look, i just got back from being At Work for 14 days straight. i ain't gonna catch up on whatever is happening on the internet. i want to think about gardening.
the more i clean up the yard (late this year but whatever; see prev. about Work) the more i noticed some plants that died off over the winter. hardy little guys that were a couple years old even! perennial grasses! and also those hydrangeas that were never going to make it in the first place. the oregano miraculously survived though??? this past winter was one of those intensely, bitterly cold ones we get maybe every ten years, followed by months of almost no precipitation. i forgive them for dying but now i have to spend money to replace them (so the drip irrigation doesn't go to waste. also i liked my native flowers and grasses, dammit).
i'm also using the opportunity to plant some of The Good Shit (herbs and fruits) that the nursery has sometimes. i did not buy the elecampane or motherwort even though i find them compelling (not sure where they'd live yet). i got a theoretically cold-hardy rosemary and a pennyroyal i'm putting in the southern boxes that kept the oregano alive. i got another delphinium and monkshood for my mini collection. a baby bay laurel tree and an ornamental tobacco and a replacement nettle and a MADDER that i'm gonzo to dye some fabric with in, uh, three years.
the peonies are still going, to my joy. the raspberries are already setting fruit. first sweetgrass harvest soon. i used the bountiful rhubarb (may she live forever, rhubarb haters dni) and Pomona pectin to make some of the best strawberry-rhubarb jam i've ever had. even such a little garden is worth it, worth it, worth everything.