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Spring a time of renewal

By S.K. Bardwell
Posted Tuesday, June 5, 2007

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I’ve been enjoying the outdoors a lot lately. That’ll last maybe another month, before my morning walks turn into death marches, and the heat and mosquitoes make the back yard singularly unappealing. July 4 may be my cutoff date for outside activity—I don’t want to miss the parade and picnic the city has planned this year.

Right now, though, the air feels like velvet and my yard smells of magnolia and mimosa during the day. After dark the brugmansia adds its heavy scent to the mix. Brugmansia, or Angel Trumpet, is almost more aromatic than I like, but I think it’s clever to only smell that way at night, and I can’t help going out every night to check that it still does that, just as I check each day to find that the blooms have absolutely no smell.

Spring is said to be the time of beginnings and renewal. So it is, but things are ending, too, for another year.

Soon it will be too warm for the brugmansia to bloom — they’re tropical, but come from the region of the tropics where the Andes Mountains begin. They like cool nights, and ours are almost over. The magnolia will stop blooming too, but the crepe myrtle is almost ready to take over for it.

I know people call crepe myrtle the lilac of the south, and I think they’re lovely. But I think I’ve mentioned here before, that they’re sadly lacking in scent. I have craved lilacs for years now. I think I’ve also mentioned my efforts to grow them here (don’t try — just take the $20 you were going to send to that nursery that advertised lilacs that will grow in Zone 9, and bury it in your yard).

I’m having some successes this year, as well: I have successfully rooted a cutting from a lovely white oleander that grows down the block, and have hopes that a cutting from my own mulberry tree is going to take root. There’s nothing wrong with the mulberry I’ve got, except that it’s growing where I don’t want it — besides, two mulberries are better than one, right?

I have a couple of questions for readers out there with more horticultural expertise than I (I would add that that isn’t saying much, I being the one who spent maybe $100 trying to get lilacs to grow — but I’m afraid of insulting in advance anyone who might help me out).

Question 1: On my morning walks I admire my neighbors’ honeysuckle, both for its good looks and its heavenly scent. I notice that it is thriving and spreading, as honeysuckle does. I have some honeysuckle on a fence in the backyard. It’s quite old, having been there when we moved here 20-plus years ago, but it blooms every year. However, it doesn’t spread the way I remember honeysuckle spreading at home. It’s about the same size every year. It’s in a spot that’s now shaded by trees most of the day. I attempted to root some cuttings so I could move some of it to a sunnier spot on the fence, but had no luck. Does honeysuckle not grow from cuttings? Is there some secret to it?

Question 2: What has caused the proliferation of tiny snails? Are they everywhere or have I been targeted by some evil scheme? My back yard is covered with them. You can’t walk without crunching, which makes me a little ill. They climb up the plants and get on the windows, and cook to death when the sun gets too hot, which makes me sad. When I left my “mud shoes” on the back porch after the last flood, they were full of snails the next day. I think they’re kind of cute, personally—they’re definitely more pleasant than the slugs that targeted our yard one summer years ago. But enough is enough.

To recap: Honeysuckle good, need more; snails tiresome, need fewer. You guys help me out.

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