Change in the Garden – Gardening

The best thing about early spring is seeing something new daily in the garden. Of course, the pundits would say that if you have done your garden properly, you should see something new every day of the gardening season, but that is another issue. In spring the pace of growth accelerates, and the plants almost seem to be in a competition to see who sends up the first shoots. Last week I couldn’t find a trace of any of my many hostas. Today, when I took my daily inspection tour, I found that most of them were at least an inch out of the ground.

As the daffodils gradually fade, I am encouraged by the sight of the first ferny leaves of the thread leaf coreopsis (Coreopsis verticillata) in my front border. I divided these extremely hardy plants last year, and it appears that all of the divisions “took”. With their small pale yellow flowers and ground covering ways, the coreopsis will step up and provide much-needed camouflage as the daffodil and tulip foliage turns ugly. From the looks of things elsewhere in front, I will have more daisies of various kinds than I know what to do with. This is a good thing, because I have already promised divisions of those daisies to a gardening friend.

If you have hydrangeas, check them. They should be showing signs of new growth along the stems. I have a “peegee” hydrangea (Hydrangea paniculata grandiflora) that has done a good imitation of a dead plant since last fall. Just as I had resolved to get out the spade and consign it to the compost heap, I noticed signs of buds along some of the stems. Another near-corpse of a hydrangea that I was enticed into buying while on a trip to a far-off garden center, last summer seems to have at least a few green shoots. It’s enough to restore my faith in