THINK COMPOST NOT FERTILIZER
Really, it was such a cold wet beginning to spring that the garden has just started waking up a couple of weeks ago. And I have been so busy trying to keep up I haven’t jotted anything down until now. But oh, what an awakening! The native plants are now one year old, and soooo much fuller than we expected. We did have two areas that suffered over the summer. One was predominantly heuchera and aquilegia (pictured here), and another was asters. We suspect either chipmunks or rabbits were digging there. Also, the coreopsis moonbeam did not make it, but I had trouble with it from the outset, and nurseries in my area were having problems, too.
The bees are beginning to come back, and we have lots of bluebirds, goldfinches, doves, and robins. Yesterday there were feathers in the deschampsia that looked like a hawk had gotten a dove. I wish they had gotten a chipmunk instead!
It has been raining so hard I have not been able to get into the garden, but have just started laying compost down to top dress my beds. I was at the New York Botanical Garden with a friend last week and we learned that they used to loose half of their perennials in the greenhouse each year when they were using fertilizers on the plants. When they switched to compost the plants are thriving and it is rare to loose any. Unlike synthetic fertilizer, compost provides micronutrients and good soil bacteria.