How's It Growing: May 8, 2025

Oh, let it be a night of lyric rain
And singing breezes, when my bell is tolled.
I have so loved the rain that I would hold
Last in my ears its friendly, dim refrain...
~Dorothy Parker (1893–1967), "Testament"

The friendly and sometimes strident din of rain was certainly singing in the breeze this past week. Watering the garden will not be one of my chores but waterproof shoes are coming in handy.

This week was the beginning of the process of acclimating or hardening off of the seedlings that were started indoors, preparing them for their move to the gardens next week. My seedling room is on the second floor of our main inn and luckily the second floor also has a lovely porch across the front of the inn with plenty of space for all the plant trays. I’m so glad that I don’t have to go up and down the stairs each day with all of these trays. I start the process by putting the trays out for just a couple of hours, increasing the time outside and hour or so each day.

This year I am trying to grow a variety of perennials from seed. They seem to growing at a much slower pace than the annuals and vegetables, so I will likely pot them up and keep them growing in the seeding room until they are a nice healthy size to brave the outdoors. Once all the bigger seedlings have moved outside, I’ll have the space I need to do this on the shelves. But look at this surprise pop up on the side of the cells of the Apache Sunset seedlings! Anyone know what kind of mushroom this is? No, I’m not going to try it!

Meanwhile outside things are popping out all over the gardens as the plants drink in the fresh Spring rains and bask in the occasional glow of the sun peeking out between the clouds. We have a nice set of flowers on the Comice Pear tree this year, perhaps we will actually get a pear or two, although I’m not sure that these blossoms are above deer range, so we’ll have to see.

The River Birches are doing their bit to contribute to general amount of pollen in the air at this time of year, although I’m lucky enough not to be too bothered by it.

This is prime lilac time around the grounds and the heavenly scent is in the air.

The first of the dogwood trees is presenting its annual show. This is a Cherokee Chief Dogwood. It was planted sometime in 2005. It was planted in memory of several of the Dalmatians that have graced my life. I like to plant trees as memorials for the dogs I’ve had. Sometimes it takes several years before it comes to me the type of tree that best represents the particular dog because this tree was planted for dogs I had in the 1970s up to the 1990s. I had had a dogwood on my mind as a possible tree for a while, but because during those years I lived in California and dogwoods don’t particularly thrive in zone 9, I waited until I lived in a more appropriate zone. We currently have four dogwood trees.

The snap peas are now clearly visible, soon to be climbing the teepee fence I built last week. Blackberry Potatoes from Johnny’s Select Seeds are just starting to sprout in the purple grow bags that I bought from Gardener’s Supply. I thought purple bags were appropriate for purple potatoes. The tiny sprouting leaves were hard to spot because they are also a deep purple.

Next in line for bloom profusion around the grounds are the Peonies. We started out with just three legacy plants in the front garden, but in the last couple of years it finally occurred to me (slap on the forehead) I should be taking advantage of the fact that deer don’t like to eat these flowers and beef up the garden borders with a bunch of peonies. For the most part I have been sourcing our peonies, we now have eleven, from a fairly local producer, Peony’s Envy. They have a wonderful variety of peonies and how can you not love that company name.

This coming week will be a busy one in the garden as we plant all the waiting seedlings, trying to squeeze the abundance in the beds we have without falling to the temptation converting every inch of lawn into garden beds. We’ll also be setting up the support structure for the main dahlia beds in the cutting garden.

Stay tuned for more updates!