Serendipity Gardens by Carol Hegel Lang

“The stormy March has come at last, with wind, and cloud and changing skies; I hear the rushing of the blast, that through the snowy valley flies … For thou, to northern lands again, the glad and glorious sun dost bring, and thou hast joined the gentle train and wear’st the gentle name of Spring.” — William Cullen Bryant 

Did March come in like a lamb or a lion? I will have to wait and see as I am writing this during the last few days of February. Regardless of how it comes in, the most important thing to me is how it goes out. Sometimes the month of March really can bring us the worst of the winter snow storms with lots of heavy, wet snow. This is one of the reasons that I have never planted hellebores in my gardens because when they should be blooming often they are buried under drifts of snow that won’t melt away for at least another month.

The other day I broke my promise to myself that I wouldn’t order any annual seeds from the catalogs and placed orders for a few zinnias, cosmos, sweet peas, larkspur and tithonia. Yes, I do have some in my seed box, but not a lot, and this year my gardens are going to be a butterfly haven with lots of zinnia planted in all of the gardens. Last year I planted two new zinnias: cupcake and Magellan Persian mix that I really was pleased with. The colors were very bright and the flowers were huge, attracting many butterflies. I read in one of my gardening magazines that the best zinnia for attracting butterflies is Lilliput, and I did have a small row of them. I didn’t save any seed from them so I ordered them.

It has been years since I grew sweet peas so I thought this would be a good time to bring them back to my gardens. They are a member of the legume family and the ones I ordered are heirloom and very fragrant. Many years ago I grew the perennial variety, but when they came back, instead of the lovely pink and purple colors they were the year before they were now white. If there was one flower that says Victorian to me it would definitely be sweet peas.

The queen red lime has really become a favorite zinnia of mine so I ordered another package of them just to make sure that I had plenty of them in the garden. Over the past few years I have been planting larkspur since I no longer grow delphiniums. Late this fall after a hard frost I still had a few blooming in the cutting garden. The packet of seeds I ordered has 300 seeds in it, so this year I will also sew some of them in other gardens to enjoy.

My garden has no really good place to showcase the tithonia that I love as it really draws both hummingbirds and monarchs. Over the past couple of years I have grown them along the fence in a very small spot and I really wish I could find a better location for them. They grow very tall and are prone to falling over in heavy winds or rain. Oh, to have a couple of acres of garden space would sure be nice but, alas, my yard is not that big and I am running out of room to expand the gardens.

In the front north corner of our yard stands a black hills spruce tree and under the skirt of the branches the grass has died out and in my mind it would be an ideal location to plant some of the mini hostas. There are some very cute ones that don’t get taller than about 6 to 8 inches that would work out nicely there, but I would have to lay a brick divider so that when my husband trims and mows he doesn’t get them. That project is still in the back of my mind but keeps moving higher up on the list.

“March brings breezes loud and shrill, stirs the dancing daffodils.” — Sara Coleridge

 

Carol Hegel Lang is a green thumb residing in Albert Lea. Her column appears weekly. Email her at carolhegellang@gmail.com.