A Shade Garden Walk Feb. 2005

With a gentle rain pitter-pattering on the tin roof, it’s an excellent time to reminisce about last week’s walk in the shade garden.  It was a warmer-than-usual day when the dogs and I meandered across the road to view the now-abandoned shade garden and bemoan the fact that I’m no longer able to work there.

Dead sage brush covers the first bed we looked over – what used to be a picture of neatness and beauty is now a growth of junk, with only a few of the beauties left to be seen.  There is wild ginger still visible with it mottled leaves arching to the ground and on another side I spied some neglected Hellebores still able to muster new leaves and blooms.  Across the path I stood and grieved over the grown-up Arum about to go into dormancy.  Its bright leaves have stood there all the fall and winter to beautify its spot, but now that’s about to be over and soon the blooms and red seed pods will reappear to signify spring and a new beginning.

I love spring wildflowers and April has to be my favorite month of the year with its array of native beauties.  My main reason for investigating the shade garden on this day was to check out the early trillium.  It was in a telephone conversation with a gardening friend, who lives near Birmingham, that I was told her Decumbens Trillium was up.  Horrors!!  It’s too early for that mottled-leafed beauty to be up here on SandMountain.  We still have March to go through and many times March is a really bad month (remember the blizzard of 1993?).  This gardening friend gardens in Gardendale and has macular degeneration (is virtually blind), but she knows her garden well enough to go to the spot where a certain plant grows, then she feels around to find the plant.  She is the most knowledgeable native plant person I know and it’s sad to see how she has to feel around to find the plants.  Her husband worries about her trying to weed in the garden – he’s afraid she will not be aware of a snake and will be bitten.  When I came in from my garden walk I was so excited and I knew Linda was the only one would know or care, but I just had to call to tell her the news.  I had detoured by the lower fern bed while in the garden and discovered one of the special ferns had a baby.  I dialed the Gardendale number and Hubby answered the phone, and here’s what I said to him, “Bill, I’m so excited – I have to tell Linda that my Asplenosaurus Ebinoides has a new baby.”  Smart mouth man!  His response was, “Well, I didn’t know she was pregnant.”  On telling Linda my news she was excited, too, as this particular fern is difficult to grow.  I invited her to come feel of the new baby (remember she can’t see it).

I did find the Trillium Decumbens up – its leaves were not unfurled, but it’s definitely out of the ground.  On seeing this, I immediately went to the spot where the tiniest trillium of Alabama grows (Pusillum).  It usually comes up about the same time as the Decumbens.  I moved dead leaves back off the spot and didn’t see the tiny beauty, so maybe it’s smart enough to stay in the ground a few more weeks.  I moved on around to yet another bed only to find another Trillium up – the Cuneatum and it usually comes up in mid to late March.   I can’t believe how many wildflowers I found.  Hepatica is blooming and I even found a Tootwort in bloom.  My gut feeling tells me it’s not spring yet.

The Hellebore area is really getting pretty – that is, with blooms – the area is overgrown with junk, but if you can look through or over that and see the blossoms, then you can see the beauty.  A number of years ago, without anybody knowing it (I hope John doesn’t read this article), I ordered a special Hellebore called Black Prince.  I paid $50 for it and then paid $5 for shipping and handling.  Where we first set it, it looked as though it was going to die.  We moved it to another location and I literally stood there and prayed for it to live.  Live it did and John thought it had some babies.  When the plant comes up from seed it does not always bloom true to form, so we waited to see if the blooms were “black”.  Only one out of the group has bloomed out black. John had told a few gardening friends that he thought he had some Black Prince plants on the way to blooming and he was selling them for $25 each.  Would you believe he had several orders and now he can’t deliver.   That’s just the way it is with gardening and/or farming.

Speaking of gardening, the vegetable garden is now under way for the spring.  Of course, John has had onions all winter, but now he has put out cabbage plants.  Wow!  Early?  Yes, but when we lived in Georgia one year we planted Snow Peas in January and when they matured they provided the prettiest sight I’ve even seen.  It was a sunny May morning, dew covered the blue-green Snow Pea vines heavily laden with peas and they just sparkled and glistened in the bright sunshine.  That truly has to be the prettiest sight I’ve even seen and the second prettiest sight was a huge Alfafa hay field I once saw when the hay had just been baled.  Those golden hay bales neatly arranged in that field was the second prettiest sight I’ve even seen.  Remember now that beauty is in the eyes of the beholder and everybody would not agree with me on this.  Anyway this is how it is with country living.