Relative Temperature

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I know, I know. People talk about relative humidity, but I am dealing with relative temperature. It was 42 F (5.5 C) when I went out to walk yesterday. I dressed as I would when it was the same temperature in January and February. The difference is that I shed my hat and windbreaker halfway through the walk. This morning I saw 42 again and wore one outer layer – a sweatshirt. Despite wind roaring along the ridge line, I was comfortable. Why is 42 not the same year round? Is my brain relatively warmer when it thinks it is Spring? Am I so eager for Spring to be real that I dress for it and expect the weather to follow?

I walked through the house and went straight out to do weeding. This time I attacked a small bed under the old oak tree, one that I had never touched since we moved here six years ago. Every year hostas and other shade-loving plants appeared magically. I noticed there were saplings, some three feet high, lording it over the hostas. The defining stones around the edges had begun to disappear under creeping weeds. The area looks somewhat better, but I must go back and remove lots of sticks. I am conjecturing that through the years, people who mowed the lawn threw offending sticks into the plants.

I should have focused my eyes on the ground and come straight back in the house. No, I stopped to admire the area I weeded yesterday and got sucked in. There was a sapling that would come out easily after yesterday’s rain. Next to it was a bunch of yarrow. The yarrow was not as willing to come out of the earth. Those plants had to be persuaded with the sharp jab of a weed digger and a firm tug with my hand. Maybe I should follow neighbor Joyce’s lead and let the yarrow have an area of its own. Do any of you have an opinion of yarrow?

A few weeds at the edge of the iris bed beckoned when I saw the first bloom of the year. After dispatching the weeds, I took a photo of the iris to send to SIL Beth and grandson Nathaniel. The two of them dug up the non-performing plants and put them back almost on top of the ground. This bloom and other buds are saying thank you nicely now. I love it when plants are properly appreciative.

Published by Anne Mehrling

I'm a retiree who loves to write about life in the mountains of North Carolina.

Published

56 thoughts on “Relative Temperature”

  1. I have no opinion about yarrow. It’s pretty but I’ve never grown it. I tend to live by the adage of “bloom where you are planted,” so if it likes where it is and you like it… then… 🤷‍♀️

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  2. Yes I have yarrow and it does grow into a large mound
    Weeds have been on my mind for a few days. The front bed, which once had really pretty knockout roses before the outside cats killed them, was over run. It just about got me but now the grass and weeds are all gone. Four Lantanas and a lot of pine straw later things do look much better. Need a lot more plants but not today. I am tired.

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  4. Anne
    I don’t know how yarrow looks- so I need to read up on that( when my assignments are consigned to their fate that is).
    I am glad you are gardening- the plants have a way of keeping one active and being friendly, even when we are not so good to them. I wish my husband would come out to do some weeding.
    We have good weather these days- meaning rains off and on and sometimes hailstones. The lockdown has been extended another two weeks and so has our trip.
    The iris looks beautiful.
    What sticks do you need to pick out? Why would people throw sticks on a bed, I wonder?
    Susie

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    1. Another two weeks!

      The plant bed was untidy. A person mowing wouldn’t want to run over sticks, because it might damage the mower. Sticks should have been put in the burn pile a few steps away, so it was easier to toss them in the plants rather than walk them where they belonged.

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  5. Irises don’t like to be deep. That’s the good news and the bad news. I transplanted some to my pond area last fall. The winter thaws heaved some of them but they are digging in their roots and growing like crazy. You are turning into quite the gardener!

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    1. I’m surprised I’m not turning in my grave. I’m trying to do short spurts of gardening, sometimes twice a day, to avoid staying too long and staggering back to the house. I’m a little afraid of falling when I can’t pick my feet up.

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  7. We have yarrow that grows wild in various areas around the farm. It does seem to spread but not that quickly. I will leave it or even encourage it because even though I haven’t harvested any it is edible and has medicinal properties.

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  9. I love those old flags(what my grandmother called them.) Sadly my husband doesn’t. Since he is the gardener I don’t argue. We do have a lot of little iris though. As for the weather I no longer have the slightest idea.

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  11. I used to have a clump of yarrow, but I think I killed it. Bill and I have spent the past 10 days (not every day) weeding our honeysuckle bank. The weeds had taken over the honeysuckle! Maybe 42 in April feels different from 42 in January because the sun’s rays are more direct?

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    1. I didn’t think anything could overtake honeysuckle!

      I think you’ve got a point about the sun’s rays being more direct. We usually walk before the sun comes up, but I’ve been slow getting out the last few days.

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  12. I kind of like yarrow and have not been able to grow it. I also heard it has medicinal properties. My daughter in law’s mom knows all about herbs and she dries all kinds of stuff. (She is the one who told me how good yarrow is). Your iris is beautiful. Ours will be a bit before we have any blooms.

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    1. I must look up useful properties of yarrow. There is still a bit of it left, so I might set aside an area for it.

      There are more buds on the iris plants, so this might be the best year yet for them. I hope you have a good show with yours.

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  13. Yarrow is used to stop bleeding, it has other medicinal properties, but that’s the one I remember best. Your iris is glorious. I divided and replanted mine last year, along with a few new ones from friends, so I’m hoping for a good show later this year.

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  14. When my father took care of the yard, there were purple Irises all up and down one side … I was afraid to reach underneath of them when doing Spring yard clean-up work … since I’m no fan of bugs, nor mice, I had two kid-sized rakes to lift and reach underneath the floppy leaves. A neighbor complimented me on the irises and I lamented my fears of reaching underneath – he and I exchanged Black-Eyed Susans and Irises and all was hunky dory (until the killer Polar Vortex of 2014) … then I had nothing.

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    1. That’s too bad that you lost all your iris plants. Ours are in an open bed in the garden, and I can see the ground around each plant. After they bloom, I’ll pull out the weeds that are scheming to take over at this moment.

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      1. I always had lots of weeds and a neighbor one time had lots of thistle feeders for the finches – every day they’d load all the feeders and throw the spent seeds over in my garden. You cannot imagine how large the thistles were and they have runner roots – no matter what you do, you cannot pull them out straight.

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          1. I asked nicely for them to put their basset hound out in the morning and wait for it to do its business and take it in. The hound dog was put outside about 3:30 a.m. every day … they had a metal shed under my bedroom window. The shed door was kept open for Sadie the basset hound to go into while she was outside. All year around, even in the Summer. Every morning she walked into the shed and promptly howled. The couple (very strange and she was about 15 years older than him) both worked in factories and they left the house at about 4:15 daily so they could go out for breakfast together before they drove to their respective workplaces. So, they put the dog out while getting ready for work. I nicely said “the dog goes in the empty shed, bays at the moon or whatever from inside the shed, it echoes under my bedroom window and wakes me up. Their answer was “too bad, so sad” … they left her out a full half hour and she barked the entire time. They retaliated by pouring the spent seed in my side of my yard every day. Multiple feeders. I have no words for my neighbors. I was glad when they finally left. They once told me (prior to the Sadie baying issue) that they had been together for X number of years and neither of them had ever cooked a meal to date. Now I don’t know how to cook much fancy and don’t take the time to do so, so eat canned soups mostly – when I get time, when retired, I will fix things … I just don’t take the time right now. Before I started walking in September 2011, I used to spend all day Saturday cooking/freezing meals for the upcoming week. It was not fun. But anyway, they ate out three times a day 365 days a year.

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              1. I know, very vindictive and my mom used to call them dimwits to be honest. It was their first home and when they decided to get a big shed in their back yard since that house is very small (no basement or driveway or garage – it was a triple lot and the guy on the corner had this house built on his property and then used it as a rental home for years). So he died and the new owner did not want a rental property so sold it. So Carol and Ken decided to get a shed in the middle of the yard – they ordered it from Lowes. The contractors came and poured the cement where the shed would stand on. They didn’t come build the shed right away and my mom would be in the kitchen making dinner and see the two of them sitting side by side on the cement holding hands every night when they came home from work. Like it was a magical place to be perhaps?

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  15. Yarrow is a native here and grows everywhere. I generally mow around patches of it, letting it go to seed. It’s quite prolific. But then I don’t have it in flower beds – because I think it would become a nuisance there.

    We have hundreds of iris here. Forrest’s grandmother collected them from all over the US. Many are from the early 1900’s. Forrest’s mother let the beds go for more than 50 years so we’re left with a mess. There will be a blog post about that soon. I’m glad you’re keeping after those weeds!!

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    1. Yarrow introduced itself to me in my garden. Someone told me what it was, and I’ve been pulling it as a weed ever since. It looks a little like Queen Anne’s lace. I wish it were a bit less territorial.

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  19. You’re ahead of me. I have several flower beds in need of weeding. The replanted iris is lovely. I’m thinking that I should dig up some of my daffodils and tulips, and divide them: but I always worry that I’ll somehow damage them in the process.

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  20. Upon seeing the title I thought it was going to be about a person (relative) getting “Hot Under the Collar.”

    All is well on the Eastern Shore with the two Old Farts here. Be safe, our friends.

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    1. I’m glad all is well with you. Good to know!

      The only relative whose temperature is being taken is grandson David. Burger King shoots him in the head every day with a thermometer gun.

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