How Old is Your Garden?

As I read through all of the wonderful garden blogs, admiring all the beautiful flowers already in bloom, I look out at my garden, which is just starting its second year and lament its status as a mere toddler.

I know one day the garden will start spring with the bold blooms I so look forward to but I haven’t seen many yet. It is mostly green, except for the few new shrubs I just put in that already have flowers, like this Weigela My Monet (on the left) and this Potentilla Frosty. Tulips and Daffodils were pretty lack luster too, so I’m going to dig them up and see if they need to be divided.

Our spring here in Utah has been very wet and a bit on the chilly side, as springs go, with a lot of cloud cover. I guess I should be grateful that the usual high heat has not yet visited us but I can’t help think that this is why my plants are growing so slowly. So for now I’ll accept weather as one of the excuses my plants are a little behind in their development. The other excuse is that the garden is still quite young.

Am I expecting too much too soon? I’m following the most reasonable formula for having a full lush garden, i.e., watering and fertilizing regularly. I suffer through the smell of fish emulsion so I think I deserve to be rewarded with more blooms than what I now have.

Okay, so Mother Nature cannot be cajoled into giving up her goods until she is ready, but seeing other people’s gardens so lush and beautiful borders on being disappointingly painful.

Yesterday, I discovered these Allium Alpine Rosy Bells blooming. I’m pretty sure they should have started blooming about mid-May.

Dianthus Desmond opened up about three days ago but the Dianthus Zing Rose hadn’t started budding yet.

This Lavender Devon Camp is showing some color. I just planted this one two weeks ago. The Hardy Lavender I put here last fall has proven to be not so hardy.

Salvia East Friesland (left) and Nepeta Walkers’ Low (below) opened up over a week ago so they look like they should be pretty reliable every year.

My Echinacea Bravado and one of the Echinacea Magnus have set up flower buds, seemingly right on time because they should be blooming in early June.

What I am trying to determine is whether or not age plays a major role in how early in the season plants start blooming? When this garden is, say five years old, will it be blooming by now or is it just because of the weather this year that most things seem to be about two weeks behind?

I know experience will teach me how things will grow here and maybe I should not expect so much from such a young garden but patience is just so over rated.