I hadn’t realized just how busy this week has been with the plants, but this may just be the new normal during the growing season. So many plants! So much to do!

I acquired three new youths and an older gentleman.

First there’s the Jacob’s Ladder, which I thought might look lovely amoung some ostrich ferns (future planning), and incorporate some diversity. Jacob seemingly appreciates partial shade, so that at least would set him at home amidst the environment of ferns. Jacob also turns out to be a thirsty drama baby. He has much water requirements (I was watering him multiple days in a row while it was hot and sunny out), and has himself a very impressive faint when he finds himself in need of a drink.

At the same time as I picked up Jacob at a local “native plant sale,” I also bought another rosemary plant. Definitely not native to this region, but I trust that this nursery raised her to be much hardier than the one from the big box store last year. This time I’m keeping her indoors, out of the rain, and facing the strong South sun.

The third plant I procured was a young bell pepper plant, well out of its seedling phase, from a chain grocery store. He caught my eye, and I had missed the February seed planting window for this species. I think it already has some itty bitty peppers growing on it which I think I need to prune, but I’m not certain when. I’m hoping that as a newbie plant parent, I can taste greater success with edible vegetation that has already survived beyond its infancy.

Finally, I adopted Bernard, slightly more mature fern (possibly a Boston Fern) that one of my neighbors was having poor luck in keeping healthy and happy. I figured I’d try my hand at reviving Bernard (the Fern). I set him up in the bathroom, facing the northern morning sun. I’m giving him this week to acclimate, and then I’ll trim away the dead foliage. The haircut will reduce energy loss to dead end limbs, and it will help clear the sunlight’s ‘path’ to his healthy cells (remember how dense hedges die at the center due to lack of sunlight and wind reaching that insulated area?).

Another – entirely unexpected but most welcome – newcomer this week: additional air plant arm. Sebastian is growing a new tentacle, which I just noticed after giving him his weekly bath. It’s so naked, without its fuzz, like a fresh newborn.

Outside, the moss phlox is also experiencing new growth. It’s not a Creeping Phlox variety, but these tendrils definitely be creeping.

I did make a mistake yesterday, whereupon I found a snail resting by the back of the house, and thinking that ‘snails are good for the garden,’ I relocated the nifty guy into the garden, right by the phlox. And THEN I did a little reading on snails and found that they are fantastic at helping break down compost, but they are also known to consume healthy foliage, including phlox buds. So, I’ll be snail-hunting in the garden today, and any future snail finds will be transferred to the compost bins.

The rain we’re currently getting may make my snail search harder, since the moisture activates the wee buggers and he’s probably made great headway, but I am very grateful for this current round of precipitation. The clover has been making strides in its growth, but it’s been coming up patchy (almost certainly as a result of my toss-the-seeds-randomly technique). So I decided to sprinkle more clover seeds in the hopes of evening out the greenery (and claiming the soil before uninvited guests can). Fingers crossed, again!

The lack of sunlight while it rains might also slow down the iris bloom development (not sure if it works that way). The first buds from the bulb-planted irises are finally starting to present, and I couldn’t be prouder.

The transplanted irises, however, seem to be rotating through their blooming at a rather fast pace. It seems to me that individual flowers don’t stick around for very long, but that may just be blooms in general. When walking in a neighborhood or in the woods, I take in the blooms as a whole, but while tending my own garden, I notice that a specific flower that bloomed last week is on its way out this week.

While I’m not worried about the appearance of dead flower blooms, I have recently read about the health benefits to the plant by ‘dead heading’ – when the gardener cuts off the dead flower heads and stalks, leaving alone the leaves and any healthy flowers. This practice helps the plant conserve its energy by preventing wasted sugars being sent to an area that is not providing any current value to the plant. So this week I beheaded the hyacinths, cutting at the base of the flower stalks, and left the leaves to continue photosynthesizing to store energy for next year. If I don’t see any ill effects, such as some sort of plant gangrene, then I’ll try the same technique on the irises.