You may have heard that a bit of chilly weather has rolled across North America. Our lowest low of the last few days has been just five degrees below average, but after months of non-winter it feels downright arctic. I even put the winter coat on for yesterday’s garden stroll!
The front border is beginning to come to life. ‘Tweety Bird’ is my earliest (and dare I say favorite?) daffodil and has never flinched due to cold or ice or snow.
Yesterday was a complete wash out with about two inches of rain filling my rain gauges (aka work buckets which litter the garden) and now it’s all locked in cold. For the last four nights I’ve even returned the pots of rosemary and dracaena back to the safety of the garage, and put off evicting the hardy cyclamen from the winter garden, but the pansies I planted out are on their own. Right now they’re face down in the frozen dirt, but by late afternoon I expect to see their cheery faces again. If not, I’m sure they’ll send up new blooms and that should ease any guilt I might have over not bothering to cover up and protect these little greenhouse divas at all.
Upward facing blooms on a hellebore are nice, but the cold rains of spring are a good reason to hang low and protect your pollen. These are also kissing the dirt right now, limp until the freezing weather passes.
Although we didn’t need another foot or two of rain it has been good for the transplants. Maybe even a little too good since I noticed a few leaning spruce and tilted hazels, but a quick stomp of the foot should rectify that and the water also helps since I didn’t water anything when they were moved since they’re all nice and dormant and the ground is wet enough. I had planned to spend the entire month moving snowdrops, but these woody plants were calling, and if I can make these moves quickly hopefully they can work out the transplant shock somewhat in the last few weeks before leafing out and pushing new growth. Maybe next week the snowdrops will have a chance… unless concrete calls and I finally work on the deck steps…
Snowdrops are fading and the next wave of spring bloomers are on their way.
Whatever happens, this is also the time of year when between jobs I question the number of other bulbs in need of moving and dividing. Actually I sometimes just question the number of bulbs here. Dividing and moving requires a spot to move things to and at the moment I’m at a loss. There’s already a new colchicum bed for divided colchicums, there’s a new tulip bed for moved tulips, and nearly every other somewhat-appropriate ground location has a few snowdrops growing there. Hmmmm.
The “vegetables only” policy for the potager did not age well. Four years later and there are a few garlic sprouts in the closest bed, but everything else is more flower than edible…
I of course am innocent in all this. One new allium and two new snowdrops came home with me from the Gala this spring. Last autumn only a “few” new snowdrops went in the ground, and seriously how big is one snowdrop? I didn’t buy a single daffodil or tulip. I am a victim.
I bet you also know that people who claim persecution and innocence most loudly are not and I think I’ll stop right there. If it gets warmer soon enough maybe I’ll spread a six inch clump of snowdrops into a four foot patch, or maybe take another dozen coleus cuttings in the winter garden, regardless of where things end up here I hope your Sunday goes well and you have an excellent week 😉
sorta like suburbia 
It is definitely a strange spring. Hot, cold, up, down, wet, dry. Your garden looks much more spring-like than mine. Love that big clump of snowdrops. I do have buckets over many things as we’ve had a week of overnight lows mostly in the 20°s. Ugh. Only 31° right now but mostly into the 50°s this week. I’ve got large Fritillaria that are up a good foot and a month early. Can’t decide if I’m happy or want to scream.
It has been difficult to get any gardening done with this dreadful weather – we have it just the same here in Ireland at present. Like you, I have made a few forays into the garden and have managed to get a few jobs done, a few beds have been tidied, a few snowdrops planted/divided etc but it is work in very uncomfortable conditions. Hopefully, dry and warmer days are ahead of us.
Paddy, I enjoy your garden book reviews on your site very much. I have so many new books to look for now, thanks to you!
Many thanks. I hope you get to enjoy reading the books now!
Not only is it in the low teens here, but we’ve been without power for over 24 hours at this point. NYSEG is now mum on expected restoration time, after initially predicting it to occur by 2 pm yesterday. I think they then received a few hundred more power outage reports, and our little community up on the hill has less priority than all those poor townies in Oneonta. So we soldier on. The generator is outside the garage chugging along to keep the frigs and chest freezer alive and (ahem) our internet box. Running low on gas for it, but if the icy roads thaw a bit, we’ll get to town for more gas and a couple of jugs of drinking water. The chickens are the worst off in this mess, as the heat under their water is off. I’m carrying water but it just keeps freezing. So far not too impressed with our spring. Oh and a few of us were planning to head to Albany this morning for their little garden show, but cancelled when we saw the roads (and our unwashed hair).
Maybe you need to put a plant stand out at the end of the driveway to sell the extras… then you can put the earnings into a slush fund for future purchases! Brilliant, eh? 😉
We got the snow/ice/rain storm yesterday… what a mess. All is crystalline this morning, slowly melting. My crocus are not so happy…
The problem here has been constant rain all winter and still it goes on. We get a few lovely days and then back to rain. It’s always a bit of an anti-climax when the snowdrops go over isn’t it? You wait so long for them. Still there are plenty of goodies to come, specially with all the daffodils and tulips that just fell into your garden.
The ups and downs have been upsetting my gardening plans too – the winter hat and gloves came out again yesterday with sleet and rain coming at us horizontally! The potager is actually perfect for flowers and as nursery beds. In fact, when I eventually create my new vegetable area (next year?) I will have to add a bed or two just for flowers! Hope you get some gardening weather again this week Frank. 😃
My garden would appreciate that 2″ of rain. The winds have be scouring this garden. All of our trees have been wind pruned so as only having small twigs coming down now thankfully. The weathers here have been so confusing to the plants. I actually covered the Blue on Blue Clematis due to heavy frost predicted the other night. It had so many buds on it I hated to see them turned to mush. I had it trussed up so well that my Dearly Beloved thought there was a ghost in the garden. ha… Have a great weekend while watching for the daily surprises in the garden popping up.