I say welcome spring with a question mark because it’s March. And March in Pennsylvania is ever so fickle. There are plenty of daffodils up and more coming every day, and the snow drops have finished and soon we will see fritillaria and more crocuses, and eventually even like tulips and more daffodils…. and it’s the time of year where we can still get snow.

I’ve had, however, a time of late getting ready to step back into gardening season.

A week ago I went to the Penn State Great Valley Conference Center for a gardening talk they hosted a women’s history month-centric lecture on women in horticulture. It was given by horticulturalist and garden author, Jenny Rose Carey. It was wonderful and so interesting.

I learned about the Women’s Land Army (WLA) in World War II. They literally helped keep farms running during the war. The WLA disbanded after WWII but from what I have read since the lecture, some of the women stayed in agricultural and horticultural roles after the end of the WLA.

Last Saturday I went to Winterthur for the Hardy Plant Society Mid-Atlantic “March into Spring” event. It was essentially a day of gardening, fellowship, and lectures and a heck of a plant sale. I only attended one of the lectures because my time was limited on Saturday and this was the lecture I wanted.

And what was the lecture I wanted to hear? It was given by the brothers who are mistermaple.com.

I’ve bought so many plants from this Nursery mail order that I feel like I should have frequent flyer miles. They are one of my favorite resources and I’ve mentioned them often, including here on this blog. Matt and Tim Nichols are knowledgeable, down to earth and inspiring. It also doesn’t hurt that I have a wicked affinity for Japanese maples and mountain azaleas, which they also have.

I really enjoyed the lecture and I have a short list of new Japanese maples to check out. One of which I actually bought from a vendor on Saturday. Her name is “Geisha Gone Wild.”

The other maple I purchased was “Mikawa Yatsabusa.” And because I have a hard time resisting camellias, especially red ones, one called “Red Fellow” followed me home.

I enjoyed the Mr. Maple lecture that I went to hear. I am sure there are some within the plant society that were offended that I only went to one lecture. But that was the one I wanted to hear not everything else was geared towards my interests in the garden.

These groups are tremendous fun to participate in a garden tour with, but sometimes in scenarios like this I go for some of it and then I go home. I am not someone who takes tons of horticulture classes. I am not a Penn State Master Gardener. I’m not in a garden club. I am just a home gardener and to some who are very serious about this I might as well be literally speaking a language they do not understand.

I took care of my garden. I study what I need to study and I try to keep it a little bit real because I think gardening should be accessible to everyone who wants to try. Now it’s for reasons like this that there are people within my own gardening group that don’t understand me because it really bothers me when someone just joins the group to find a landscaper. I want people to try and want people to get their hands in the dirt and learn what it feels to have that satisfaction of doing something themselves and creating something pretty.

And what people from garden clubs and even organizations like Penn State Master Gardeners don’t seem to understand is that a lot of their membership give off the feeling of elitism that keeps ordinary people away. And while they all watch the same gardening programs like Monty Don’s Gardeners’s World like the rest of us, they don’t get is why he’s so appealing. He is inclusive. If you don’t know the Latin term for a plant, he repeats the English common name. He literally shows you there’s something for everyone.

You don’t get that with all the organizations and groups. That’s why I no longer belong to a more local rose society or even the hosta society or a garden club. A particular rose society a bunch of years ago invited me to speak. I was very excited. I had everything planned and when I circled back to find out like what equipment they had and what not I was told “Oh somebody else is speaking you understand.” And actually, no I didn’t understand because they hadn’t given me the courtesy of saying they were canceling me.

That also happened with a Chester County area garden club. Now this was a few years ago as well and one of the members who was I guess on the executive word having to do with their programming asked me if I wanted to speak and I said sure I would love to, and we went back-and-forth about what I would need to bring with me and all of that good stuff originally I had suggested to them that I do a little talk on a wander around my garden because to me that’s easier and maybe that’s just because I am a home gardener it’s more hands-on than looking at a photo. but they wanted to have it in there garden club home with all their membership so I was like OK. Then we had to reschedule because of Covid. So as it was getting close to the reschedule date, I remember trying to connect with someone from the gardening club and finding out there had been a change in leadership with their annual elections and what not and the woman in charge of programming was extraordinarily dismissive . And again I got the “Oh we must’ve double booked you understand.”

Nope. I didn’t understand that either. It was hurtful and offensive.

Then the third time that happened to me was with a hosta society. I volunteered my garden for an open garden, kind of tour thing. A couple of women came out to preview it. One woman I was really fond of who has since passed away. She was a wonderful woman with a lot of knowledge and a big heart, the other woman not so much and it was the other woman who kind of told me my garden wasn’t good enough.

Unbelievably, I stayed in the hosta group a while after that. But she was actually obnoxious to me at an event held on the grounds of an arboretum, where I actually am a member. And then there were other people that were just so arch in email or even in person that I just stopped going to events and if you know me, you know I love hostas. It’s one reason I spray for deer so I can see my pretty hostas every year. I did get the last laugh, of course a couple of years ago when the Hardy Plant Society included me in their amazing garden tour.

No, I will tell you that even my own alma mater, the Shipley School doesn’t consider my garden good enough for a tour. And I was even a Shipley Sprout who placed in the flower show many moons ago while in high school. I will never forget that the women from the committee didn’t even come out to view my garden themselves. They sent staff from the school, which is very dismissive of the staff let alone me as an alumni and a garden that had been volunteered for their perusal for their tour.

Now some of these superior garden types like the ones who had a lot to say when my friends at BloomBox opened their pop-up plant outlets for the season called Second Chance Plants. Second Chance Plants is SO much fun! The plants are terrific and so is the quality and the prices are really good. And I know a bunch of the growers they’re buying plants from so when I see comments like this, I find it really obnoxious:

I will note again that I am familiar with many of the growers BloomBox uses. They are all reputable wonderful growers and the thing even as a home gardener that I know is that even when I’m doing my own seedlings, I often grow too many plants, so duh this isn’t so out of the realm of a great idea. 

And I had a swell time their soft opening weekend. Personally, I bought three trees.

 I have been puttering around in the garden a bit. I have been trimming things and planning where things will go. I’ve even started weeding, sadly. 

While I have planted a couple of things and I’m enjoying the daffodils coming up all over, I have to cool my jets because I have to take down another tree. A black oak.

When that oak comes down several of the smaller trees, I have purchased the spring along with some shrubs will go in that general vicinity. I was actually planning on putting them over there anyway, but I can’t do it until the tree work is done because otherwise it will make it too difficult for the arborists, as this will be a tricky extraction.

The tree has to come down because if it falls in one way it hits our house if it falls in another way, I don’t know what damage it will do to a neighbor or even our other trees. I hate that we have to take another tree down, but we have to. And our arborist does not take down a tree unless it is necessary. Again we use Treemendous Tree Care. They also do our plant health, including our many beech trees.

Why am I including a video on Wyck? To remind myself of my love of old roses. They also are still to this day, remarkably disease and pest resistant and tough.

And now I also want to share a video from a Natural Lands program at Stoneleigh. The legacy of the women of Stoneleigh.

Women in horticulture is a overlooked an important part of our gardens. They inspire us if you let them. They inspire me and I find them endlessly fascinating.

When I go out into my garden, it’s my definite happy place. It’s been a little less so of late because the deer did so much damage this winter but now the daffodils are starting to come up and my Stinzenplanten project shows positive more and more every year.

I just love my daffodils. One of my favorite things that I belong to is the American Daffodil Society. They are such nice people from coast to coast and Europe, and I always learned something from their publication their website. Their email list you can choose to be on and the one that I’m on has to do with a lot of historic bulbs because I like the old bulbs.

I don’t pretend to be a daffodil expert. I am a lover of daffodils.

As I walk around my garden, assessing winter damage and starting to clean up, I see all sorts of things starting to come to life. Dr. Foo’s Moutan (tree peony) is budding up. In a couple of weeks or so it will be covered with the most deliciously, fragrant, pale pink blooms.

I also am enjoying my hellebores.

In the middle of the week last week, it hit 70° or was it 73°? Whatever it was unseasonably warm and I planted a tree. A little baby redbud. I chose a hybridized cultivar because I do have my native Redbuds planted, but they have so many babies, I need a break. I planted “Ace of Hearts”.

Soon I will begin my annual game of Christmas in the spring as plants arrive that I forgot I ordered. I also need to weed more and I need to order pine straw for my woodland and shade beds. My seedlings are coming along nicely as well. 

Well, that’s all for me. This post has taken a week to write. I write a little I put it down. I get distracted by the garden or it’s raining or I keep thinking of things I have to plant and then I come back and scribble some more.

By the way, it’s like 30° out right now. Arrghggh!

Happy gardening!