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May 2021 in the Garden

I finally figured out why I haven’t been blogging like I used to: I journal longhand instead, pasting photos of my garden into my gardening journal, creating pages for plants I’d like to research, noting which seeds germinated successfully and which didn’t (I’m looking at you, larkspur), etc.

However, I do like the convenience of being able to just search my blog and compare year to year for particular events or milestones, gardening or otherwise. So, here I am, back-blogging Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day for May 2021.

Early Spring Border / Japanese Garden

The highlights of this border are the dwarf Japanese maple and the tree peony, but it really shines in early spring, when all the bulbs come up and remind me that things will get warmer and greener.

After all these alliums finished blooming and their foliage browned, I dug them up (and LABELED THEM) in preparation for converting this border into something more minimalist that the chipmunks might not find as inviting.

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Me-Made May 2021

After a few years of sewing garments, I decided it was finally time to participate in Me-Made May. To quote Zoe, the creator of the challenge:

Me-Made-May is a challenge designed to encourage people who make their own clothes to develop a better relationship with their handmade wardrobe. You set the specifics of your own challenge to make it suitable and useful for YOU. However, one very common pledge is for a participant to aim to wear one self-stitched or refashioned garment each day for the duration of May. 

I’ve made a few garments for myself, but not nearly enough to last me through an entire month. So, my challenge for Me-Made May was to wear each of my me-made items at least once during the month of May, and to take notes on what I like most and what I would improve about each garment.

I chose not to photograph each garment, so I’m not planning to post a slideshow of my me-mades, but I will recap my notes and future plans.

My absolute favorite makes

I wore my green and black colorblock tunic to work on my single in-person day in October 2020.

Colorblock 3/4 sleeve knit tunic

Made in March 2020 from double-brushed polyester knit, with a pattern adapted from Simplicity 1199. Double-brushed poly knit has to be one of my favorite fabrics to wear, although the fact that it’s polyester (extruded microplastic, as I understand it) puts it lower on the “sustainable sewing” preferred fabric list. This shirt is one of only a few that I’m OK with wearing to the office.

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Collector of Hobbies

Japanese maple seedlings wired as bonsai

I blame the YouTube algorithm. It served me up some videos from Herons Bonsai a few weeks back, and now I’m potting up Japanese maple seedlings that would normally be destined for my (currently non-existent) compost pile.

Earlier this week, I unearthed some thin florist wire and some aluminum craft wire from my stash (I’ve also got some heavyweight picture-hanging wire around here somewhere) and made a first attempt at wiring my tiny seedlings’ trunks into the S-shape of an informal upright bonsai.

Last night, I wired a couple of the other smaller seedlings that I had dug up — the ones that seem to be thriving in their new home, anyway.

Today is Mother’s Day… and look what my two favorite guys got me.

The Bonsai Beginner's Bible by Peter Chan and a bonsai growing kit

The bonsai-growing kit contains seeds of four different plants: two conifers and two deciduous trees, one of which is a flowering tree. I’m planning to start with germinating the Norway spruce, as the insert promises that it’s a fast-growing plant.

Now that I’ve been tending the same flowerbeds for eight years, though I’m starting to understand the Long Game. I get that there’s no silver bullet to instantly grow (and maintain) the perfect garden, border, tree, whatever. I’m starting to plan ahead for what the gardens will look like in a few years, leaving volunteer tree seedlings to mature alongside older, weaker specimens that are on their way out. I’m not in a hurry to buy new plants, or to pull up “weeds” that I don’t recognize. Now that my mind has starting thinking bonsai, I’m even contemplating the weed trees and unwanted runner plants as possible future bonsai.

I also get that every year can be a new start if it needs to be. Gardens and the plants in them are living things, always growing and changing. There will always be new volunteer seedlings to shape and nurture — or throw in the landfill.