March is a good time to work on the landscape plan for your home for those who live in the east, especially as it involves the views from the windows. I have my desk right in front of an up stairs window where I can see the whole back half of the yard. As I write this I have already visualized two or three Hicks yews to go in the place where my fireplace wood is stacked. Normally I won’t have that much wood. And I feel the need of a little more evergreen in back of the bird bath on the one old stump to give it just a little better winter setting.

At this time of year one especially enjoys evergreen vines growing up the trunks of trees, whether they be English ivy with its many varieties or one of the many variations of the evergreen wintercreeper – Euonymus fortunei. They don’t harm the tree, but they do give a lot of enjoyment to us and quite a bit of winter shelter to an occasional bird.

Project Planning

Do you keep a list of garden jobs that need to be done? I couldn’t get along without one. The only trouble is the list gets longer and longer. I want to make a concrete bird bath right on top of the old oak stump with dark concrete to match the stump. It will be tricky making a form I of metal tacked to the bark to cast it, but the bird bath will be considerably larger than the present ceramic one that is there. And since the stone walk from the front sidewalk to the front door needs resetting and raising a little bit since the lawn has grown up I want to replace it with old brick. Then I can use the flat stones for a new low wall along the south path.

I have long envied my neighbor for her lovely old red ceramic chimney pot which she uses as a base for a sundial, and I am trying to find one. I don’t believe they make them anymore, but some day maybe I will Find one in a junk yard or some place where it is no longer wanted.

The old regal privet that hides the compost pile will be grubbed out and since it is in a protected landscaping spot, it will be replaced with a rather tender evergreen, willow-leaf cotoneaster. I have enough Japanese euonymus, which is a nice bright shrub, to put in a hedge back of my cold frames and stone walkway. Of course I will have to be willing to have them injured if we get a really tough winter, but the roots live and they always come up again.

There are some three or four hundred seedling roses in the little nursery bed back of the garage that I am keeping until I see them bloom in hopes that I may have some nice pinks and speckled pinks in the batch. In the cold frame there are some wild flowers including closed gentians, showy ladyslipper, and bird foot violets that I got in late November from a wild flower nursery. I will find places for them this spring.

There is also a hardy bamboo (potted) that will go along the back fence to be tried for hardiness. I hope it won’t love its place so well that it produces a bamboo jungle”but there’s not much need to worry about that! We still need about a hundred feet of brick walk, six or seven bricks wide, here and there around the yard to give all-weather paths. They must be wide enough to take the little garden cart since I use it a lot instead of the big wheelbarrow.