Rethinking some plant placements

Tags

azaleas, creeping phlox, postaday2015

        

I went online to see if there was anything that I could do to revive my ailing azaleas, not the dead ones, there is no Lazarus serum for them lol, but I was hoping that I would find something, alas the only thing that I found was what not to do when planting azalea, plant them with exposure to afternoon sun and/or wind corridors. Unfortunately these are precisely the two things I did, however, I imagine that if these past two winters hadn’t been as devastating as they were, I might have had an easier time with my azaleas.

So now I am contemplating transplanting them to another shadier location, sheltered, that gets great morning sun exposure followed by the afternoon spent in shade. I hope that if I get it done this weekend, it will give them both the time to get stronger in order to thrive and survive next winter. What is the worse that can happen? They can’t do any worse where I move them than what they are experiencing now.

   
   

Regrettably I am having similar issues with my creeping pholx, but I am not going to transplant them. I hope that they will recover on their own, they were so healthy each and every year up until now, so I am keeping my fingers crossed that maybe having a few more weeks to recover will allow them the opportunity to grow.

I am still such a neophyte when it comes to gardening. Happily I do enjoy both the challenge and the learning process that comes with gardening.

The scoop on my own Azaleas

Tags

azaleas, damaged, new, postaday2014

Today I went into Westfield to get my mother her Mother’s Day present and my husband suggested that I pick something up for myself as well. My newest Azaleas near the pool took a horrendous beating this past winter as you can see from these pictures:

So while I was at the store and walking up and down the aisles looking at various plants and bulbs for my mother; I saw that they had an Azalea sale, 3 one gallon Azaleas for 19.99, I jumped on it. Given how badly my two look, I don’t know if they will bounce back once it gets warmer; if they do, I still have some spots that I can plant them if I need.

They are a pretty color and seem to be very healthy, so hopefully they will be happy once they get introduced to my garden. My ravaged Azaleas were doing so well these past two summers, I am so sad to see them so damaged by this brutal winter that we just had.

On a happier note, my first Azalea which I have nurtured for almost a decade survived and is thriving despite the incessant cold that we were tortured with, I love my Azalea, he was transplanted twice and still managed to grow and flourish as you can see:

So as you can see, my azaleas are nowhere near as glorious as the Azalea that I had shown and written about the other day. But I can still dream that one day somewhere in the future, my Azaleas perhaps will grow into the magnificent bush that I captured with my cellphone.

The magnificence of Spring

Tags

azaleas, budding, flowering trees, flowers, postaday2013, writing

As I was driving through several towns on my way to the place of medical examinations to get myself one of them, my eyes kept dashing from left to right admiring the flowering trees lining the roads from the start of my journey all the way to the very end. I saw weeping, cascading trees adorned with pink blossoms here and white blossoms there. I saw small purple azaleas and big purple azaleas. I saw shrubbery with long branches of white blossoms, forsythia everywhere and different blossoms indicative of different tree genus which I am not too sure of their names, I just know that they were each one as beautiful as the other. The variety that Mother Nature gives us each spring is the greatest gift, we need to honor her gift.

I came home using the same route and even though I passed the same trees and shrubs, it still felt new and fresh. It reminded me to take a gander as to how my budding shrubs, azalea and weeping tree were faring. They are gently flexing their tiny buds, I think that in two or three days I should be seeing some beautiful blooms in my backyard.

The Northeast weather?

Tags

azaleas, coldest weather, crocuses, ice storms, mild weather, newscaster, postaday2012

I am not complaining but this winter is very odd. Generally, here up in Blandford, if we aren’t besieged by mountains of snow during one winter than we are assaulted by icy rains and ice storms the next winter. I have lived here for 17 years and I have seen an Indian summer every year except for this year and the reason is because we hadn’t had three nights of frost and then a thaw. We have had neither, no frost, therefore, no thaw at least until January.

I checked out the 10 day forecast and except for tomorrow, which they are predicting to be 25, cold, the rest of the forecast is predicting temperatures in the 40’s. This is February, our coldest month. I only hope that we aren’t going to pay for this mild weather by having our coldest weather arrive in March and April instead.

Spring is such a wonderful season, I can’t help but think that our seasons this year are going to be really out of alignment. Just a few weeks ago a lady in Chicopee was telling a newscaster that her crocuses were blooming and her rhododendron and azaleas were opening their buds. This is in January mind you.

I’m wondering if we are going to have abnormally high amounts of rain or if we are going to have a very dry season, either way it isn’t going to be your usual spring or summer if this winter is any indication.

My poor garden and my poor plants, they are going to be all confused. But they won’t be alone, I’ll be with them in confusion. When everyone is confused then no one feels alone.