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Goodbye to Gardening, 2007!

Well it finally feels like fall.  The nights are cooler and the days shorter. The trees are putting on their fall glory for all of us to see.  Today the blessing of falling rain is also gracing our area.  The four ducks in our neighbors pond which I see from my window are sailing by enjoying the downpour stark white in a sea of olives, gold, red, brown and orange. This also means  a good drink for our parched soil I can just see the plant roots clapping their little hands. We were lucky with the rain as George has just put in a new garden with grasses  in the retail area. This rain will give it a good start.  It will be fun to see how beautiful the gardens we put in this spring look like come May after a year of growth. By the end of the season they were spectacular.

I will post some pictures I took not to long ago. This garden was only going to be a one year garden so lots of annuals went in, easy to delete those without too much hand wringing when it's time to really do the garden and till the whole thing. Most of the annuals reached gargantuan size in just a couple of months and the perennials were filling out nicely.  By September the garden looked like it had been there for years.  Gardens can be that way. They can look full and mature without an English pedigree--you don't have to be the Queen of England with  a 400-year-old garden to be impressive. 

As you will see our first year garden was pretty nice. It just takes some creative thinking in regard to what you chose to plant.  Will this be a short term garden? Will you be moving or changing the garden in a few years.? All of these things can make a difference in what you choose to put in.  With planning a fall garden put in in the spring can be a show stopper.  Every new garden teaches us something.  What flops and what shines in this particular garden. Soil conditions, sun or shade, crowding, the list goes on. Always new insights

11.1.07

Hello and goodbye

Our most dear dog Lucy now rests quietly under a stone bench next to the pond that she so loved.  Our limited time with these wonderful creatures is a true gift from God, and what can you say about a gift from God but thank you for every part of it even the end that is so painful.

So many people that came here knew her as the beautiful greeter. This past year, though, she had slowed down in her dog duty and could be found resting  under a bench. On some days she could only make her way out at the promise of a belly rub. In Lucy's younger days, every person who got out of a car here at Morningside was treated to her excited greeting. I will miss her so. 

 I am going to plant rosemary close to her bench because it is for remembrance, and someday I will want to remember lots of things about her, but not today. As fate would have it, we have also been dealing with another daily tragedy, a new puppy who chews everything and torments the cats every chance she gets.  Due to her handiwork, almost all of my shoes look like I have hiked the Appalachian trail.  Her name is Stella Artois and she looks like a clown with huge bat ears and a bandit mask. She brings us much joy despite her tragic faults, another of which  is not being house broken quite yet.  She runs through the garden with abandon and nips at anything green, could possibly be a digger (please God no) we will train her to be a good, people-greeting garden dog. Not much garden info this time, but there is always more to come.

--Karen

9.4.07

A Garden to Remember

It's high summer in our gardens now. The perennials are strong and the annuals are at their peak. Everyone who has come to see the gardens and picked up a few things has said I want to remember that...and that...and that for next year. Mostly everyone is noticing the late blooming annuals, which are spectacular now, and late summer blooming perennials.

 The problem, of course, is that in the spring all of these beautiful bloomers look like , well, not much. Yes, in Spring, they're just small insignificant plants, but just conjure up the memory of your late summer visit to Morningside...

 ...ah yes, that bog sage that is a heavenly blue color matching the summer sky...those globe amaranth in shocking colors of wild purple, deep pink, and strawberry rose...

And that's just the beginning. We have a new color of cockscomb that a friend of ours shared the seed from (It's my favorite, sunset colors of peach, yellow, and soft pink...delicious). Then there are the big sedum that are starting to show their late summer color: Matrona with it's dark pink leaves and stems and soft pink flowers,  and Sedums 'Autumn Joy' and 'Autumn Fire' with their pink and brighter pink flowers. Our asters are just starting to show all the purple, pink, white, and blue colors that say Fall is coming. Boltonia 'Snow Bank' and 'Pink Beauty' have just come out, too, with their tall waving wands of pink and white flowers dancing on the breeze. Our ever expanding mounds of 'Profusion' zinnias are a nice holdover from summer, too. We have them in peach, cream, fire orange, and double cherry which has shades of pink to cream on the same plant. I used them in containers for the first time this year and they look spectacular now. I Definitely will remember that for next year.

The new gardens seem like they have been here for years even though it has only been six months. It doesn't take long for a new garden to take hold of your imagination Just take a look at these pictures. Sometimes I can't even believe it, but the camera doesn't lie. Here it is: already a garden to remember.

7. 18.07

Mulch and how to use it

Mulch…We here in the piedmont of Virginia have been having a rough go of it this summer in the rainfall department. Mulch has saved our bacon this season. We put in a huge display garden around our new retail space, mulch like superman saved the day. We would never have been able to keep it watered and looking as great as it does without mulch. It is just the thing for keeping the moisture where it belongs around the roots. It also helps suppress weeds, which tend to grow faster than the stuff we actually planted. 

The kind of mulch we choose and the amount used differs depending on what and where. Our personal view is about one inch of mulch put on once or twice a year. Applying mulch like this still helps retain moisture in the soil and lets rain or your watering through. Too much mulch can make an impenetrable barrier to water, not to mention an ugly mound. We are also careful to pull the mulch away from the base of each plant so if we get too much moisture it doesn't sit next to the stem of the plant and help to rot it. As to what to mulch with, that is up to your personal taste. The field is now so varied, and personal taste so distinct that I won't comment much on this. I will tell you we use double shredded hard wood that looks very dark on the ground. We think it shows off the plants better and looks more natural.

A garden tip for this time of year that I am dealing with now.

Edit your garden. This is a good time to remove plants that didn't work out. Maybe they took up too much space where you put them (my yarrow), or didn't perform well, or it isn't the look you want for that part of your garden. Dig them up and give them away or move them to another part of your garden or return them to the garden in the form of compost (which means throw them on the compost pile, ashes to ashes dust to dust). Don't keep something in your garden you don't like just because it is alive and healthy. It is your garden and when you look at it I want you to smile. Aren't gardens wonderfully recyclable?

--Karen

6.21.07

Forever Revising

Our gardens have filled up and are reaching for the sky. Now is the time to see where there are bare spots and a lack of color in a certain area. Change is always good in a garden. So many of my perennials in the old retail garden are so big that it has taken the diversity of the garden away. It's time to rethink that garden...something we do every few years with our gardens.

Actually we are rethinking all of the gardens here. Spending time with serious weeding and re-evaluating the space as to changing taste and acquired plants: some great new annuals that George has done from seed and cuttings that are ready to be put in. Both we and the mosquitoes were out working almost until dark on our rethunk garden last night.

The summer evening is our time to just be gardeners. We put in masses of coleus that will look like a patchwork quilt in a few weeks. Then we moved on to profusion zinnias (double cherry and apricot), salvias of all kinds, and anything else we like and have here at the farm. Come visit us this Sunday for the plant swap (more info in the "news" section of our homepage) and take a look at some of our updated gardens. As always it is a work in progress, come visit often.

As to garden advice…do as we are doing: keep ahead of the weeding and mulch...it's dry, dry, dry. Happy gardening!

--Karen

6.7.07

Garden Grow Time

Our new gardens are growing, and fast. I have no idea what is in that soil, but it seems like magic. The pergola over the main entrance is finished, and it's painted a lovely violet blue. It's satisfying to see a lot of hard work pay off in an inviting and beautiful garden retail space. Actually, looking at our display gardens to see what is blooming at that moment and how big it really gets in the garden is worth the trip over here. It's amazing how big plants in little 3 1/2" pots will get, isn't it?

It makes me want to run around visiting all the other nurseries within an hour or so just to see what their places look like and compare and get more inspiration. Going to a local nursery (like ours!) is such a great experience; it's so much better than getting plants through the mail or from a catalogue (or from Lowe's!). Also the fun of a plant road trip with like-minded friends could make your week. I find it very satisfying to come home with a carfull of plants from everywhere on the map.  It will also help the local economy...AND when you put your new purchases in the ground, you'll get a good workout in the most Zen way by getting in touch with nature at the same time. Maybe now that garden season is slowing down a little, it's time to jump in the gardenmobile.

Garden info:  It's the second week in June, so it's time to cut back mums and asters. I also cut back my tall summer phlox, boltonias, and some sedums. Cutting back these plants helps to stagger bloom time and keeps them shorter for a neater appearance. Stay tuned and we'll see you soon!

--Karen

5. 15.07

Hurry Up and Wait

Though our new retail space amazes me, I get a twinge every time I pass our old space with its sad remnants of all the years of flowering glory. My old established garden that went with it is also not getting as much eye traffic this year. It's just waiting up the hill...still looking beautiful.

Our new garden space is huge. We are planting a small area at a time. It reminds me of my hill garden 5 years ago. For new gardens to mature it just takes time. You can rush it some with bigger plants, but they can only be so big. Gardeners have to be patient to see the results of a mature garden. Luckily, patience is in a gardener's nature. We went to a good friend's garden this week to drop off a few things and tour her garden. I have seen it over the years, but this year it has all come together. In the dusk, it was glorious. It's a big garden; a joy to walk through and around, many vistas and levels. New plants go in all of the time, but because the garden is mature you don't notice that they're smaller. All it took was time.

Lord knows the three years you have to wait for Baptisa to bloom from seed is forever, and the year for a hollyhock or foxglove is only slightly less hard to bear. We have so many different kinds of perennials and biennials in 3 ½" pots. At that size they are easy to put and establish well. You can have a great garden with interesting plants and it won't cost you an arm or even a leg: It just takes time. The funny thing is...the years fly by and the garden grows. Plants that have gotten too big (how did that happen?) are moved or divided or shared. One-year blends into the next and ta-da!, you have a mature garden.

Some great plants that will test your patience but are worth it:

• Alyssum 'Ball of Gold'
• Aquilegia Canadensis 'Nora Barlow', and from seed we collect ourselves a 'Morningside Deep Blue'
• Baptisia Australis
• Digitalis Mertonensis, p. 'Pam's choice', p. 'Snow Thimble', p. 'Apricot' (blooming in my garden for the first time after putting it in last year)
• Campanula Glomerata 'Surperba', poscharskyana, pers. 'Telham Beauty'
• Our native Hibiscus coccineus (above)
• All the poppies we sell in the small pots: 'Allegro', 'Brilliant', 'Royal Wedding,' 'Victoria Louise"

Time to get back to the greenhouse. Thanks for reading!

4.24.07

Planting the New Garden

We have a new planting project here at Morningside Farm: our new huge display bed. It stretches on forever around the new retail area. The back side of the garden is going to be a rain garden, which will help with erosion and runoff problems into our new pond and on down the pond chain to the river system and the Chesapeake Bay. I am savoring the idea of planting this garden. Our friends Jeff and Bill came and tilled the whole garden bed. It's beautiful just as it is, but of course an empty garden to a gardener is a battle cry.

We will all work on it. I like to imagine it will be the wonder of the neighborhood, and it will certainly be the wonder of our nursery. As children at Christmas with sugarplums dancing in their heads, our heads are full of dancing perennials and annuals, maybe a few small trees and shrubs, a few pieces of iron work maybe, beautiful blooming containers over-spilling with summer lushness. I am going to do the containers now so they will be ready to add to the garden after mother's day.

I was thinking of a seasonal Spring, Summer, and Fall garden starting with Spring at the big blue house and continuing around. The whole garden would be of interest all the time, with an emphasis on a particular season in a particular area. I haven't broached this with the men yet; I'm trying to get it straight in my own mind first. I plan on making a list of all sun blooming Spring perennials, a list of Summer perennials, and a list of late Summer/Fall perennials. I'll start with a list and veer off entirely by the end.

I would also like to have bays of annuals in the garden that stay the same every year, kind of like annual islands in the perennial bed, with their own area they can be planned as a garden within the garden every year. That's the end of my garden musings for now.

A small, funny string of tips about old-fashioned clothespins (the ones with a coil of wire between the pieces of wood):

• Use an indelible ball point pen to write on them, snap it onto the rim of a flower pot to identify the plant
• Put on opened packages of seeds to keep tightly closed or to separate different packages
• Flank a partly broken stem with pieces of wood and hold in place with the clothespin
• Hold the pages of a book open to free both hands
• Hold covers in place to shade a plant.
• The last part of the tip..."Keep in your basket of tools at all times"

That's it for me this week. I will let you know about our garden progress, or better yet, come visit.

--Karen
 

The Freeze that Wasn't and Working in the Rain

Friday April 13, 2007

Nature, gardening, and life are fickle. My own thoughts on the freeze that wasn't were dire. I took pictures of all the beautiful flowers that were going to be toast in the next few days with the thought that I would have before and after pictures for this blog. Well, that didn't work out; nature gave us a double scoop of chocolate-chocolate chip ice cream instead (you see how my mind works). No hard freeze, no dead blooms, no happy perennials cut down to the ground in a black mass. Nature winked at us, fooled us mere mortals, laughed at our panic. I think I did more damage trying to cover up one of my favorites (tree peonies) than the cold did, and I would have to say, nature is whatever it's going to be and that's something we, as gardeners, will always have to work around.

On to something more predictable: how our new greenhouse space is coming. The second greenhouse ribs are up and one of the end walls is up and painted its robins egg blue. I love it, and soon it will be as comfortable to me as our old space was. It has been a flurry of excitement here at Morningside: people and friends coming and going, energy flowing from plants and people, soft music playing, the sound of the nail gun and skill saw. We are all helping each other with whatever we are doing. Each to our own tasks, which are all very different. Travis is finishing up the carpentry work and painting on the greenhouses, George and Billy are madly potting up the huge plugs George has grown, and me trying to pull a retail area together out of the chaos. We're moving the plants outside the greenhouses so we can pot up more plants, and I wonder when we will have time to plant up our new huge garden space that, at the moment, looks like a giant pile of dirt with a very pleasing sweep around the garden center area. When we get that planted it's going to be spectacular.

A few thoughts on your garden:

After the daffodils have bloomed don't tie the leaves up. Leave them to die back just as they are. It may not look as tidy, but it's so much better for the bulbs.

Remember on these rainy and post-rainy days: Don't work clay soil when it is wet, as clumps will form that can take a whole year to break down. If you decide to work in your garden anyway, stepping or kneeling on a board or stepping stone keeps the soil from becoming compacted. I try to stay out of the my garden for a few days after a rain except around the edges.

Well folks that's it for now. I can hear little plant voices calling, "Mama come watch us grow...."
 

Gardener's Frustrations: Spreaders and Weeds

Friday March 30, 2007

We are furiously trying to get the gardens cleaned up and mulched in time for opening day. While George and I were working within speaking distance during our weeding of the big garden, he would remind me of all the plants I had put in over the years that I was now having trouble removing because they were just a teensy bit aggressive. I reminded him of all his own very large plantings in a part of a garden that he put in. It made me think of our different perspectives on plants. My favorites are English garden-type plantings: overfull, lots of color. Campanulas are a favorite, but the ones I chose never seem to work in that garden. I just loved the campanula punctata 'Wedding Bells' which was supposed to be white with pink freckles (it wasn't).

This campanula is a spreading plant, and in the right place it's great. In fact, I have a friend who has had it in a corner surrounded by a stone walk on one side and her house on the other. It looks great and it's spreading habit is contained. Unfortunately, in my garden with the good soil it took over the world: It's getting under shrubs and squeezing out my old favorite, well-loved plants. I tried to be pro-active in containing it, but it was faster than I was. Last fall I took the whole thing out, and George finding a remnant, was able to remind me of my choosing this plant even though I knew its growth habit. I just wanted it, and put it in, and after a few years reconsidered, and ripped it out. We gardeners do that all the time, change things. This is not a perfect world; I ripped it out and moved on. So ends my Campanula punctata stories These are much better choices in campanula's for that space; Campanula glomerata 'Surperba', Campanula poscharskyana, Campanula persicifloia.

A few gardening notes: At this time of year, weeds can overcome a garden space very quickly (they seem to be growing at three times the speed of my perennials). If you are not mulching your garden, it is more difficult to keep them under control. Get them out when they are small. We have found a great gardening tool this year (the serrated trowel at left). It's really good for weeding; it looks like a fat knife with a serrated edge. I love it and we will be buying more to have here.

One last thing: if you have peonies, they don't require fertilizer for the first two or three years after planting. Then apply a trowel full of bonemeal each spring before bloom in a band 6-8 inches from the crown. Work into the soil being careful not to disturb the roots. Mulch with 2-4 inches of organic matter. If staking is necessary, place the stakes before the plants fill out.

That's all for this week! Enjoy the greening and the warming!

The First Day of Spring and the Small Details of Progress

Wednesday March 21, 2007

I have come to realize that writing the Gardenblog is a lot like gardening: It has to be done every week. My son Travis gives me the nudge on the blog while weeds and bare spaces in my garden move me along there. We have so much to do this year that getting into the garden is a rare treat. Everyday I think I will get to dig up those wild onions in the peony border, grub out the running grass. A day later, the onions are taller the grass runs farther.Taking time to garden is a luxury. How can people think of it as work? I will admit, in the heat of summer when the weeds are having sway in the garden, it is a tiny bit difficult to muster up the energy to engage the enemy...but in the cool of a spring morning I still have delight in my gardening. The big garden has matured to the point where all kinds of birds and small creatures call it home. It affords them great cover from my cats, who garden with me but seem uninterested in the wildlife at that time of the morning. We're all happy just to be out in the garden in the cool morning air...but this is jumping ahead. This is spring and if I write really fast I may just get some of the dreaded onions out (my own pet peeve).

We have been having friends over for Sunday suppers the last few weeks. It is our social swan song for the season. Everyone wants to see the new pond and retail area. I get to see it with fresh eyes again. We were such innocents in regard to how we were going to set the whole thing up. Our way is to get it generally the way we want it and spend more time and energy fixing it later.  Right now, the new garden looks like a runway to me: too long and wide. We are going to change it, make it smaller with a curve around our new rain garden, (OK the rain garden we will develop as soon as we get our new main garden squared away and after we put up the next greenhouse to house the annuals for this year...are we really opening on April 7th?).

I thought I would pass along this recipe I found this week. It sounds really good and I get to use some of our fresh herbs (lucky me to have greenhouses full of them).

Strata with Goat Cheese, Tomatoes, and Herbs

• 1-tablespoon olive oil
• ½ pound stale country bread, sliced about ½-inch thick
• 2 large cloves garlic, 1 sliced in half, the other minced
• 1-pound fresh tomatoes (about 3 medium) sliced 1/3-inches thick
• 1/3 cup Gruyere cheese, grated
• 1/2 cup goat cheese, crumbled
• 1 tablespoon fresh rosemary, chopped
• 2 teaspoons fresh thyme
• 1-teaspoon kosher salt
• ½ teaspoon black pepper
• 4 large eggs
• 2 cups milk

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Oil a 2-quart baking or gratin dish, Rub the bread slices with garlic halves. Mix the minced garlic with the tomatoes, season with a pinch of salt and pepper, and set aside. Layer half the bread slices in the baking dish. Top with half the reserved tomatoes, half the cheeses, half the herbs and half the salt and pepper. Repeat the layers. Beat together the eggs and milk. Pour over the bread-tomato mixture. Place the dish on a baking sheet and bake for 40 or 50 minutes until puffed and browned. Serve hot or at room temperature.

That's all for this week! Time to get out in the garden and meet the first day of Spring!

Tuesday, March 13, 2007

Our trip to the Philly Flower show was incredible. We left at nine in the morning and got back at one the next morning. There was so much to see and so many great ideas to absorb. Instead of the big displays that had lines snaking around them, I preferred the smaller, lovely little vignettes: house fronts that looked like a country cottage filled with tulips and flowers, a ruin of a stone church with vines creeping through the windows and an overgrown garden surrounding it, huge containers with the most perfect plant combinations. We made sure to go early in the week because some of the flowers fade as the week goes on. You can see some of the elaborate pictures from the flower show in this entry.

Gardening, I have to say, is a very personal journey. We now have three gardeners under one roof, and we all have something to say about every gardening issue, which, in this house, is every issue.

My garden preference is toward beautiful, vivid colors. All the new Heucheras (Frosted Violet, Lime Rickey, Marmalade, Mystic Angel, and Peach Flambe...some of these names are sounding very food-like) are my favorites at the moment. They are so dramatic at any time of the year, even without their flowers. Leaf and foliage texture, like on the Heucheras, means much more to me in my garden than just the colorful flowers by themselves. Plant texture also pulls a garden through the entire year as it changes from season to season. Grasses in the garden, for example, have great texture. My new favorite grass is Panicum "Northwind." It looked so expressive in my garden this winter and still does.  I hate to cut it back, but it's time for everything to fall as part of my spring garden clean up.

Travis loves to cook, so herbs are his plant of choice at the moment. He made a great bruschetta to go with dinner on Sunday. The recipe is very simple, but it tasted just like heaven:

It's just diced Roma tomatoes, minced garlic,  some of our Greek Columnar basil (that we should be using for cuttings at this time of year), and olive oil. Mix that in a bowl with some fresh ground pepper and kosher salt and let it sit at least a half an hour. Then toast thin slices from a baguette in an oven until they become crisp but not too brown. Finally, spoon on the tomato mixture.  A little Parmesan cheese and olive oil sprinkled on the bread before you toast it makes it even better. It's easy and fresh and almost everything comes from the garden.

That's all for this week. A few garden tips to remember: If you buy bare root shrubs this time of year, be sure to soak them in water several hours before you plant them. And now's the time to divide Hostas, liriope, daylilies, Shasta daises, astilbe, and coral-bells, before they begin to grow.

In the Cold, Spring Heats Up

Tuesday, March 6, 2007

Can you believe it? We have one of the new greenhouses up in the new retail area thanks to George, Travis, and our good friend and excellent helper Billy. I never believed it could happen so fast, but I look out our living room window, and there it is. A good thing too because we have run out of room in every greenhouse and need the new space for more plants that we are potting up everyday. Today Trav was working on herbs (thymes, loveage, garden sage, and many more) and I was potting up perennials (hypericum, chrysanthemum, sedum 'Autumn Fire'--at right). Everything is breaking dormancy and growing so fast. Now is the time when everyday is different in the greenhouse. Seedlings jump, cutting root so fast, it seems like the plants think spring is here, and I guess for us it is.

George and I are doing something we have not done in years, we are going to the Philadelphia Flower Show, and I can't wait. The theme this year is 'Legends of Ireland' and as someone who subconsciously always seems to make a garden that looks like it belongs somewhere on one of the British Isles, I will be in heaven. I expect to come back with a whole new outlook on Irish gardens. I will keep you posted; we now have lots of new gardens to work on, and I don't see why a part of one can't be a bit Irish.

I also wanted to say last week we got in a ton (for us) of terra cotta pots. Some we are going to paint, some we will lime wash, and some we will leave terra cotta. It's really beautiful stuff, big pots, medium pots, and small posts in lots of different shapes and sizes. Something for everyone.

Some of what’s new at Morningside Farm...

Tuesday, February 20, 2007

While I was away visiting family in California, we started work on our new retail area. I say we, but it was actually a young man with a big machine. He came and changed the natural slope of our land into (what seems like to me) a very big, flat space where our new retail area will be. We also had him put in a real pond close to our rock-lined spring. The pond is filling directly from the spring, and with snow melt it is not taking the month the pond digger/land changer said it would take. In fact, it only taken about a week and a half so far. Now it is a small pond, but we are proud of it. It will be a beautiful addition to our display garden area.

On this new, graded area we will build two greenhouses and a much bigger retail area with plenty of room for parking; no more blind curve around a greenhouse. I have to say, I have no idea how all of this will happen by early April. We still have all of the seeding, potting up, and everything else we do every year to finish. It will look raw this year, but we hope that you can see the future in our new big display garden  along with us. It looks huge at the moment (it is huge), but I bet we can plant it up very quickly.

The greenhouses are also filling up. We will have all kinds of new Echinaceas, such as "Summer Sky," which is the first bicolor Echinacea. The huge 5-inch flowers are a light orange with a rose-colored halo and orange cone. It is prolific bloomer and highly fragrant. Another new one, "Harvest Moon (pictured left)," is a vigorous, fragrant earthy gold with a golden orange center cone. Some of our new Echinaceas are even fragrant! I can’t properly explain how show-stopping these new plants are. We will also have all of the great prairie Echinaceas such as "Magnus," with its large rose-pink petals and a coppery-brown cone, and "White Swan," with a white ray petal that flexes down away from the coppery-brown cone. I could go on and on...new retail area, lots of new plants, what could be better?

A few reminders before I head off to bed...now is the time to prune your buddleia, caryopteris, russian sage, and artemesia to within 6 inches of the ground. In late February, cut ornamental grasses to 6 inches also. Cut or mow (so much easier) liriope to 3 inches. Cut hydrangea arborescens to the ground and fertilize lightly. These hydrangeas, like Annabelle or Limelight (the ones with big white blooms in the summer), bloom on new wood. But be careful! Blue or pink hydrangeas (Macrophyllas) generally bloom on old wood and shouldn't be cutback until after they flower. Feed iris with bone meal and top with wood ashes. Circle herbs with lime, especially lavender. Okay, that’s it for now,

--Karen