The Lents Farmer

Thursday, April 28, 2022

Welcome to 2022!

I haven't blogged in ages, but I thought I better say that I survived 2 years of Covid gardening, fires, smoke, hail, snow and cutworms! And now I'm excited for the possibilities of 2022! So far this spring, the Mardi Gras Gardener and I attended Hortlandia and GardenPalooza at Bauman Farms and boy did that feel good! It was nice to see old friends, find a few new garden treasures and to feel something a little closer to normal. Our annual Adelman's/Sebright/SGG trip is coming up soon, but a little later than normal. I'm getting the garden ready for my first "open" garden on May 7th with HPSO's SE Gardens tour and I anticipate a lot of visitors. Part of the joy of having a garden is in sharing it with others. There are a few small projects to get done yet, some of them caused by our late April snow that caused a lot of damage. To get the garden in tip top shape, recently my neighbor helped me get 3 yards of mulch that I spread like a maniac in between rain and hail storms and then I ended up popping two ribs out of place trying to turn my head in the car to park a day later. Old age and gardening sometimes don't mix! I should be recovered by May 7th and will hopefully see dear friends and their faces! Happy Gardening! Matthew and Cosette

Tuesday, February 9, 2021

Best of Season 2020

I don’t need to get into what a crappy year 2020 was. We’ve all been there.

My sweetie (The Mardi Gras Gardener) always does a “Best of Season” post to recap the year, so I’m going to try my hand at that this post.

Here’s some of the things I enjoyed most in 2020. Enjoy!

Of course there are always peonies in the spring. They get me ramped up for the gardening season.

Alan and I managed to squeak in a road trip to Adelman's opening weekend right before Covid became a "thing". I believe I came home with only two peonies in 2020.

Since there were a couple varieties that were newly available when we were at the nursery, I bought a few peony plants for other people by text and phone order, so I got to be "PlantUber" and pick out extra plants and live vicariously through other's orders.

Since I wasn't saving blooms for HPSO Open Garden tours, every few days, I brought a bucket load of cut peony flowers to work, assembled the ragtag assortment of office vases laying around and made arrangements for the three of us that still came to the office. A little bright joy during a pandemic.

Anita's phoned in order!

'Lemon Dream' certainly amazes

'Shima Nishiki'

'Black Panther' was gorge!

'Hilary' blooming for the first time.

Then there were roses!

The last remaining bit of the vegetable garden disappeared and additional roses were planted before Covid. I had a last minute run to the nursery to pick out a couple more to even out my color palette.

I really enjoyed taking a walk with Coco to the back yard to go see them. Rose care is a little more fussy then peony care, but I didn't mind the extra tending, clipping and aphid smooshing.

The added bonus was again being able to bring cut flowers all summer to work. A bouquet of cocoa-colored Koko Loko became my new favorite cut flowers.

'Queen of Sweden'

'Koko Loko'

'Brother Cadfael'

'Sterling Silver' - sweet and citrusy fragrance

'Marilyn Monroe' - A fabulous rose with a crazy amount of thorns.

And some orchids...

The mishmash of terrestrial orchids continued to be a source of joy. Coco previously tried to kill 'Soryu', so seeing it bloom with it's lovely lavender color was a real treat.