porch, and on my way to retrieve it, I was distracted by the obvious need to put the pile of vinca I'd pulled out of the backside of the western end of that same bed a couple of weeks ago. It was still alive and green............a couple of weeks it had been lying there (well maybe not THAT long) and it was still green. Slightly wilted, freezing a time or two, on top of cold concrete, and it wasn't dead yet. Holy cow................I was humbled. I kept going

So I used the rake as a metal hand and scooped the pile up and carried it over to the cart. Back and get the rest of it, see the experiment of sticking the largest clumps inside a pot was working. No soil, just plants shoved into a black nursery pot and they're still living. Amazing. After seeing the tangle of pulled plants over a bit from the mad gardener experiement, this paled in comparisson. Of course they'd still be alive. Duh.

Something didn't seem right, so I put the rake near the swing and went and got the broom and swept up all the leaves and soils that have gathered at the back edges of the raised beds on the concrete. A quick passover of the broom east to west got me a pile of assorted leaves that were starting to break down, to go to the compost pile. Change the stumps the cats use to get in and out of the cat window. Move the neat one with the jutting healed rim that looks like a stumpy arm that I can plant something into this spring finally because the center has deepened a bit more where the core has decayed.

These were the same stumps I spotted on a dirt road that leads into the edge of a lake inlet near my house. There is a time when the water table has been dropped all winter, just before they really let the water loose, and the clay has hardened enough to drive a vehicle in there. The locals take advantage of those neat rocks jutting sideways from ancient earth kiniption fits, and park and go fish in the pockets of water and at the edges for catfish and bluegill and maybe crappie.

I spotted some cut logs of a tree that had fallen over the pathway that is the usual taken path to the water when it's down, and someone had kindly come upon the tree, cut it up, put the stumps and chunks along the side in the underbrush and gone on. I had son with me. He's 6 foot 4. He should know by now that usuable things to put into my garden area are subject to his help in hoisting them. He doesn't love this, but I figure it will give him a story later on about his mama and her whacky ways and things she useta do.

I did this when I had my truck. The chunks were large enough to sit on, they had been cut to where they sat firmly. One piece of the tree had a natural boel that had been a jutting limb. It had been cut off, but had healed perfectly with a little piece of limb left, a collar of bark and a slight depression when it drew in and healed over time. The piece had character. I also saw a possibility to plant something in the depression I was just still searching for the plant that could take a little bit of dryness. I suspect the tree was a small oak. To say they were heavy is obvious by the description. That they are STILL heavy is amazing. Each one weighs about 35 pounds or more and the pieces are almost three foot high and two foot wide. I had to walk them over to clean around them.

After my back reminded me I was 53 now, I made a note that garden hose lying on the sidewalk have a tendency to be gathering places for leaves to compost down into soil and hang caught along the length of them.

Lifted the hose and swept all the debris from underneath and there is quite an impressive pile to transfer later on with a shovel. Grab the rake and rake from south to north, which is to say, I was raking front to back. That allowed me to see if any hidden pieces of vinca were underneath debris. There were a few. There was also dark green tongues shoved out of the dark soil from clumps of bulbs that were wakening. And in other places where I moved the debris, yellowish white shoots of just newly emerged stuff. Careful not to crush anything, I just reached and pulled any sight of dark green and vine and moved on. And kept going.

The rain had spit enough that I was deffinately wet, but then it stopped and the twitterings of birds became more evident and I now distinctively heard the creeeeeking of a peeper. He seemed to be asking "is it spring yet??" I grumbled with the ache that was trying to slow me that was touching me in my rusty hinge of a back. I kept on.

Having made two small, neat piles at the back edge of the western bed, I walked back up the sidewalk with the rake and reached thru and dragged them forwards where the cart was a few feet near a planter jar full of phlox, little bulbs and succulents of sorts whose feet were tangled up in vinca. I ignored the tangle and focased on the pile before me. It was like pulling a reluctant mule thru the underbrush. I'll pay for this one tomorrow, just wait.

The pile was fluffing out. And the light was starting to remind me it was late afternoon. And yes, I was feeling the cold. So I started getting angry at the pile of twine. I'd pull and heave, and yank. Then I'd work back to the back of it, and rip out, literally tens of stems out of the wet clay soil. Toss them southwards and rip out more and then tug with the rake. I just wanted to get the initial clump out so I could see where it all was. It really was pissing me off. Why I couldn't tell you, but I guess the sheer amount that I was removing and how much was still THERE.

I lost track of time. I was absolutely focased on just getting two huge wads of vinca into the cart. I'd get serious about inch by inching on my knees again when I could kneel on the bean kneeler when it wasn't so rainy and foggy. If it's not cold, I'll hit it again tomorrow. But for now, I was at least making some progress. As I ripped it loose, I tiredly hefted it up into the cart's stomach and went back for the second pile. This was hilarious, and more time consuming, but I finally wrestled it loose and rolled it towards the cart with the rake and picked it up as well and piled it into the cart with the rest. Now the cart was piled up two foot over the top, and I decided to stop and get a picture of my accomplishments and failures (well, it was evident that there was still MORE vinca on the ground below, I needed to at least expose the rest.)

My fingers were aching now, but I got the camera into view and got some neat pictures of the mass. I swear as I watched it, it seemed to rise, and as I look at the pictures in my jpg folder, the pile is about three foot above the top.

Put the camera into my pocket, and pull out some more clumps that seem growing from the ground to the cart. That's scary. But I just know it's looong tendril vines that are unbelievably long. I've measured some as I pulled them carefully thru the leaves and not been too surprised that some vines were no less than 12-16 foot in length with slightly rooted pieces all along the long tendril.

Makes me wish I had a place to just let it run. he he he, that's actually what I DO have. My neighbor across the driveway. His mama's patch she got her start from me that is thriving on dog poop and pine needles and other humus rich tree droppings. Not to mention all the cat lumps. So this is wonderfully happy vinca major. He tells me he likes the blue flowers. Well there you go. I can pull ALL mine up and enjoy the encroaching wave of it coming over on my side of the ridge from his yard. I can keep it at bay at the property line.

Wash my hands in the puddle in the driveway and look at all the little leaf shoots on everything. St. John's Wort bush is exfoliating. It's now about

10 years old and I love it. The shape is quite nice naturally. I've only had to do some dead pruning on it, the flowers are awesome, and the new leaves are the cutest things. Right now they resemble little pine needles clipped short and inserted along the stems.

The transplanted hellebore is still ticked off at me. The stems and leaves are drooping and I don't see sign of new leaf coming up from the center. I was so careful too! The discovery of the loss of my variegated redtwig dogwoods was hard for me, but I know I can find a couple to replace them. Right now I want to see how the Indigo is going to do thru a mild winter and the shape it's going to attain.

A nice surprise is a Loripedilum I found at Home Depot that had an amazing shape. Almost Japanese maple-like. Arching. And the dark burgundy leaves hold. I've only had to drive a short stake into the soil and gently tie it to help it right itself at the edge of the bed near the tree line of the black cherry. I hope it can compete with the cherry successfully. I have planted the other stressed Loripedilum at the opposite corner of the black cherry bed to balance the points, and take the time to firm the rootball into the humus rich spot I plugged the little shrub.

I'm like a child in a toy store who goes so many times, they know where all the good toys are to look at and admire and think about. These are my fairy gardens. I have created a little perch of retaining blocks encircling a Lady Jane magnolia that is loaded with little silvery fuzzy buds, just itching to bulk up and plump out and wow me with their pink petticoats. I have forgotten what the fairies enticed me to plant into the soft, rich soil that is poured and heaped and piled to almost three foot around the rootball of the magnolia. I just sat down with the bag and reached into it and pulled out bulbs and clustered them together in little pockets. I'm sure there was some subtle whisperings going on in my ear as my hand was guided by little fingers to pick this bulb, get that one. I will find out this spring.

And get back to you on it. I wander up the steep paved driveway, and have to stop and gaze at the blue green clumps of Corydalis. The common yellow one, I still adore it and it's brazen ability to produce good strong children. Who like a variety of enviroments, it seems. One clump is quite happy in dappled eastern light, but full southern if the car is gone, and indirect western with bricks radiating heat in the summer. The tall phlox overhead is part of the protection. The white butterfly bush is another. And it likes that spot, apparently as the clump is still there this year.

I see I have enough seedlings I can share one and move another so I can increase my community. Where these originally came from was deep shade with humus rich soils and a little old lady who tended them with her fairies. Mary Emma had started them from seed, shared them with her friend, Dean, and Dean's plants had spread into a community that took frequent thinning and it was still full! I was hesitant when Mary Emma announced we were going across the street to Dean's yard to get some Corydalis. But she filled me in on the original history and I did all the dirty work. The offspring of those original four are now acclimating here where it's a bit different from where they originally came.

There are buds on everything. The Sorbaria is tipped all over. Glory Bower is the last to bud so I won't know until the last. I already see little tight palms of Anemone, and as I pulled vinca, I think I solved the mystery of how my Blue Enigma returns every year. I will search out more when I can get into the garden at eye level and investigate. Today I had a blast. I unearthed old friends. Those great, black and brown and white with speckles bug that has lots of legs, a hard body and I'm sure it's attracted to rotting wood, as it's where I unearth it most times. It seems harmless and never tries to sting me. So I always let it live. I thought about the flying squirrel in the locust tree and made a note to check the hole for an eye peering back at me. . I hope I didn't scare it away deeper into my tangled woods.

The light was slipping away quickly, and I was feeling the chill, so I made sure the cart was far enough into my front sliver of a yard so Jerry wouldn't run into it with his old truck. Saw more glowing, dark green leaves laughing up at me against the black looking wet soil. I'm not through with you yet.............

Inside, Maggie was waiting for me. The last leg of my clean up had her curious enough to watch from a careful perch on the timbers along the backside of the flowerbed, but not out there in the wet perennial remains. She just sat like a little queen and watched me and queried me as to what on earth was possessing me to be out in the damp and cold. When I went down the driveway, she gave up on me and went back inside where she waited for me.

As soon as I was in, and washing my hands under the strong bathroom faucet, she came in briefly and trilled something but skittered away before I could respond. Turn on the space heater to warm my wet feet, and sit to write. This would have gone quicker had Maggie not careened down the hallway, climbed up the sides and back to the top of my padded office chair, and then walked down my shoulder, to plop down on my chest and turn and give me a kiss. She searched my face for quite a bit, and hooked a leaf out of my hair and played with it for a brief moment and we had a magic moment that people sometimes have with a young cat.

She then got bored with me and moved to her usual place in front of the monitor to block the screen while she preens herself and then lies across the catalogs or bills to snooze until I either get up to get more tea or something, and then she awakens, glares at me and depending on how fast I move and return, she'll follow me and chastise me for daring to leave her presence. I fill up the wire feeder outside the kitchen deck, and come back inside and grab a drink, and go back to Maggie and a warmer nook and computer to sit down to and share with you.

So there you have it. A good day today. Quite a bit done physically. Tomorrow I will see the cart piled up and that will make the ache in my back less noticable. Then I'll find a spot and dump the whole thing safely so it won't root where it falls, and start again. And there will be more fairy spottings and occurances of which I am sure.

thank you for allowing me to share a day. My gardens are my solice as well as my pains

"Perhaps no word of six letters concentrates so much human satisfaction as the word 'garden' " (Richard LeGallienne,1914).

madgardener, up on the ridge, tired as hell but happy, back in Fairy Holler, overlooking a sleepy English Mountain in Eastern Tennessee

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madgardener
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and I just mowed my lawn...........

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Harry

"Harry" expounded:

You reposted 424 lines to add one? Snip, man, snip!

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Ann

I sit here with the soil stains still on the sleeves of my work sweat shirt. There is still a bit of clay still staining my hands, and I feel the cold trying to grab these fingers, but I wanted to just ramble a bit about today's efforts.

Today was a cold-assed, foggy, January day back in Fairy Holler. It's weather like today that makes me appreciate where I live. When it's this foggy, I have to realize that it's probably clouds that are hanging low and skirting across the tops of the hillsides and foothills of the Appalachians and Smokies where I live. This truely is a ridge with a holler, and today's wet and rainy weather was replaced by thick fog. But like I said, I knew these were gray clouds clinging to the trees and shrubbery moistening everything with wet. . You could feel the humidity and taste it.

The birds were all subdued, and out of the corner of my ear, I could hear the tentative creeeeking of a foolish peeper. One of the ridge top's residents, a sleepy, and cold tree frog. The small water frogs are still under slabs of rock and edges of things until true springtime. They're not so foolish to waken as early on a false spring like January day like today.

I had all my tools in the various pockets of my carpenter jeans I always wear in fall and winter. Pruners in case I want to whack at something, and my Maple Appalachian Ball weeder, which I quickly realize is all I'll need. I should have left the pruners in the drawer inside. (no sitting in the garden trug on the potting table for THESE). The excessive moisture we've had recently has softened up the soils considerably, and I am still determined to rip out every piece of vinca major. Maybe not all TODAY, but as much as I could before running outa steam. It was mid-afternoon, after all and I only had so much light left.

The grayness thickened to literal swirling of fogs so thick that I knew immediately that it WAS clouds that were skimming past the south side of the ridge I live on in their trek eastwards towards the southeastern edge of the Smokies and into North Carolina. The birds hushed down a bit more, and only the scoldings of the smaller birds was audible. The absolute still was softened and I was able to listen to every little sound. (it doesn't help when two desperately adoring dawgs are voicing their objections that I'm outside without them....but I wanted them inside this time) The dogs eventually went to aggrivate Squire in the dragon cave where he was doing things on his computer.

Once the dogs left, the skittish birds started venturing back and taking notice of my maneuvers. But I soon forgot their inquiries as I was caught up in the sheer removal of individual growing clumps of vinca. This sounds all relatively simple. Let me tell you......it's not.

I was starting to trace long tendrils back to the central clumps, where there can be as many as 9, and as few as five shoots or buds at the central portion of a joined vine. You have to look closely at how the plant grows and the strategy is to wrap all the vines around each other to form a green rope of sorts and gently tug and work the whole piece out of the softened soil. The roots don't seem deep, but they spread outwards like a hand, gripping the soil, and they go at least a couple of inches deep. The easier ones that just rooted are simple. The older ones are harder. You have to bury your fingers around the central portion. And even then, you'll feel the give of too soon as a root hangs on while the rest lets go.

You get caught up in tracing another vine to yet another clump of buds and sinewy green stuff that WILL throw you off your feet. I got a square foot cleared. Then I got angry and distracted, when I decided I needed to at least get up the piles I'd made of the ripped out vine so far, and put them in my garden cart so they'd not ROOT while waiting for me to pick the stuff up. It's sneaky. I'd not put it past it....

My trip over to the side yard where the garden cart is resting, was full of wonderful rainwater. I can't waste that. The plants inside would LOVE that! Ok, so what do I do......those three cat litter buckets I used to haul manure back to the cart when I cow pie pick are sitting behind the remaining forsythia (the grand daughter of the ancient ones my neighbor has cut down to the ground). Scoop the water into each bucket, and there's still five gallons left. I soak the area with the remaining, and see the advancing carpet of vinca I foolishly planted underneath the Zebra grass and hold myself back and not stoop and tug...later. Later.

Put the water over by the BBQ fountain and gardens to be used later for the indoor plants. Then back to get the cart and load up the bed of the cart with pulled vinca. But first, let me just rid the few remaining strands and clumps from the fig bed. I had successfully removed all of it from out of and around the edges, or so I thought. It's sneaky, like I was saying. I discovered just enough to deter me from just taking the cart to where I had originally started. I began tracing long vines that were trying to root behind my back, and pulled them carefully thru the leaves and fallen debris. Then traced the whole thing back to the central clump, and tugged gently and the whole plant came up. Toss into the cart, and look for more dark, evergreen lush leaves. I love and hate it so.............

When the eye is so in need of green, there it is, but it will not reside quietly if you intend to move thru the area where it grows. This is best planted in a spot where you have no intentions of walking through unless stepped carefully. A place you would plant ferns and little woodland flowers. And yes, it has it's endearments, but let it tackle you just once and you'll finally get tired of it's evil beauty, too.

My back started noticing that it wasn't just merely foggy now, and since it really wasn't fog but clouds,then those clouds decided to do what they normally do, rain a bit. Nothing downpouring, but just started up. A nice dampening rain that allowed the fog to penetrate the clothing that had by now cooled off. I kept pulling. I noticed my hair which gets all frowzy wasn't flying up in my eyes. The long braid that usually hits me in the face, slapped me once, and that was a cold,wet slap, and when I flug it back over my shoulder, it stayed. I had forgotten my hat...... I kept going.

I pulled out all the vinca I saw in the fig bed, again......and along the sides of the timbers that raise the bed almost a foot, and worked back towards the Lady Jane magnolia, Leneii magnolia, Autumn jazz viburnum, Wine and Roses weigelia and the surviving clump of assorted lilacs. It had me stumped. Literally as I pulled a tendril and followed it to it's source of rooting and discovered a particularly tenacious piece had rooted in between stems of the ancient Forsythia and there would be no total removal. I'd have to remember it was there and snip it back until it gave up. I moved on. I had to, or get lost working around the fig bed. That would cause me to follow the growth around to the end of the bed which I used to call the wisteria portion (until the wisteria gave up on me after 35 years, which I missed all but it's last two years). Getting into that tangle would take longer than I had with the waining light.

I finally figured that I'd better drag the cart to the spot where the huge pile was, or I'd be pulling into the night. A quick yank at a few beside the driveway with questions running through my head like 'where the heck am I gonna put all this stuff??' and I pulled the cart out of the first "doorway" into the side yard-garden between the forsythia and trumpet vine and aimed towards the western end of the front bed.

There's nothing more motivating than to come across pictures of what it all looked like before I went nuts and planted every spot. The other night I was poking thru some photo books that I'd put the last 35mm film prints into sleeves. I have no life. It's pictures of flowers, cats, a few of beloved friends and stray family that wanders up here, but mostly flowers and cats and my sweet Rose.

Some clear spots aren't a bad thing, they just shouldn't be writhing with vinca major! Once the cart was parked in the driveway, I realized I'd need to find the rake. I keep things close by and in little pockets all along the dogrun and side porch, and on my way to retrieve it, I was distracted by the obvious need to put the pile of vinca I'd pulled out of the backside of the western end of that same bed a couple of weeks ago. It was still alive and green............a couple of weeks it had been lying there (well maybe not THAT long) and it was still green. Slightly wilted, freezing a time or two, on top of cold concrete, and it wasn't dead yet. Holy cow................I was humbled. I kept going

So I used the rake as a metal hand and scooped the pile up and carried it over to the cart. Back and get the rest of it, see the experiment of sticking the largest clumps inside a pot was working. No soil, just plants shoved into a black nursery pot and they're still living. Amazing. After seeing the tangle of pulled plants over a bit from the mad gardener experiement, this paled in comparisson. Of course they'd still be alive. Duh.

Something didn't seem right, so I put the rake near the swing and went and got the broom and swept up all the leaves and soils that have gathered at the back edges of the raised beds on the concrete. A quick passover of the broom east to west got me a pile of assorted leaves that were starting to break down, to go to the compost pile. Change the stumps the cats use to get in and out of the cat window. Move the neat one with the jutting healed rim that looks like a stumpy arm that I can plant something into this spring finally because the center has deepened a bit more where the core has decayed.

These were the same stumps I spotted on a dirt road that leads into the edge of a lake inlet near my house. There is a time when the water table has been dropped all winter, just before they really let the water loose, and the clay has hardened enough to drive a vehicle in there. The locals take advantage of those neat rocks jutting sideways from ancient earth kiniption fits, and park and go fish in the pockets of water and at the edges for catfish and bluegill and maybe crappie.

I spotted some cut logs of a tree that had fallen over the pathway that is the usual taken path to the water when it's down, and someone had kindly come upon the tree, cut it up, put the stumps and chunks along the side in the underbrush and gone on. I had son with me. He's 6 foot 4. He should know by now that usuable things to put into my garden area are subject to his help in hoisting them. He doesn't love this, but I figure it will give him a story later on about his mama and her whacky ways and things she useta do.

I did this when I had my truck. The chunks were large enough to sit on, they had been cut to where they sat firmly. One piece of the tree had a natural boel that had been a jutting limb. It had been cut off, but had healed perfectly with a little piece of limb left, a collar of bark and a slight depression when it drew in and healed over time. The piece had character. I also saw a possibility to plant something in the depression I was just still searching for the plant that could take a little bit of dryness. I suspect the tree was a small oak. To say they were heavy is obvious by the description. That they are STILL heavy is amazing. Each one weighs about 35 pounds or more and the pieces are almost three foot high and two foot wide. I had to walk them over to clean around them.

After my back reminded me I was 53 now, I made a note that garden hose lying on the sidewalk have a tendency to be gathering places for leaves to compost down into soil and hang caught along the length of them.

Lifted the hose and swept all the debris from underneath and there is quite an impressive pile to transfer later on with a shovel. Grab the rake and rake from south to north, which is to say, I was raking front to back. That allowed me to see if any hidden pieces of vinca were underneath debris. There were a few. There was also dark green tongues shoved out of the dark soil from clumps of bulbs that were wakening. And in other places where I moved the debris, yellowish white shoots of just newly emerged stuff. Careful not to crush anything, I just reached and pulled any sight of dark green and vine and moved on. And kept going.

The rain had spit enough that I was deffinately wet, but then it stopped and the twitterings of birds became more evident and I now distinctively heard the creeeeeking of a peeper. He seemed to be asking "is it spring yet??" I grumbled with the ache that was trying to slow me that was touching me in my rusty hinge of a back. I kept on.

Having made two small, neat piles at the back edge of the western bed, I walked back up the sidewalk with the rake and reached thru and dragged them forwards where the cart was a few feet near a planter jar full of phlox, little bulbs and succulents of sorts whose feet were tangled up in vinca. I ignored the tangle and focased on the pile before me. It was like pulling a reluctant mule thru the underbrush. I'll pay for this one tomorrow, just wait.

The pile was fluffing out. And the light was starting to remind me it was late afternoon. And yes, I was feeling the cold. So I started getting angry at the pile of twine. I'd pull and heave, and yank. Then I'd work back to the back of it, and rip out, literally tens of stems out of the wet clay soil. Toss them southwards and rip out more and then tug with the rake. I just wanted to get the initial clump out so I could see where it all was. It really was pissing me off. Why I couldn't tell you, but I guess the sheer amount that I was removing and how much was still THERE.

I lost track of time. I was absolutely focased on just getting two huge wads of vinca into the cart. I'd get serious about inch by inching on my knees again when I could kneel on the bean kneeler when it wasn't so rainy and foggy. If it's not cold, I'll hit it again tomorrow. But for now, I was at least making some progress. As I ripped it loose, I tiredly hefted it up into the cart's stomach and went back for the second pile. This was hilarious, and more time consuming, but I finally wrestled it loose and rolled it towards the cart with the rake and picked it up as well and piled it into the cart with the rest. Now the cart was piled up two foot over the top, and I decided to stop and get a picture of my accomplishments and failures (well, it was evident that there was still MORE vinca on the ground below, I needed to at least expose the rest.)

My fingers were aching now, but I got the camera into view and got some neat pictures of the mass. I swear as I watched it, it seemed to rise, and as I look at the pictures in my jpg folder, the pile is about three foot above the top.

Put the camera into my pocket, and pull out some more clumps that seem growing from the ground to the cart. That's scary. But I just know it's looong tendril vines that are unbelievably long. I've measured some as I pulled them carefully thru the leaves and not been too surprised that some vines were no less than 12-16 foot in length with slightly rooted pieces all along the long tendril.

Makes me wish I had a place to just let it run. he he he, that's actually what I DO have. My neighbor across the driveway. His mama's patch she got her start from me that is thriving on dog poop and pine needles and other humus rich tree droppings. Not to mention all the cat lumps. So this is wonderfully happy vinca major. He tells me he likes the blue flowers. Well there you go. I can pull ALL mine up and enjoy the encroaching wave of it coming over on my side of the ridge from his yard. I can keep it at bay at the property line.

Wash my hands in the puddle in the driveway and look at all the little leaf shoots on everything. St. John's Wort bush is exfoliating. It's now about

10 years old and I love it. The shape is quite nice naturally. I've only had to do some dead pruning on it, the flowers are awesome, and the new leaves are the cutest things. Right now they resemble little pine needles clipped short and inserted along the stems.

The transplanted hellebore is still ticked off at me. The stems and leaves are drooping and I don't see sign of new leaf coming up from the center. I was so careful too! The discovery of the loss of my variegated redtwig dogwoods was hard for me, but I know I can find a couple to replace them. Right now I want to see how the Indigo is going to do thru a mild winter and the shape it's going to attain.

A nice surprise is a Loripedilum I found at Home Depot that had an amazing shape. Almost Japanese maple-like. Arching. And the dark burgundy leaves hold. I've only had to drive a short stake into the soil and gently tie it to help it right itself at the edge of the bed near the tree line of the black cherry. I hope it can compete with the cherry successfully. I have planted the other stressed Loripedilum at the opposite corner of the black cherry bed to balance the points, and take the time to firm the rootball into the humus rich spot I plugged the little shrub.

I'm like a child in a toy store who goes so many times, they know where all the good toys are to look at and admire and think about. These are my fairy gardens. I have created a little perch of retaining blocks encircling a Lady Jane magnolia that is loaded with little silvery fuzzy buds, just itching to bulk up and plump out and wow me with their pink petticoats. I have forgotten what the fairies enticed me to plant into the soft, rich soil that is poured and heaped and piled to almost three foot around the rootball of the magnolia. I just sat down with the bag and reached into it and pulled out bulbs and clustered them together in little pockets. I'm sure there was some subtle whisperings going on in my ear as my hand was guided by little fingers to pick this bulb, get that one. I will find out this spring.

And get back to you on it. I wander up the steep paved driveway, and have to stop and gaze at the blue green clumps of Corydalis. The common yellow one, I still adore it and it's brazen ability to produce good strong children. Who like a variety of enviroments, it seems. One clump is quite happy in dappled eastern light, but full southern if the car is gone, and indirect western with bricks radiating heat in the summer. The tall phlox overhead is part of the protection. The white butterfly bush is another. And it likes that spot, apparently as the clump is still there this year.

I see I have enough seedlings I can share one and move another so I can increase my community. Where these originally came from was deep shade with humus rich soils and a little old lady who tended them with her fairies. Mary Emma had started them from seed, shared them with her friend, Dean, and Dean's plants had spread into a community that took frequent thinning and it was still full! I was hesitant when Mary Emma announced we were going across the street to Dean's yard to get some Corydalis. But she filled me in on the original history and I did all the dirty work. The offspring of those original four are now acclimating here where it's a bit different from where they originally came.

There are buds on everything. The Sorbaria is tipped all over. Glory Bower is the last to bud so I won't know until the last. I already see little tight palms of Anemone, and as I pulled vinca, I think I solved the mystery of how my Blue Enigma returns every year. I will search out more when I can get into the garden at eye level and investigate. Today I had a blast. I unearthed old friends. Those great, black and brown and white with speckles bug that has lots of legs, a hard body and I'm sure it's attracted to rotting wood, as it's where I unearth it most times. It seems harmless and never tries to sting me. So I always let it live. I thought about the flying squirrel in the locust tree and made a note to check the hole for an eye peering back at me. . I hope I didn't scare it away deeper into my tangled woods.

The light was slipping away quickly, and I was feeling the chill, so I made sure the cart was far enough into my front sliver of a yard so Jerry wouldn't run into it with his old truck. Saw more glowing, dark green leaves laughing up at me against the black looking wet soil. I'm not through with you yet.............

Inside, Maggie was waiting for me. The last leg of my clean up had her curious enough to watch from a careful perch on the timbers along the backside of the flowerbed, but not out there in the wet perennial remains. She just sat like a little queen and watched me and queried me as to what on earth was possessing me to be out in the damp and cold. When I went down the driveway, she gave up on me and went back inside where she waited for me.

As soon as I was in, and washing my hands under the strong bathroom faucet, she came in briefly and trilled something but skittered away before I could respond. Turn on the space heater to warm my wet feet, and sit to write. This would have gone quicker had Maggie not careened down the hallway, climbed up the sides and back to the top of my padded office chair, and then walked down my shoulder, to plop down on my chest and turn and give me a kiss. She searched my face for quite a bit, and hooked a leaf out of my hair and played with it for a brief moment and we had a magic moment that people sometimes have with a young cat.

She then got bored with me and moved to her usual place in front of the monitor to block the screen while she preens herself and then lies across the catalogs or bills to snooze until I either get up to get more tea or something, and then she awakens, glares at me and depending on how fast I move and return, she'll follow me and chastise me for daring to leave her presence. I fill up the wire feeder outside the kitchen deck, and come back inside and grab a drink, and go back to Maggie and a warmer nook and computer to sit down to and share with you.

So there you have it. A good day today. Quite a bit done physically. Tomorrow I will see the cart piled up and that will make the ache in my back less noticable. Then I'll find a spot and dump the whole thing safely so it won't root where it falls, and start again. And there will be more fairy spottings and occurances of which I am sure.

thank you for allowing me to share a day. My gardens are my solice as well as my pains

"Perhaps no word of six letters concentrates so much human satisfaction as the word 'garden' " (Richard LeGallienne,1914).

madgardener, up on the ridge, tired as hell but happy, back in Fairy Holler, overlooking a sleepy English Mountain in Eastern Tennessee

yes,

Reply to
Harry

Harry wrote: [...]

Enough, already! I thought it was funny the first time, but...

Reply to
Mike Lyle

SNIPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>. WHACK>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>PRUNE>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Reply to
madgardener

I sit here with the soil stains still on the sleeves of my work sweat shirt. There is still a bit of clay still staining my hands, and I feel the cold trying to grab these fingers, but I wanted to just ramble a bit about today's efforts.

Today was a cold-assed, foggy, January day back in Fairy Holler. It's weather like today that makes me appreciate where I live. When it's this foggy, I have to realize that it's probably clouds that are hanging low and skirting across the tops of the hillsides and foothills of the Appalachians and Smokies where I live. This truely is a ridge with a holler, and today's wet and rainy weather was replaced by thick fog. But like I said, I knew these were gray clouds clinging to the trees and shrubbery moistening everything with wet. . You could feel the humidity and taste it.

The birds were all subdued, and out of the corner of my ear, I could hear the tentative creeeeking of a foolish peeper. One of the ridge top's residents, a sleepy, and cold tree frog. The small water frogs are still under slabs of rock and edges of things until true springtime. They're not so foolish to waken as early on a false spring like January day like today.

I had all my tools in the various pockets of my carpenter jeans I always wear in fall and winter. Pruners in case I want to whack at something, and my Maple Appalachian Ball weeder, which I quickly realize is all I'll need. I should have left the pruners in the drawer inside. (no sitting in the garden trug on the potting table for THESE). The excessive moisture we've had recently has softened up the soils considerably, and I am still determined to rip out every piece of vinca major. Maybe not all TODAY, but as much as I could before running outa steam. It was mid-afternoon, after all and I only had so much light left.

The grayness thickened to literal swirling of fogs so thick that I knew immediately that it WAS clouds that were skimming past the south side of the ridge I live on in their trek eastwards towards the southeastern edge of the Smokies and into North Carolina. The birds hushed down a bit more, and only the scoldings of the smaller birds was audible. The absolute still was softened and I was able to listen to every little sound. (it doesn't help when two desperately adoring dawgs are voicing their objections that I'm outside without them....but I wanted them inside this time) The dogs eventually went to aggrivate Squire in the dragon cave where he was doing things on his computer.

Once the dogs left, the skittish birds started venturing back and taking notice of my maneuvers. But I soon forgot their inquiries as I was caught up in the sheer removal of individual growing clumps of vinca. This sounds all relatively simple. Let me tell you......it's not.

I was starting to trace long tendrils back to the central clumps, where there can be as many as 9, and as few as five shoots or buds at the central portion of a joined vine. You have to look closely at how the plant grows and the strategy is to wrap all the vines around each other to form a green rope of sorts and gently tug and work the whole piece out of the softened soil. The roots don't seem deep, but they spread outwards like a hand, gripping the soil, and they go at least a couple of inches deep. The easier ones that just rooted are simple. The older ones are harder. You have to bury your fingers around the central portion. And even then, you'll feel the give of too soon as a root hangs on while the rest lets go.

You get caught up in tracing another vine to yet another clump of buds and sinewy green stuff that WILL throw you off your feet. I got a square foot cleared. Then I got angry and distracted, when I decided I needed to at least get up the piles I'd made of the ripped out vine so far, and put them in my garden cart so they'd not ROOT while waiting for me to pick the stuff up. It's sneaky. I'd not put it past it....

My trip over to the side yard where the garden cart is resting, was full of wonderful rainwater. I can't waste that. The plants inside would LOVE that! Ok, so what do I do......those three cat litter buckets I used to haul manure back to the cart when I cow pie pick are sitting behind the remaining forsythia (the grand daughter of the ancient ones my neighbor has cut down to the ground). Scoop the water into each bucket, and there's still five gallons left. I soak the area with the remaining, and see the advancing carpet of vinca I foolishly planted underneath the Zebra grass and hold myself back and not stoop and tug...later. Later.

Put the water over by the BBQ fountain and gardens to be used later for the indoor plants. Then back to get the cart and load up the bed of the cart with pulled vinca. But first, let me just rid the few remaining strands and clumps from the fig bed. I had successfully removed all of it from out of and around the edges, or so I thought. It's sneaky, like I was saying. I discovered just enough to deter me from just taking the cart to where I had originally started. I began tracing long vines that were trying to root behind my back, and pulled them carefully thru the leaves and fallen debris. Then traced the whole thing back to the central clump, and tugged gently and the whole plant came up. Toss into the cart, and look for more dark, evergreen lush leaves. I love and hate it so.............

When the eye is so in need of green, there it is, but it will not reside quietly if you intend to move thru the area where it grows. This is best planted in a spot where you have no intentions of walking through unless stepped carefully. A place you would plant ferns and little woodland flowers. And yes, it has it's endearments, but let it tackle you just once and you'll finally get tired of it's evil beauty, too.

My back started noticing that it wasn't just merely foggy now, and since it really wasn't fog but clouds,then those clouds decided to do what they normally do, rain a bit. Nothing downpouring, but just started up. A nice dampening rain that allowed the fog to penetrate the clothing that had by now cooled off. I kept pulling. I noticed my hair which gets all frowzy wasn't flying up in my eyes. The long braid that usually hits me in the face, slapped me once, and that was a cold,wet slap, and when I flug it back over my shoulder, it stayed. I had forgotten my hat...... I kept going.

I pulled out all the vinca I saw in the fig bed, again......and along the sides of the timbers that raise the bed almost a foot, and worked back towards the Lady Jane magnolia, Leneii magnolia, Autumn jazz viburnum, Wine and Roses weigelia and the surviving clump of assorted lilacs. It had me stumped. Literally as I pulled a tendril and followed it to it's source of rooting and discovered a particularly tenacious piece had rooted in between stems of the ancient Forsythia and there would be no total removal. I'd have to remember it was there and snip it back until it gave up. I moved on. I had to, or get lost working around the fig bed. That would cause me to follow the growth around to the end of the bed which I used to call the wisteria portion (until the wisteria gave up on me after 35 years, which I missed all but it's last two years). Getting into that tangle would take longer than I had with the waining light.

I finally figured that I'd better drag the cart to the spot where the huge pile was, or I'd be pulling into the night. A quick yank at a few beside the driveway with questions running through my head like 'where the heck am I gonna put all this stuff??' and I pulled the cart out of the first "doorway" into the side yard-garden between the forsythia and trumpet vine and aimed towards the western end of the front bed.

There's nothing more motivating than to come across pictures of what it all looked like before I went nuts and planted every spot. The other night I was poking thru some photo books that I'd put the last 35mm film prints into sleeves. I have no life. It's pictures of flowers, cats, a few of beloved friends and stray family that wanders up here, but mostly flowers and cats and my sweet Rose.

Some clear spots aren't a bad thing, they just shouldn't be writhing with vinca major! Once the cart was parked in the driveway, I realized I'd need to find the rake. I keep things close by and in little pockets all along the dogrun and side porch, and on my way to retrieve it, I was distracted by the obvious need to put the pile of vinca I'd pulled out of the backside of the western end of that same bed a couple of weeks ago. It was still alive and green............a couple of weeks it had been lying there (well maybe not THAT long) and it was still green. Slightly wilted, freezing a time or two, on top of cold concrete, and it wasn't dead yet. Holy cow................I was humbled. I kept going

So I used the rake as a metal hand and scooped the pile up and carried it over to the cart. Back and get the rest of it, see the experiment of sticking the largest clumps inside a pot was working. No soil, just plants shoved into a black nursery pot and they're still living. Amazing. After seeing the tangle of pulled plants over a bit from the mad gardener experiement, this paled in comparisson. Of course they'd still be alive. Duh.

Something didn't seem right, so I put the rake near the swing and went and got the broom and swept up all the leaves and soils that have gathered at the back edges of the raised beds on the concrete. A quick passover of the broom east to west got me a pile of assorted leaves that were starting to break down, to go to the compost pile. Change the stumps the cats use to get in and out of the cat window. Move the neat one with the jutting healed rim that looks like a stumpy arm that I can plant something into this spring finally because the center has deepened a bit more where the core has decayed.

These were the same stumps I spotted on a dirt road that leads into the edge of a lake inlet near my house. There is a time when the water table has been dropped all winter, just before they really let the water loose, and the clay has hardened enough to drive a vehicle in there. The locals take advantage of those neat rocks jutting sideways from ancient earth kiniption fits, and park and go fish in the pockets of water and at the edges for catfish and bluegill and maybe crappie.

I spotted some cut logs of a tree that had fallen over the pathway that is the usual taken path to the water when it's down, and someone had kindly come upon the tree, cut it up, put the stumps and chunks along the side in the underbrush and gone on. I had son with me. He's 6 foot 4. He should know by now that usuable things to put into my garden area are subject to his help in hoisting them. He doesn't love this, but I figure it will give him a story later on about his mama and her whacky ways and things she useta do.

I did this when I had my truck. The chunks were large enough to sit on, they had been cut to where they sat firmly. One piece of the tree had a natural boel that had been a jutting limb. It had been cut off, but had healed perfectly with a little piece of limb left, a collar of bark and a slight depression when it drew in and healed over time. The piece had character. I also saw a possibility to plant something in the depression I was just still searching for the plant that could take a little bit of dryness. I suspect the tree was a small oak. To say they were heavy is obvious by the description. That they are STILL heavy is amazing. Each one weighs about 35 pounds or more and the pieces are almost three foot high and two foot wide. I had to walk them over to clean around them.

After my back reminded me I was 53 now, I made a note that garden hose lying on the sidewalk have a tendency to be gathering places for leaves to compost down into soil and hang caught along the length of them.

Lifted the hose and swept all the debris from underneath and there is quite an impressive pile to transfer later on with a shovel. Grab the rake and rake from south to north, which is to say, I was raking front to back. That allowed me to see if any hidden pieces of vinca were underneath debris. There were a few. There was also dark green tongues shoved out of the dark soil from clumps of bulbs that were wakening. And in other places where I moved the debris, yellowish white shoots of just newly emerged stuff. Careful not to crush anything, I just reached and pulled any sight of dark green and vine and moved on. And kept going.

The rain had spit enough that I was deffinately wet, but then it stopped and the twitterings of birds became more evident and I now distinctively heard the creeeeeking of a peeper. He seemed to be asking "is it spring yet??" I grumbled with the ache that was trying to slow me that was touching me in my rusty hinge of a back. I kept on.

Having made two small, neat piles at the back edge of the western bed, I walked back up the sidewalk with the rake and reached thru and dragged them forwards where the cart was a few feet near a planter jar full of phlox, little bulbs and succulents of sorts whose feet were tangled up in vinca. I ignored the tangle and focased on the pile before me. It was like pulling a reluctant mule thru the underbrush. I'll pay for this one tomorrow, just wait.

The pile was fluffing out. And the light was starting to remind me it was late afternoon. And yes, I was feeling the cold. So I started getting angry at the pile of twine. I'd pull and heave, and yank. Then I'd work back to the back of it, and rip out, literally tens of stems out of the wet clay soil. Toss them southwards and rip out more and then tug with the rake. I just wanted to get the initial clump out so I could see where it all was. It really was pissing me off. Why I couldn't tell you, but I guess the sheer amount that I was removing and how much was still THERE.

I lost track of time. I was absolutely focased on just getting two huge wads of vinca into the cart. I'd get serious about inch by inching on my knees again when I could kneel on the bean kneeler when it wasn't so rainy and foggy. If it's not cold, I'll hit it again tomorrow. But for now, I was at least making some progress. As I ripped it loose, I tiredly hefted it up into the cart's stomach and went back for the second pile. This was hilarious, and more time consuming, but I finally wrestled it loose and rolled it towards the cart with the rake and picked it up as well and piled it into the cart with the rest. Now the cart was piled up two foot over the top, and I decided to stop and get a picture of my accomplishments and failures (well, it was evident that there was still MORE vinca on the ground below, I needed to at least expose the rest.)

My fingers were aching now, but I got the camera into view and got some neat pictures of the mass. I swear as I watched it, it seemed to rise, and as I look at the pictures in my jpg folder, the pile is about three foot above the top.

Put the camera into my pocket, and pull out some more clumps that seem growing from the ground to the cart. That's scary. But I just know it's looong tendril vines that are unbelievably long. I've measured some as I pulled them carefully thru the leaves and not been too surprised that some vines were no less than 12-16 foot in length with slightly rooted pieces all along the long tendril.

Makes me wish I had a place to just let it run. he he he, that's actually what I DO have. My neighbor across the driveway. His mama's patch she got her start from me that is thriving on dog poop and pine needles and other humus rich tree droppings. Not to mention all the cat lumps. So this is wonderfully happy vinca major. He tells me he likes the blue flowers. Well there you go. I can pull ALL mine up and enjoy the encroaching wave of it coming over on my side of the ridge from his yard. I can keep it at bay at the property line.

Wash my hands in the puddle in the driveway and look at all the little leaf shoots on everything. St. John's Wort bush is exfoliating. It's now about

10 years old and I love it. The shape is quite nice naturally. I've only had to do some dead pruning on it, the flowers are awesome, and the new leaves are the cutest things. Right now they resemble little pine needles clipped short and inserted along the stems.

The transplanted hellebore is still ticked off at me. The stems and leaves are drooping and I don't see sign of new leaf coming up from the center. I was so careful too! The discovery of the loss of my variegated redtwig dogwoods was hard for me, but I know I can find a couple to replace them. Right now I want to see how the Indigo is going to do thru a mild winter and the shape it's going to attain.

A nice surprise is a Loripedilum I found at Home Depot that had an amazing shape. Almost Japanese maple-like. Arching. And the dark burgundy leaves hold. I've only had to drive a short stake into the soil and gently tie it to help it right itself at the edge of the bed near the tree line of the black cherry. I hope it can compete with the cherry successfully. I have planted the other stressed Loripedilum at the opposite corner of the black cherry bed to balance the points, and take the time to firm the rootball into the humus rich spot I plugged the little shrub.

I'm like a child in a toy store who goes so many times, they know where all the good toys are to look at and admire and think about. These are my fairy gardens. I have created a little perch of retaining blocks encircling a Lady Jane magnolia that is loaded with little silvery fuzzy buds, just itching to bulk up and plump out and wow me with their pink petticoats. I have forgotten what the fairies enticed me to plant into the soft, rich soil that is poured and heaped and piled to almost three foot around the rootball of the magnolia. I just sat down with the bag and reached into it and pulled out bulbs and clustered them together in little pockets. I'm sure there was some subtle whisperings going on in my ear as my hand was guided by little fingers to pick this bulb, get that one. I will find out this spring.

And get back to you on it. I wander up the steep paved driveway, and have to stop and gaze at the blue green clumps of Corydalis. The common yellow one, I still adore it and it's brazen ability to produce good strong children. Who like a variety of enviroments, it seems. One clump is quite happy in dappled eastern light, but full southern if the car is gone, and indirect western with bricks radiating heat in the summer. The tall phlox overhead is part of the protection. The white butterfly bush is another. And it likes that spot, apparently as the clump is still there this year.

I see I have enough seedlings I can share one and move another so I can increase my community. Where these originally came from was deep shade with humus rich soils and a little old lady who tended them with her fairies. Mary Emma had started them from seed, shared them with her friend, Dean, and Dean's plants had spread into a community that took frequent thinning and it was still full! I was hesitant when Mary Emma announced we were going across the street to Dean's yard to get some Corydalis. But she filled me in on the original history and I did all the dirty work. The offspring of those original four are now acclimating here where it's a bit different from where they originally came.

There are buds on everything. The Sorbaria is tipped all over. Glory Bower is the last to bud so I won't know until the last. I already see little tight palms of Anemone, and as I pulled vinca, I think I solved the mystery of how my Blue Enigma returns every year. I will search out more when I can get into the garden at eye level and investigate. Today I had a blast. I unearthed old friends. Those great, black and brown and white with speckles bug that has lots of legs, a hard body and I'm sure it's attracted to rotting wood, as it's where I unearth it most times. It seems harmless and never tries to sting me. So I always let it live. I thought about the flying squirrel in the locust tree and made a note to check the hole for an eye peering back at me. . I hope I didn't scare it away deeper into my tangled woods.

The light was slipping away quickly, and I was feeling the chill, so I made sure the cart was far enough into my front sliver of a yard so Jerry wouldn't run into it with his old truck. Saw more glowing, dark green leaves laughing up at me against the black looking wet soil. I'm not through with you yet.............

Inside, Maggie was waiting for me. The last leg of my clean up had her curious enough to watch from a careful perch on the timbers along the backside of the flowerbed, but not out there in the wet perennial remains. She just sat like a little queen and watched me and queried me as to what on earth was possessing me to be out in the damp and cold. When I went down the driveway, she gave up on me and went back inside where she waited for me.

As soon as I was in, and washing my hands under the strong bathroom faucet, she came in briefly and trilled something but skittered away before I could respond. Turn on the space heater to warm my wet feet, and sit to write. This would have gone quicker had Maggie not careened down the hallway, climbed up the sides and back to the top of my padded office chair, and then walked down my shoulder, to plop down on my chest and turn and give me a kiss. She searched my face for quite a bit, and hooked a leaf out of my hair and played with it for a brief moment and we had a magic moment that people sometimes have with a young cat.

She then got bored with me and moved to her usual place in front of the monitor to block the screen while she preens herself and then lies across the catalogs or bills to snooze until I either get up to get more tea or something, and then she awakens, glares at me and depending on how fast I move and return, she'll follow me and chastise me for daring to leave her presence. I fill up the wire feeder outside the kitchen deck, and come back inside and grab a drink, and go back to Maggie and a warmer nook and computer to sit down to and share with you.

So there you have it. A good day today. Quite a bit done physically. Tomorrow I will see the cart piled up and that will make the ache in my back less noticable. Then I'll find a spot and dump the whole thing safely so it won't root where it falls, and start again. And there will be more fairy spottings and occurances of which I am sure.

thank you for allowing me to share a day. My gardens are my solice as well as my pains

"Perhaps no word of six letters concentrates so much human satisfaction as the word 'garden' " (Richard LeGallienne,1914).

madgardener, up on the ridge, tired as hell but happy, back in Fairy Holler, overlooking a sleepy English Mountain in Eastern Tennessee

yes OK, I would have stopped but for that know all Poole

Reply to
Harry

thank you Harry. You've made your point. and I didn't killfile you over it, either. Have a nice day today. we're up for 100% chances of rain.....so I'd say the odds were pretty good for some more moisture. The peeper who woke yesterday should be DELIRIOUS today and tomorrow.................... madgardener

Reply to
madgardener

And you took the time to count all 424 lines? Get a life, woman, get a life!

Reply to
Lauren

thankyou...........I had enough snipped in 1983 to last me a lifetime.

Reply to
Harry

and I just mowed my lawn...........

You reposted 424 lines to add one? Snip, man, snip!

-- And you took the time to count all 424 lines? Get a life, woman, get a life!

thankyou...........I had enough snipped in 1983 to last me a lifetime.

********************************************************

madgardener i was looking to see if u had posted for us again. thank you for sharing your day with us sounds like u got a lot of work done. hope u manage to get control of your vinca major. we have had fog here a few days back but would be a lot different than where u are from. your area sounds beautiful:). cyaaa, sockiescat.

Reply to
sockiescat

"Lauren" expounded:

Uh - no, the newsreader tells how many lines. Got a nice life, thank yew!

Reply to
Ann

Some newsreaders report the number of lines of ASCII text rather than the size of the post in KB. Idiot.

Reply to
Travis M.

In article , madgardener writes

A lovely ramble Maddie - I thoroughly enjoyed it. You don't have to do all that tugging with Vinca you know, there is a patented and proven way of removing it without hardly any effort at all.

First of all you put on your gold slippers and ensure you are wearing your best skirt, when you are at least two inches into mud, yell (daintily) to your husband to bring a glass of wine whilst you contemplate the vinca. When your glass of chilled Chardonnay (maybe not Chardonnay as it can be too caramelly) or Sauvignon Blanc arrives, have a swift sniff, drink; and carry on contemplating,

Now, to solving the problem, unslurp the gold mules from the clay and waddle into the garage to fetch some Glychophosphate (Roundup?) or some that is sold in a gel. Yell, again, discreetly, at long suffering husband to bring a few sandwich plastic bags out. Pour a little into the bag, not too much, yell for husband, again; in a ladylike manner and if that doesn't work, scream and ask why he hadn't the sense to bring the tags to tie the bag in the first place and deny that it was your fault that you hadn't asked for them.

Waddle back into the clay and now, with the drying mud on the slippers, your gait may be a bit unsteady as there is more mud on the middle of the sole than there is on the heel. Take your small sandwich bag, with a little goo in it, push as many tendrils into said bag and when it is bulging, tie it off with the tag - leave for several days or until the plant dies. It will die and it will take the poison back to its roots. Do this all over the garden, you don't need to get every shoot as the root clump will be killed. Make sure you have a pair of surgeon's gloves on so that you don't get any on your hands, gardening gloves are too thick and will not allow you to tie up the bag - or was that the wine?

To conclude, unslurp yourself from the clay or mud, just leave the gold slipper in the mud if it comes off your foot; I have broken many nails trying to fish one out and it is much easier just to leave it; especially if you buy two pairs of identical slippers, you will always have a spare.

I look forward to hearing that the Vinca is well and truly dead.

Reply to
Judith Lea

Watch out, Maddie - Judith is a secret gold slipper peddler and she's determined to get you hooked, too. ;-)

Reply to
Sacha

In message , Sacha writes

Oh, dem golden slippers Oh, dem golden slippers Golden slippers I'se goin' to wear Because they look so neat. Oh, dem golden slippers Oh, dem golden slippers Golden slippers I'se goin' to wear To walk the golden street.

Now if only I could sing...

Reply to
Klara

In article ,madgardener

Reply to
madgardener

"madgardener" wrote in message news:43d32869 snipped-for-privacy@news.vic.com... reams of words snipped, pruned, whacked and wiped out>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

what I really want to know is........how the HELL did a perfectly tiresome ramble instigate such a horrendous display of childish display with the insistence of cut and pasting every single word of my post to infuriate so many??? No offence, Harry, but I can appreciate that you just learned to cut and paste, there's TON'S of stuff I have yet to learn about my own computer's capabilities and I've had it now for almost 8 years. Things about Paint Shop Pro that would be so neat were I just to be able to decipher all of it and understand it finally. But damn, man.....you took a good ramble, enjoyed it and then proceeded to not once, but several times, repost the whole thing, causing a stir that shouldn't have occurred in the first place. Like it was said by someone better than me......it was funny the first time.................and by the way, not to seem ungrateful....I appreciate that you seem to have enjoyed it. Or maybe I missed something and you were responding to my excessive usage of words......I won't over analyze this and just go now.

madgardener up on the soggy ridge, back in Fairy Holler, overlooking English Mountain in Eastern Tennessee

Reply to
madgardener

Don't forget the golden slippers - I feel sure they're an essential part of the successful outcome! And talk about the wonders of the internet - I found myself yanking out some Vinca today as I took the dogs round the garden and thought of "that poor woman up on a hill in Tennessee". ;-)

Reply to
Sacha

or at LEAST top post. Ingrid

Ann wrote:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ List Manager: Puregold Goldfish List at

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up:
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the problem, dont waste energy finding who's to blame ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I receive no money, gifts, discounts or other compensation for all the damn work I do, nor for any of the recommendations I make. AND I DID NOT AUTHORIZE ADS AT THE OLD PUREGOLD SITE

Reply to
dr-solo

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