A quick garden update. Spring has sprung at Little Cedar Garden! Click on the galleries to see larger photos.
This miscanthus needs cutting back right now. 
More grasses to cut back. Good news is that’s all I need to do until next year. 
The newest border has roses that need pruning and feeding. Also, some of the perennials need cutting back. 
Even more work to do.
It’s the time of year when everything needs doing all at once.
And, with the good weather we’re having, I’m outside working like a madwoman. My daughter, Claire, said I should share what it takes to get the garden ready for May and June’s highlights along with September and October’s finale. I’m going to try.
I start working very hard in February and March cutting back perennials, pruning rose bushes, and clearing away the leaves. Since we live on 7.5 acres of scrub oak and post oak, we have a lot of leaves. When I say a lot, I mean piles and piles of them. We have to relocate some of them to the edges of the property because they don’t decompose well without shredding.
There are usually two leaf falls at Little Cedar Garden, one in the fall and another in spring. We do two large leaf vac projects and sometimes must do more. It all depends on the wind. Some leaves are blown with the leaf blower, and others are shredded.
Others are dragged out of the garden beds one-by-one by me. I use shredded leaf mold throughout much of the garden. I also use Back to Nature compost and shredded pine when I can find good quality bags at the store. The leaves are free, but they also contain a lot of weed seeds.
We leave the other leaves at the edges of the wooded property so that fireflies will hatch out and grow.
After I finish pruning the roses and cutting back the grasses, I then feed the roses with Mills Rose Magic. It’s a great product, and while pricey, they do ship for free. I work this into the soil at the bottom of the rose. I’m supposed to feed them three times a year, but I often only feed them once. I just don’t have time to baby them.
Before the great cutting back, I had about half of it finished. So much more to do. 
The beds facing the street were still full of leaves, and the grasses needed cutting, but this is after some of it was done. This is where the pink muhly grass reigns supreme in late summer. 
Every year I find a little death too. This was ‘The Alnwick Rose,’ and for some reason it died in the bed facing the street. I don’t always know why plants die.
It was so cold and downright dreary in Oklahoma throughout February and most of March, I’m just now pruning the roses. Three more roses joined the party last Friday. I fell for ‘Munstead Wood’ when I toured the most fabulous garden in England last year.
I have a failed Hybrid Tea rose in the border along the sidewalk, and I lost The Alnwick Rose in one of the beds out front facing the road. About the second loss, I don’t think I planted it deep enough so I believe that’s my fault. As for the Hybrid Tea, I planted it last year, and it never thrived so out it goes.
My motto is everyone kills plants. If a gardener tells you they don’t, well, they’re lying.
I’ll put the three ‘Munstead Wood‘ roses in the same general area. I never plant roses in the exact same hole because otherwise, they don’t seem to thrive.
Yellow and white daffodils. I gave up trying to remember all their names. 
Yellow large-cup daffodils that I enjoy in the front border. 
Leucojum aestivum, commonly called summer snowflake. 
A large clump of Leucojum aestivum,, summer snowflake. 
Pretty closeup of the orange-cupped daffodils.
As for everything else, things look good so far. The garden is definitely coming along with plenty of daffodils. I only planted tulips in two spots last fall, beneath a tree next to the old driveway and in the garage border. The tulips are just starting to bloom, maybe three or four. So far, the voles haven’t found the tulips in these two beds. I quit planting tulips in the front border because they were being eaten by the handful. Instead, I’ve replaced them with hellebores and more daffodils. Since nothing wants to eat these two plants I find I plant more year after year.
I’m quite proud of my two tiny, Ribes odoratum, clove currant shrubs. I know they’ll grow and provide the garden with wonderful fragrance. Also, they are native to Oklahoma. It’s taken me three years to get any to grow here. 
Pollinated, spotted hellebore in the front border. I need to add more of these. They take a long time to bulk up, but once they do, they are fabulous. 
One of my original hellebores, probably Blue or Red Lady. It’s finally quite large. 
Sadly, ‘Jane’ magnolia will get hit by this weekend’s freeze. Again.
The vegetable garden is coming right along too. We’ve had the most perfect weather for cold-crop veggie starts this year. It doesn’t look like much, but trust me, it’s doing well. The seeds are just very, very small. I planted two kinds of peas, lettuce, turnips, spinach, pak choi and carrots among other things. I have grafted tomatoes coming once things warm. I’ll write about those later.
I need to plant seeds for peppers, eggplant a couple more tomatoes. Maybe I’ll get to it, or maybe I’ll just buy plants. Everything must be prioritized in a garden this large.
If you’re still reading this gibberish, here are some pink-cupped daffodils for your enjoyment. Our garden podcast has episode 21 up and running. Please give us a listen, and if you like us would you please rate us on iTunes? It really helps to get the word out.
Daffodils with pink cups. 
A closeup of my pink-cupped daffodils growing in the front border. I love them. 
Pink-cupped daffodils really have kind of a peachy cup. They start out more pinkish, but then turn peachy over time.
Okay, that’s all for now. I need to get back out there and prune the boxwoods, a huge job.
It is not funny how you realize all of a sudden that spring has flipped the on switch. You just have to get out there. I enjoyed all your gibberish. It read like my garden diary. ha… Hang in there. You will all of a sudden feel caught up.
I think I have the wrong impression of our climate differences. But when I see this post, we seem so much alike. It’s been a long, chilly spring here, with a long way to go to get to warmth. But I snuck out to clear away winter’s debris on the random warm days, and it eventually got done. Now to wait for planting season.
Not slow here, but we’re going to have a freeze this weekend. Bah!
Lovely. I so enjoy your garden tours. xo
I love that you still come and read them. Thank you!
Sounds like a lot of work, but it really pays off! Your garden is always so beautiful. Thank you for sharing.
Thank you Tee! I appreciate you stopping by and commenting. I can’t wait until it’s beautiful again.
Your daffys are so pretty! My hubbie and I were outside doing pruning today. I’m short so he does the high stuff. It’s so good to be outside again! Crossing my fingers we don’t get a freeze this weekend. Happy Gardening!
Sonia, sounds like you two make a great team.
Wow, you are busy! It’s been a slow spring around here. I like that.