Secret plants

I have been keeping things from you.

Last year I planted a small Wisteria frutescens to climb up the sturdy main canes of the Iceberg. This was ahead of the Martha Stewart shoot, and I was worried that the canes would look all...bare. As it turned out there was no need for camouflage, but I now I have this wisteria. Though far less rampant than Wisteria chinensis, wisteria is till wisteria and not the best choice for a container. The vines grow fast, grow deep, and generally tear down whatever they're growing on unless pruned very smartly. This one has already twined all the way to the top of the rose. So I can either turn it into a dinky standard, or rethink. A clematis would have been a better choice. I may still find the right type - Pruning Group 3 is what I am looking for, the kind of clematis that you mow down to the ground at the end of winter as it blooms on new growth only. 

Which brings me to...:

Bee's Jubilee! Growing up the lower canes of the New Dawn. The New Dawn really is in trouble. The Iceberg on the other side is not. That rose is very healthy. But now I have this bright clematis and an indestructible autumn clematis climbing up the unhappy New Dawn. Should I just grit my teeth and take the whole lot out? Bee's Jubilee is in its own pot. But in the big rose pot are two giant lilies, now three feet tall, and the autumn clematis. I am torn. And there are rose buds. Not half as many as in previous years, but they're there. Wait for bloom, and then replace with...another rose? Or see how it goes. It will be a huge performance.

Also, this clematis belongs to pruning Group 2, which means that it blooms on last season's growth. But it is supposed to rebloom on new growth. Does that mean I should not prune it after this first flush? I prune the Etoile Violette (Group 3) lightly after the first flush and it sprouts more and blooms more. 

That's the Iceberg in flower, above. At night with the door open, I smell roses.

And pansies. One forgets that they actually have a very good fragrance.

For the last few nights I have been moving my seedlings in and out, up and down. They are well traveled. At night they go under the table. I know. Over protective. And last night I squashed my first mosquito of the season. Yay.

So far, this spring has been an interesting ride.

Knotweed soup

Head on next door to 66 Square Feet (the Food) for a hot bowl of creamy knotweed soup (without cream: cunning). If you don't have knotweed, and do have sorrel, substitute that, instead.

Nowhere to go

We all have our problems.

IAC cherry

And Gehry spake unto the office workers and said unto them - You are forbidden to plant a cherry tree to brighten the facade of my creation. But the office workers defied Gehry and planted their cherry tree. And it was good.

If a little on the small side.

What to forage in spring?

My spring list of forageable foods grows longer and longer. My story in the spring edition of Edible Brooklyn forecast good things to come.

Pictured above? Pokeweed, growing on the shore of Jamaica Bay.

The fallen

Sayonara, cherry blossoms. In wet, cold weather I walked, almost alone, across the pink carpet late on Sunday, at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden.

A woman in a red jacket walked ahead of me. When she turned around, alone under her umbrella, she was smiling.

Petals collected in drifts and sluiced into gutters, to float beneath the streets of Brooklyn, and out to sea.

Perhaps they collect in that famous and growing flotilla of ocean trash that sits somewhere, far from our eyes, and turn it, briefly,  pink.

The High Line this April

The High Line, in this strangest of Aprils. We had that snow in October, breaking trees all over the city, and we have now three months of spring compressed into its beginning.

It is the least undiscovered of New York's parks. 

A fluoresent redbud. I refrained from nibbling its sweet flowers.

A white redbud.

Down in the woodsy sections, foaming tiarella and woodland phlox.

And in the era of reviled lawns, I still like the clipped green carpet above 23rd Street.

Below, the Chelsea Meadows are still flat. By August they are rolling, voluptuous grassland. 

And from below the park really does disappear, preserving its aura of lost and found.

I'll check back in again in late May, and see what is happening, then.