Monday, 8:00 AM. 50 degrees, wind NE, calm to light. The channel is calm. The barometer is up, predicting partly cloudy weather. The sky is mostly overcast with high gray clouds.
There are two native shrubs of note just beginning to bloom in the woods on Ninth Street; mountain maple, Acer spicatum, which bears upright spikes of whitish green flowers and has rather large palmately lobed leaves; and the pagoda dogwood, Cornus alternifolia, which has flat clusters of tiny dogwood blooms and is the only dogwood with alternate leaves and branches.
The mountain maple is a very handsome under-story shrub, not readily available in the nursery trade; the pagoda dogwood, so named because it has an interesting “oriental” shape, is available but is rather finicky to grow. Neither shrub is known by many gardeners, and both could be used more.
My Iris are not performing well this year, “mea culpa,” they need to be divided and I will have to develop a new bed for them somewhere. I made the mistake of planting Iris in with other garden perennials and if I divide them in place I will ruin a lot of other things, particularly bulbs. Iris are not good plants for the careless gardener!
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