It’s the first week in May, and the cottage garden is in bloom with thousands of tulips! Almost all 2,000 of my tulips in both my raised beds and in the landscaped beds are all blooming!
I’ve also been steadily pulling tulips, bulbs intact, for a weekly flower stand every Friday and Saturday for the last few weeks. I’m hoping I can do this for another two-three weekends, depending on how many tulips are ready and not past their prime.
To date, I’ve distributed roughly thirty tulip bouquets ranging from mostly five stems, to twelve stem bouquets!
OBSERVATIONS
The last two weeks have been filled with rain and some pretty windy days. I was worried that the pine tree arbors I installed were going to snap, however I am happy to report they are still standing strong!
During my most recent garden walkthrough, I noticed some of the plants I was holding out hope for are in fact dead. I had hoped potentially they may have been slow to start or that there was perhaps some root activity, however upon pulling some of these plants out they were very crispy and lifeless.
I ended up pulling out my butterfly bush that was new from last year and ended up replacing it with some ‘Serendipity’ alliums. I think they will pair nicely with the colors in the back bed and I’ve heard the allium heads can be tasty in salads and I will give this a try!
Next, sadly the baby maple tree my neighbors dug up and gave me last year, is unfortunately dead as well.
The deep freeze we had this past winter sadly took out quite a few of my plants. Although, I see this as an opportunity to get creative with planting again!
Despite all the rain and losing quite a few plants, with the cottage garden in bloom it makes it less painful pulling out the plants that have perished.
WHAT’S HAPPENING NOW?
Today I went ahead and put out half of my pre-sprouted dahlias into the cottage garden to begin hardening them off. The other half are still under my grow lights and are roughly a few weeks behind the others.
Soon it will be time to pinch back one of them already!
The goal is to plant a dahlia garden in place of the current tulip garden. This will serve two main purposes. First, it will be a lot easier to manage and maintain. Secondly, I think it will look SO beautiful in the raised beds.
This past weekend I also ended up taking a rainy trip up to Snug Harbor Farm in Kennebunk Maine to pick up a few pretty plants. Another goal of mine this year is to work on incorporating more seasonal interest in my beds for fall and winter, especially in the backyard.
Right now there are lots of pretty things in the midst of awakening! I am loving all the variations of foliage texture and color bringing life back into the garden, especially after a long winter!
UPCOMING PROJECTS
There is STILL lots to do over the next couple of weeks!
The rain has really put a damper on outdoor projects the last two weeks. With that said, tulip harvesting has certainly taken the priority! And I’ve been busy trying to harvest them and put them out for the flower stand.
More specifically, this coming week I will be focusing my time and energy on:
- Planting a few of my seedlings
- Sowing perennial seeds
- Pruning back the climbing roses over the arbor
- Planting 25 more gladiolus (I’m hoping for succession planting with these!)
- Harvesting TONS of tulips
I will also be hoping to plant the new azalea, astilbe and dwarf birch I picked up from my trip to Snug Harbor Farm. I just need to make a bigger bed for it!
While there are many projects up ahead, it’s encouraging to see all the new growth and to have the tulips blooming away!
The good news is, I’m having lots of fun! (Probably more than is allowed) 🙂
Kindly,
Kate