Have you ever had a garden that had become a hot mess, and you wanted to just torch the thing and start over? I think I just did...
...well, most of it anyway. Every spring I do "prescribed burns" in my yard in lieu of mowing. Wildflowers are not only unaffected, but often assisted by this process. I've never burned a
garden area before though, so I got nervous and prevented the fire from spreading to certain areas containing hardscape bushes. (I always pre-water perimeters before I get going, so I watered down the spots I wanted spared ahead of the fire in progress.)
This is last summer, it's a weedy but certainly
lush area...
....and you can pick out most of the perennials in the crowd, like the yellow leaves of 'Sweet Kate' widows tears.
Now all I see are the charred remains of plants that
were coming up already, much to my dismay....
...scorched right down to the dirt!
At first everything looked dead, both the burned and spared alike...
....many dug-out spots where animals were taking advantage of the summer cover...
...so I make "amends"! Well-composted manure is spread to fill in (not that "well-composted" is a
requirement or something, but it helps and this had a lot of cow poo in it which is "hotter" and has more nitrogen due to the way cows digest as opposed to horses...but I digress.)
As I fill in, I discover that the
grass is recovering nicely of course! Hrumpf!
This is just a couple weeks after the burning and daylilies appear un-phased...
....some mulch will surely help too. I ran out before covering the un-burned spots, but I was just attending to the most needy areas (or "putting out fires", as it were :)
Despite rain being forecast frequently, this has been a super dry spring so I water the garden well...
....and hope for the best! Now I get to find out which of my plants are "fire-proof".
....but I'm back baby! :) May is a particularly great bloom month here at Millertime....
....as well as a good month for mysteries. Like this one. I've seen plenty of bulbs pierce leaves, but this daylily did it to itself!
Yellow violet blooming nicely, despite several recent nighttime freezes...
...and white bleeding heart blooming great in only its' second year in the ground!
Lungwort looks nice too, my mom calls this one "Boys and Girls" in reference to the dual bloom colors....
