Corydalis… The next big thing

Apr2

How does such an awesome little spring blooming bulb (tuber if you want to get technical) fly under the radar for so long? Apparently a couple in-the-know gardeners have been growing these cool little spring bloomers for years, but I for one didn’t even know they existed until a few years ago. I believe I came across pictures via Ian Young’s bulb log (if you’ve never been, click here immediately to visit -it’s practically required reading for any bulb lovers out there) , and the impression was one which ate away at me until one fall I was finally able to get my dirty fingers on a few. Of course as my luck would have it these were promptly killed, but the following year a more determined try proved successful, and the next spring I was just as pleased as I thought I’d be when they bloomed.

One of the boldest reds, Corydalis “George Baker” blooms right alongside the blues of chiondoxa and Scilla siberica.

The Corydalis family is a large one with many highly collectible family members, but for me it’s the variations on Corydalis solida which excite me the most right now. This species ranges across Northern Europe into Asia and for the most part greyish mauves and blues dominate the color spectrum, but starting in the 1970’s and 80’s rich reds and purples began to find their way out of the woods and into the hands of collectors and growers. The Penza strain from Russia and the Prasil strain from Romania are the some of the best known groups for bold colors and many of the newest named varieties come from these collections.

A more common color of Corydalis solida, a smaller and slightly later flowering plant than the other Corydalis I grow.

As it is with many plants, once you get excited about one you get greedy and need more, so in addition to the “George Baker” and “Beth Evans” which were purchased from Brent and Becky’s bulbs, and the straight Corydalis solida from Van Engelen, I needed to add more. The blame for this shouldn’t lie entirely on my own shoulders though, since by now I had seen even more Corydalis glamour shots including the most enticing group shot which I found at Carolyn’s Shade Garden. Her tapestry of rich purple with pinks and reds would have to be imitated in my own garden and to that end I found Russell Stafford’s Odyssey bulbs.

The warm wine red of Corydalis ‘Rosula’, complemented by a nice underplanting of random weeds 😉

The new plantings from Odyssey were a mix of successes and failures and based on the excellent condition of the tubers, I’m going to guess the fault again lies with me. Even as recently as this spring one of the clumps failed to even show, and I suppose there’s something else going on which I don’t entirely understand… but ignorance is bliss, and I enjoy the remaining two cultivars more than ever now… even though the addition of a pure white or pink would have made the planting even more perfect!

A more common color but on a sturdier plant, Corydalis ‘Harkov’ scared me by nearly dying last spring after I optimistically dug it up for dividing. It wasn’t ready and it wasn’t pleased, and promptly dried up and went dormant.

I suppose I should try and make this a more useful post by mentioning something other than the many ways in which I’ve killed these plants. They’re actually fairly carefree in the right woodland conditions, and although I should suggest a fertile, moist shaded site, mine grow quite happily in sites I would consider downright dry, and in locations shaded only by the overhanging perennials and annuals of the front street border. I guess they don’t know any better.

Another thing I should mention is they bloom early and fade away quickly. Plant them in a spot where other goodies such as hostas and hellebores or rudbeckias and buddleia fill in for the summer. My best patch disappears under a carpet of aquilegia (columbine) and ‘Blue Cadet’ hosta two weeks after blooming, and you wouldn’t even know it was there in June, which is good, but you should definitely try to avoid forgetting they’re there and running a shovel through while digging.

Corydalis, hyacinths and hellebores filling in now that the snowdrops and eranthis have gone over. In another month columbine, delphinium, hostas and hellebore foliage will take over for the summer.

A final note is that for the first year or two in my garden I was convinced they couldn’t possibly be making seeds since they yellowed and died down so quickly after blooming. I’ve since found out I’m wrong. Seedlings are spreading quickly and this year I have a few of the first starting to put out their own blooms. I’m thrilled that they are as red as the parents, and even happier there’s some variety to them as well.

Some of the first Corydalis solida seedlings to make it to blooming size. One’s nearly as red as the mother clump of ‘George Baker’, the other’s a completely different dusky mauve.

So now the question is should I just enjoy what I have or should I keep trying to expand the flock? If I could only remember where I planted them (I think I may have finally spotted one or two this afternoon) I would be able to enjoy a few new ‘Purple Bird’ flowers this spring, but is that enough? It should be, but history shows little attention to common sense in this garden and I’m already well on my way to picking out just a few more indispensables. You really shouldn’t show too much restraint in spring, it goes completely against the spirit of the season and even when ordering bulbs for fall planting it’s still a celebration of the end of winter!

The Temple Nursery 2016

Mar26

I’m not exactly sure how many years it takes before something becomes a tradition but I’m going with two, and since this year marks my fourth springtime visit to the Temple Nursery’s open garden day I guess it is now a tradition, and tradition shouldn’t be tampered with. I say that because up until the morning of the visit I wasn’t entirely sure I would actually make the drive up to Ithaca NY and beyond since this season’s early warmth had me pretty sure there wouldn’t be much left to look at as far as the garden’s snowdrop (Galanthus) collection goes. To a certain extent that turned out to be true, but at the end I realized a day visiting a garden in the (almost) spring is never a bad idea, and even if the weather’s not perfect it’s always fun to get out once winter starts retreating.

Side view of Hitch Lyman’s upstate NY garden. The nursery’s namesake ‘temple’ is visible in the back.

If this visit has become tradition, imperfect weather has also become a tradition, and after weeks of above freezing, almost balmy weather, the bottom dropped out of the weather system two nights before. Light snow for Saturday and then a low of 17F (-8C) the next morning did in many of the remaining snowdrops and wilted many of the emerging perennials. We’re used to freezing our kazzoies off on these visits though, so by the time the temperature rose into the 40’s it felt downright balmy. No wind either and not a single snow squall during the visit… unheard of!

The Lyman garden is known for its snowdrop collection, and only a few remained in bloom after all the ups and downs of the weather. Here is a Galanthus labeled ‘ex. highdown’ which has held up remarkably well to the cold.

The majority of the snowdrops were past, which is somewhat surprising considering The Garden Conservancy had already moved the open date forward two weeks and the date was nearly a full month earlier than last year, but what can you do at such an unsettled time of the year? I just felt a little bad for others who had traveled much further to see what is normally an exciting collection of hundreds of different snowdrop varieties growing happily in the garden’s small woodland area.

Just a few late blooming winter aconite remained. This might be Eranthis hyemalis ‘Noel Ayres’ or something similar. Compared to the bright yellow blooms of the species, this might be an Eranthis only a collector could love.

I also felt bad for the plants. The majority of the snowdrops were flat on the ground from the previous night’s cold, and overall the garden did not show well for someone expecting swaths of snowdrops and early flowers. They’ll recover I’m sure, but frozen plants are never fun.

Early primroses wilting as the warm sun hits them. This would have been a much cheerier sight just a few days ago.

Still I found plenty to keep me entertained, and I enjoyed the company of the garden’s owner, Conservancy volunteers, and several other entertaining guests. Hanging out… is that too common a term for a Conservancy event?… outdoors with other like minded gardeners on a not-too-cold March afternoon is something I don’t get to enjoy too often in my neck of the woods, so I was quite pleased for making the drive up.

It looked like some kind of sea creature to me, but it’s a Galanthus labeled ‘Dr Dress’ which I believe is the source of this unusually curly leaved snowdrop.

Of course there were blooming snowdrops as well. I was pleased with some of the later blooming varieties such as the daintily named ‘Dumpy Green’

Galanthus ‘Dumpy Green’

and the very attractive late 19th century snowdrop, Galanthus ‘Virescens’.

The classic green snowdrop, Galanthus ‘Virescens’.

Luckily for me one of my favorites was still in bloom. It’s been divided since my last visit and is still doing well, Galanthus ‘RD Nutt’ is one that always catches my eye, even though it’s no more white or green or fancy than any other of Mr. Lyman’s many other snowdrops.

I’ve asked and then forgotten if ‘RD Nutt’ is the name or source of this snowdrop. It always seems such a neat and heavy bloomer, and appears to be holding up well to the weather.

So I’m glad my schedule cleared up enough to make the trip again this year, and it was a treat to finally see the gardens with a few traces of blue in the background sky. We will see what next year brings but I’m sure as usual we will make the best of it!

Hitch Lyman’s home, moved to the spot in the 90’s and restored back to it’s original grandeur.

One final note though. I was a little insulted by how well the hardy cyclamen were doing considering the sad state of my own plantings. My own Cyclamen coum were killed back to the roots and failed to put on much of a show this spring. I’m going to blame a lack of mulch and see if I can’t do something about that next year. We just didn’t have the protection of a snow cover last year, and it looks like these did.

Some Cyclamen coum looking quite happy in their upstate New York home. A nice woodland mulch and most likely a protective blanket of snow have them blooming happily with nearly perfect foliage.

Thanks again to the Conservancy and Mr. Lyman for another enjoyable visit, and in case you are interested the Temple Nursery sells snowdrops as well as growing them. To get on his mailing list (there is no online available) send three or four dollars to the following address: Temple Nursery (H Lyman) Box 591 Trumansburg, NY 14886 and you should receive a listing in January. Act fast, they sell out in just a few weeks 🙂

Have a great Easter!

Snowdrops part II

Mar25

By now I’m going to guess several of you know I have a “thing” for snowdrops. It’s a lonely thing since my nearest fellow snowdrop lover lives miles and miles away, but it’s a thing and like all things you just have to deal with it. With that said I will forgive anyone who glosses over this post since not everyone will ‘get’ this thing, and many will not even want to appear as encouraging this thing, but that’s fine. Once the daffodils open I’ll move on and we can again comfortably ignore my little secret until next year.

Luckily for you the season is practically over in my garden (so this will not drag on for the weeks which it normally does) and here’s only just the briefest summary of a few of my favorites from this year’s snowdrop season. We will begin with a new one, ‘Daphne’s Scissors’, which came via Carolyn’s Shade Gardens last spring.

Galanthus ‘Daphnes Scissors’, an early bloomer with me and early enough to open at the same time as the winter aconite (Eranthis Hyemalis).

‘Blonde Inge’ sometimes gives trouble as far as her blonde highlights go, but this year there’s a nice touch of yellow to the insides of her flowers. This is her third year in the garden and she seems to be settling in nicely.

Galanthus ‘Blonde Inge’, the covergirl for Naomi Slade’s great little book “The Plant Lover’s Guide to Snowdrops” which I had the pleasure of reading this winter.

I’m trying to stick to snowdrops which don’t all fall under the same old same old category… this is still a stretch since green-white-yellow is the slightly limiting range which we’re always working with, but to the obsessed even the plain old white and green can be something special 🙂

Galanthus ‘Straffan’, an oldie but goodie which has been gracing the gardens of snowdrop lovers since 1858. This is year three for my plant and I’m quite pleased to see its graceful upright blooms multiplying. Maybe someday I’ll be up to the hundreds you see in other gardens 🙂

Galanthus ‘MoretonMills’ was the first expensive snowdrop I splurged on. I won’t say how much I paid but it was a ridiculous amount for such a tiny little thing and each spring I hold my breath until it sprouts. Fortunately it’s one of my favorites and is also beginning to multiply.

Galanthus ‘Moreton Mills’, a poculiform snowdrop where the three inner petals are as long as the three outer petals. If this plant breaks the four inch barrier I’d call it a growth spurt.

As a variation on the green and white theme, here’s one which is more green and green and white 🙂

I love this one, it’s Galanthus ‘Kildare’ doing very well in its second year in the garden. The blooms are huge. (relatively speaking of course!)

Another of my very favorites is ‘Primrose Warburg’. It’s been doing very well here and is actually becoming what I could optimistically call a clump. The downside to collecting unusual little bulbs is that you must often start with just one and to be completely honest a single snowdrop, no matter how special, does not exactly put on a major show in the garden.

Galanthus ‘Primrose Warburg’. Even those who yawn at the sight of snowdrops will acknowledge the bright yellow differences on this one 🙂

I’ll leave you with my lovely little golden snowdrop patch, and repeat that the snowdrop season is essentially over here. It was a weird one, and for me it was a lame one with harsh late freezes damaging many of the blooms followed by a warm couple days which wilted the rest. Add a few days out of town for work and snowdrops which came up before my schedule allowed me to fully admire them…. well enough said. At least I was able to enjoy a few crocus.

All the crocus came up nicely in the meadow garden and even the rabbits couldn’t keep up with them all. Luckily mother nature and global warming stepped in and wiped them all out with back to back hailstorms. Oh El Nino, you’re really having your fun this year.

The crocus season felt like it lasted three days. They burst up and bloomed and then the weather did them in.

A few of those fat hybrid Dutch crocus growing by the front steps. To get really nice clumps it helps to dig them up and spread them around every three of four years. Forgetting where they are and accidently digging them up in June is my method of choice.

Fortunately there’s still plenty of spring left since it’s only just the end of March. A cold spell last week slowed everything right back down, but the first weeks of April look remarkably mild and I’m sure there will be plenty of things sprouting up and blooming and helping me ease my snowdrop hangover. Don’t get your hopes up too much though, I did visit another snowdrop garden last weekend and have one more white and green post yet to come.

If I don’t speak with you before Sunday, have a great Easter!

Snowdropping 2016

Mar22

*ok so I’m trying to get back onto the blogging ball. With a schedule finally cleared up I have a bunch of catching up to do here as well as on other blogs… so flashback to something I began writing about two weeks ago!*

Spring doesn’t normally roll around to this end of Pennsylvania until the end of March, but this year on the tail end of El Nino it looks as if winter has just thrown in the towel and let spring walk right in a few weeks early. “Sit down and stay a while” I say, and although I should speak glowingly about my own spring treasures in bloom right now, my first panicked thought was I might miss the snowdrop season down south. I promptly sent out a few emails, jumped in a car and met up with my friend Paula at a park near her home for our second annual Philly snowdrop adventure.

Snowdrops naturalized on the grounds of a former Philadelphia estate.

Last year our snowdrop adventure was a response to the miserably long winter, this year it was a desperate attempt to catch the season before it flashed by. We made the trip on March 8th and even though we were nearly a month earlier than last year many of the earlier bloomers were already past.

A nice yellow tipped spring snowflake (Leucojum vernum) blooming amidst the rubble.

In spite of the advanced season we did manage to catch plenty of snowdrops still in bloom, and it was fun wandering from patch to patch searching for those little “specials”. Maybe someday after a hundred years of abandonment and years of gentle woodland protection my own garden will produce something different but for now I’ll have to rely on these hidden treasures.

We saw plenty of patches of four petalled snowdrops, but also a wonderful range of larger and smaller, thinner, longer, taller…. all the tiny variations on white and green which may make some gardeners yawn, but which make me smile.

But there was only so much time we could spend sweating our way through the underbrush. We had bigger fish to fry this morning and for us it was a visit to John Lonsdale’s Edgewood Gardens. John grows and sells (but more just grows and grows) about a billion plants in his suburban landscape and the plantings range from high desert cactus to mountain to woodland to everything in between. I was lost on much of it but I’m going to try my best and show a few favorites even if the names are lacking. If you are more cat-like and on the verge of death due to some unsatisfied identity curiosity then I would absolutely suggest contacting John directly via his website. He will surely have an ID for you, as well as cultural conditions, related cultivars, the exact source of his plant…. and to top it all off he probably grew it himself from wild collected seed!

A beautiful species iris right alongside hardy cacti. Did I mention the cactus? There were beds planted full of them as well as agaves and yucca, all surviving the Pennsylvania snow and ice without any additional winter protection.

I need to just move on here. I love growing bulbs and there were more here than I’ve ever even considered so here are just the highlights of our visit. Keep in mind the calendar is still saying winter for a few more weeks and the real show is still at least two months off!

Winter aconite (Eranthis species) galore in the Lonsdale garden. We missed the peak for many of the Eranthis hyemalis types but these crosses with Eranthis cilicica (similar to the ‘Guinea Gold’ cross) were just opening…. don’t let the label throw you off, that’s for something else yet to come right in front of this patch of gold.

At nearly 80F (26C) and sunny even a few of the first primula were opening.

The winter may have been short, but even here a sudden drop to around 0F (-17C) did its damage to winter foliage and early sprouts. Still bright and beautiful though, and its location on what looked to be a dry shaded slope has me rethinking how tough primroses can be.

Hellebores were everywhere.

Just a plain old hellebore which caught my eye. a little winter damage but I love the speckling.

John said he was in the process of working through the hellebores, getting rid of many older and self seeded plants, and ‘upgrading’ some of the hybrids… and I wish him luck. There were hundreds, if not thousands, and it would take a more critical eye than mine to thin the herd.

One of the newer, cross-species hellebore cultivars. I forgot what it was, but maybe it’s ‘Anna’s Red’?

Plenty of hellebore species as well. All over the garden were bits and shoots coming up from seed collected throughout the hellebore world.

A cool green species hellebore. Green may not be the showiest flower color but they sure look great close up.

Hailing from China is Helleborus thibetanus. This plant was only just brought into cultivation in the 1990’s and if you can believe it John says this plant plant produced only one flower last year. What a difference a single year can make!

Trilliums were also everywhere. John kept naming species, naming ranges and ecotypes, naming seed sources, describing how many were yet to come…. it was all a little overwhelming. I think to return in May and see patches and patches of trilliums blooming across the hillside would be quite the sight.

One of the earliest trilliums already up. The foliage is just amazing and there were hundreds more sprouting or just waiting to burst out of the ground.

There were tons of early trout lilies (Erythronium) coming up as well. More cool foliage, exquisite flowers 🙂

Just a few of the earliest of the trout lilies coming up. I love the fine markings on these and the fancy purple pollen just as much as the silvery speckling on the leaves.

I’ve never seen blooming Hepatica (liverwort) in person but recognized the little jewels the minute I saw them. Maybe this will finally be the spring I venture out into the woods and find a few blooms of my own in the wild. I’ll be excited to find anything, but suspect they won’t hold a candle to some of the selections and hybrids which we saw springing up out of the leafmould.

What color on such a tiny bloom.

The detail on these flowers is amazing in all its intricate perfection.

It was also well into Adonis season. Several cultivars were spotted throughout the beds and each one seemed better than the last and we hit them perfectly with their flowers open wide in the warm winter sun. The saturated colors were almost too bright for an early March afternoon.

Double yellow Adonis Amurensis

I’ve heard that this native of NE Asia isn’t all that hard to grow it’s just a little slow to start and a little pricey to get a hold of. Spring sun and a sheltered woodland location for the summer seem to work well for it, just know that the ferny foliage dies back and the plant disappears once the weather warms for summer.

An orange Adonis cultivar with a nice bunch of hardy cyclamen leaves. Cyclamen were nearly everywhere, I began to not notice them unless I had to step over a particularly nice one seeded into the path 🙂

Dark ferny foliage, a fringed pale orange flower…. what’s not to like about this Adonis?

We spent way too much time at John’s but it wasn’t until we checked our watches that we realized how much we had actually imposed on his day! The poor guy had just finished up about ten days of on the road and had been through more states in a week than I hit in a year and here we were not even giving him enough time to enjoy his first day back. So we tried to get a move on it, thanked him again for his hospitality and time, and then rushed through the last hordes of snowdrops, cyclamen, and cacti between us and the exit… did I mention the cacti? I could easily fill a second visit with just the cacti (not that I’m really hinting).

Off to Paula’s!

Snowdrops (Galanthus nivalis mostly) scattered throughout the garden beds.

Paula has really put in some work into collecting and dividing and spreading snowdrops throughout her garden, and it’s really an inspiration to see the possibilities of what a few years hard work can produce. It makes me wonder when and if my own garden will ever start to show a similar effect of late winter interest. There were goodies everywhere and of course it was the snowdrops which I really honed in on.

Nice established clumps of Galanthus elwesii (the ‘giant snowdrop’) with it’s bigger blooms and grayer foliage.

Paula really has a great winter garden going with snowdrops galore and plenty of color from the earliest bloomers. It’s here where we wound down from our latest snowdrop adventure.

double snowdrops galanthus and hellebores

Double snowdrops (Galanthus ‘flore pleno’) and hellebores fill in a shaded slope.

There were hellebores, winter aconite, snowdrops, snowflakes, witch hazels, crocus, all kinds of flowers coming out to brave the last few weeks of winter.

A real nice raspberry veined hellebore. I really need to do a little ‘upgrading’ of my own!

Of course we got bogged down in examining every tiniest bloom and discussed every growing nuance. That’s what makes these garden visits so special.

Galanthus ‘Gloria’, a perfect flower with such long inners with just the smallest touch of white. I really like these ‘pocs’ where the inner petals nearly match the long white outers.

By this point my winter knees were starting to complain about all the kneeling and bending which I’d been putting them through all day. Maybe I should have started getting back into gardening shape a few weeks earlier, but in spite of the little aches and slower pace we carried on for a few more closeups.

You almost wouldn’t guess this were a snowdrop, but it’s Galanthus ‘doncasters double charmer’ in all its crazy, spiky, greenness.

And a final snowdrop….

Galanthus ‘big boy’, just coming up and already big even before it expands to its full size. The green tips are a nice touch and I think I like it!

And then the day was over. Time to hop in the car and head back North.

An orange witch hazel (Hamamelis ‘Jelena’ ) in full bloom as the day ends.

A special thanks to John Lonsdale for a great visit, and thanks of course to Paula for putting up with me for the whole day. It wouldn’t have been half as much fun without her, and when we were pulled over and asking a stranger if they’d mind us traipsing around in their side yard looking at the snowdrops I knew I had the right travel buddy. Until next year!

mumble mumble mulch

May3

Spring is here and I love it. It means work of course, and for me it’s hard to hit just the right balance of sitting around and actually doing something, but I try my best. One problem which always haunts me is that I’m the type who (again while sitting around) usually gets tons of unnecessary projects in his head, starts them, and then moves on before they’re done. Fortunately I’m not much bothered by this, but someone else here is, and sometimes decides to be helpful and remind me of the obvious…. but most of the time that person doesn’t notice unplanted chrysanthemum collections or realize it’s been years since the boxwood cuttings should have been planted out, so it all works out fine. How can it not when rain and rainbows and warm sunshine have brought out the daffodils?

Double rainbow over the ‘potager’. A beautiful sight if you can tune out the industrial park and white vinylrama next door 🙂

I’ve been relentlessly mulching. It started innocently enough with a load of mulched leaves hauled out of the woods, but then exploded from there. My neighbors were so generous last autumn with several heaps of nicely chopped leaves and grass clippings that I couldn’t stop lugging them back to the garden. The entire front bed got a nice layer and I would have kept going but of course ran through all the available bounty.

The front perennial bed all nestled in with a nice mulch of chopped leaves. The earthworms will munch them all down by the end of summer but for now they should go a long way in keeping the weed seedlings down. Did I mention it was all free?

As if that wasn’t enough, for some reason when finished I got it in my head to crack open the wallet and order a load of shredded bark mulch to finish off the yard. With most of the front already covered I felt finishing with a little purchased mulch might be something the budget could handle, so $290 later I was mulling over another new heap in the driveway. It seemed a steep price to me but judging from the other $1,000 plus order slips hanging next to mine I guess I’m being downright frugal. Also, mulch is a gardening expense the boss never criticizes, so now it just needs to be spread. More on that later, daffodils first!

Always a favorite, ‘Tahiti’ is an awesome daffodil. Sorry if you’re not a fan of doubles, but this one never fails, and the yellow petals seem to glow with an orange shade which I love.

I’m stuck on orange lately. The daffodil ‘Serola’ tops the list this year.

Narcissus ‘Serola’ with the first of the tulips opening behind. When I divide this bed (hopefully this June) I’ll need to put these out in the front garden to brighten things up even more!

My whining about space in the vegetable garden is entirely due to my weakness for spring bulbs and the abundance of open space left when vegetables finally give up the ghost in September. It’s so easy to just pop a few bulbs in here and there 🙂

It’s so much easier to line a few daffs out in the vegetable patch than it is to decide on a spot in the open garden! I’ll just plant a few pumpkins or squash over them in July to make it look respectable again. (fyi it’s bouncy house season so please ignore the deflated mess in the background)

One more orange. ‘Kedron’ has a color which stands out very well…. if you’re into colors that stand out very well 🙂

Narcissus ‘Kedron’. Notice the empty spaces nearby. Not everyone does well here and I just don’t have the patience to nurse unhappy plants along, so while ‘Kedron’ takes off the others just fade away…

Although the vegetables complain, bulbs in general seem to like my lazy (or complete lack) of an efficient watering ethic. Tulips in particular like the open, sunny, fertile soil, and unless I weed them out (which I could never do) most clump up and bloom. Even if I do pull a few of the smaller bulbs they just end up in the compost anyway so get spread throughout the garden a few months later when I take and spread the barely rotted goodness.

Yet another plant which needs to find a permanent home outside of the vegetable patch. This double hellebore seedling is taking up prime bean and pepper real estate.

Believe it or not I’m making progress with my bulb issues. When I was younger and carefree I used to plant out patches of whatever tulips I had on hand and then dig them up again in June just in time to clear the beds for tomato planting. It was insanely beautiful (to me at least) and I can’t rule out this happening again.

Tulips blooming in the vegetable garden (spring 2013). These would all be dug, dried, and stored while the warm season veggies occupied the same beds.

Maybe my bulbaholism isn’t getting any better. Maybe it’s just migrating. I planted these fritillaria imperialis bulbs out in the meadow late last fall (clearance bulbs) and can’t wait to see how they do. If I get one decent spring out of them I’ll be thrilled, but in my heart I want them to settle in… even if they do look slightly out of place in the short turf. Hopefully they enjoy the dry summertime baking this spot receives, and the grass should come up soon enough to hide the yellowing foliage.

My ‘meadow’ is in danger of becoming a bulb field. The fritillaria imperialis don’t look entirely happy yet, but I have my fingers crossed they’ll at least bloom and then maybe return next spring?

Out front I may have a few bulbs as well. Early spring is when I love the front beds the most.

Tulips and daffodils where snowdrops ruled just a few weeks ago. I should have taken this picture today since I mulched yesterday afternoon, but after all the work I was ready to just sit and relax!

I better wrap this post up. Now that mulch sits in the middle of the driveway I’ve got plenty to do even from the non-gardening viewpoint. And it’s not the fastest process since mulch needs to be worked in between sprouts and edges need to be tidied up…. and actually a bigger problem is that I’m coming up with all kinds of bed enlargements and side projects while I dilly-dally on finishing the main project. I promised to trim back the yews along the side of the house, and this golden arborvitae just happened to show up in the lawn between us and the neighbor. As long as I’m mulching, might as well create a nice big bed around it 😉

new perennial bed

Let me get out there then. Good luck on all your own spring projects, may they progress more quickly than my own!

Snow keeps plugging my lawnmower.

Apr24

I’m sure you can guess what happened last night. That which should not be named came down again and it’s been seen on and off all day. Thankfully it’s been confined to the higher elevations but I suspect tonight we will lose the magnolias to even stronger cold. Spring is on the calendar though, and after an explosion of growth last weekend this cooler weather has brought things back down to a more considerate rate.

Daffodil ‘Golden Echo’, white hyacinths, and a winter-burned variegated boxwood make for an unusually (for my garden) subtle combination.

Please excuse the photography this week, my camera is on vacation to sunny and warm Florida and I had to resort to the lens on my phone. To be honest they’re not much worse than what I normally take, it’s just I don’t have as many to chose from with the phone, so you get what you get. I wanted to post a few anyway, the corydalis are flowering and even if the pictures are blurry and overexposed I’ll still enjoy looking back on them when everything’s gray next winter 🙂

Corydalis ‘George Baker’ still looking good in spite of downpour, heat, cold, and frost. This clump is overdue for division and thanks to Facebook and trading I’m pleased to say I know exactly what to do with all the extras!

A newer to me corydalis is ‘Harkov’ which has a dusky purple color which I’m not terribly crazy about yet. It will be a nice contrast to the pinks and reds but I’m still holding out for a darker, clearer purple before I let out that sigh of ooh-la-lah. (is it just me who does these things?)

Corydalis solida ‘Harkov’. Nice enough, but maybe too subtle for me.

To its credit ‘Harkov’ does have decent sized bloom heads and seems to be growing fine, but the color reminds me of a previously poo-pooed bunch of what I bought as straight corydalis solida. The species has been a bit of a weak grower for me with small blooms and a color I first thought of as washed out, but this year I kind of like it. I kind of like all my corydalis this spring and maybe it would be a good idea to get many more. This patch could easily use some white blooming friends, no?

Corydalis solida in need of companion colors. Maybe a few of the native white blooming dicentra Canadensis (squirrel corn) would fit the bill.

The corydalis are such an easy grower, anywhere they can rest in peace during their summer dormancy seems to suit them just fine (although they are said to prefer a woodland setting). Another easy grower which I’ve really taken a liking to are these multiflowering ‘Anastacia’ hyacinths. They get transplanted and divided frequently as I accidentally dig up the bulbs, but other than that nothing much gets done. I suspect the summer dryness of this bed goes a long way in keeping them happy.

‘Anastacia’ is from a strain of Dutch hyacinth which naturally produce multiple, looser flowerheads than the big fat, single stalk Dutch hyacinths one typically sees. The color is great, but the dark stems seal the deal for me.

I like how the hyacinths combine with the blue fescue. Just recently I was considering evicting the fescue completely, but this week I’ve flip-flopped, and might just divide it all up and put an even wider border of it all along this bed!

Blue hyacinths with a pair of ready-to-divide fescue clumps. I see dozens of divisions here, enough to fill in a whole new edging scheme!

There’s plenty more going on in the garden, but between work, baseball games, dance and spring cleanup (and all those garden strolls) I don’t get on the computer as much as I’d like or snap as many garden pictures as I should. Posting and keeping up with the other blogs which I enjoy will have to wait, but I’m sure any gardener will understand. Muddy and tired are the sign of the season!

The early narcissus are starting. This old double (pre 1927) is narcissus ‘Feu de Joie’.

So I’ll keep plodding along. Hopefully the snow will leave for the season, the lawn will dry out enough to mow, and the gardener will have a good weekend. Scratch that. It’s April and I know I’ll have a good weekend. Hopefully you will as well!

Cleanliness is next to Godliness

Apr12

A few weeks ago I posted about the trouble with idle hands and how they were inching me over to the dark side. It sounded funny at the time but the string of bad luck and minor tragedy which followed reassured me that there will be no deals made on this end and I would in fact like to stay on the lighter side. So to sum it up surgery has been scheduled for some, blood tests every three months for others, stitches have been removed, and the family has a new bunny. Hopefully garden cleanup will now continue to bring us back into good graces. It’s about time for both 🙂

The front yard is definitely looking a little wild and wooly now that the snow has melted. Probably time to get rid of the sled.

Cleanup has been ongoing all week (in between April showers) and this morning the sunshine and leftover morning frost are making the front yard glisten with springtime promise.

front yard garden cleanup

The view from inside the front door was also in need of some sprucing up.

I sometimes think my entire neighborhood is an advertisement for plastic and vinyl.

Cleanup this spring is nearly all power tools. Everything gets cut down with the hedge trimmer into manageable bits and then the largest bits are raked onto the lawn for mowing up into the bag. The bag is then emptied onto the beds out back. The front yard then gets a nice topping off with shredded leaves from last fall’s cleanup. Not only do the shredded leaves cover up all the twigs and debris I was too lazy to remove, they also frame the first crocus nicely.

Mulched leaves on the beds and the lawn mowed at its lowest setting. Things look better already.

Work has an annoying way of getting in the way of spring cleanup, but whenever I have a chance it feels great to get out there again. The birds follow behind looking for worms and the kids rediscover all the messes they can make with the most simple of tools. Spring mud and mulchpiles are fun but I’m just happy enough to see plants finally growing again in the open air.

The pink cyclamen coum look much better this spring even after our insulting amount of cold and snow. Temperatures were actually lower than last winter but a good amount of leaves and flower buds made it through and at least I have something to set off the spring snowflake (leucojum vernum) flowers this year.

I’ve added an embarrassing amount of snowdrops since last year. These showed up in the mail one day as a baggie full of washed clean, sprouting bulbs. I planted them immediately and they are perfect this spring. In contrast the dry bulbs of the same type which looked perfect upon planting barely sprouted last spring and have now died off completely.

The double snowdrop (galanthus ‘flore pleno’) hopefully settling in nicely under the apple tree. FYI -the apple tree is that twig at the back of the photo 🙂

I will bore you with more snowdrops at a later date but for now other spring bulbs.

The first corydalis, this one’s “George Baker”, looking good and reminding me I should divide my other overcrowded clumps.

Ok one more snowdrop.

Galanthus ‘Wonston Double’. I have to keep reminding myself I don’t like doubles.

This little bulb who’s name I will never be able to spell without looking up (scilla mischtschenkoana) is one of those unassuming things which you never NEED but you should always have. This one’s been with me for a while going all the way back to a single stray bulb which must have been overlooked or abandoned by squirrels after all its brothers and sisters had been planted. Being the daring teen who I was and feeling a little dangerous, I pocketed the bulb and brought it home. Somehow it survived being unplanted all winter and within a few weeks even put out the first of many pale, icy blue flowers. It has never reseeded (likely because they’re all the clone descendants of one single bulb) but it’s multiplied and followed me from garden to garden over the decades. hmmmm. I should go back to that park some day and see how the original planting has made out.

Scilla mischtschenkoana.

The hellebores are starting as well. This one is right up against the porch foundation and lives the good life.

I bought this one as a white Ashwood seedling from Santa Rosa Gardens. I bought this one as a started plant, but deep down inside I covet seeds from the Ashwood line. They’re either crazy expensive or I just can’t find them here in the states.

A few of the other hellebores are also coming along. Drought last summer has really taken a bite out of this year’s show but the real killer was my transplanting several and then not really bothering to give them any aftercare. A sprinkler would have done wonders in August, but you can’t dwell on these things in April.

A nice double pink hellebore from Elizabethtown seed. I’m glad I had the chance to buy seed from them before they closed retail sales…. but I’m still missing all the cool seedlings coming along each spring.

Last spring’s late blasts of arctic weather didn’t please the hellebores at all but this year the more settled pattern has done them well. I finally get to see a nice clean bloom on my yellow.

This one, also from Elizabethtown seed, looks buttery enough for me to think ‘yummy!’ I’ve been wanting a yellow like this for years. Wish me luck it clumps up and continues to do well 🙂

The warmer temperatures and singing birds have me completely optimistic and I’m starting to rake back the winter mulch from around my late fall conifer splurge from Conifer Kingdom. They all look great and I’m hoping for healthy new growth in a few weeks. Just think… if my blue spruce (p. pungens ‘Walnut Glen’) doubles in size this year it may break the four inch mark!

A late planting of conifers still snuggled in under a thick winter mulch of shredded leaves. Time to start peeling it back.

So spring is finally here. The sun is shining this morning and I’m buying pansies today. The only snow left are snowdrops and since I paid a visit to the Temple nursery on Saturday you’re still going to have to sit through that, but fortunately the pictures aren’t all that great so you’ll be spared much of the repeating white and green. Enjoy!

Happy Easter! (almost)

Apr3

Another warm day and we jump ahead a week (and I’m sure we’ll take three steps back tommorow). Generally I prefer a long drawn out spring, but at this point I’ll take anything we can get, even if it means fast-forwarding through the season. Five days ago the bunny buffet officially opened with its first crocus bloom and now a second sunny day has brought out the rest of the snow crocus (mostly crocus chrysanthus types).

Van Egelen’s “lawn of dreams” crocus mix just starting to bloom. 200 snow crocus barely make a splash, but it’s enough to bring me out to sit in this part of the garden on a sunny day.

These are what remains of a fall 2012 planting <for more planting details click here> of about 200 snow crocus and maybe 150 tommies (crocus tommasinianus). The tommies are not yet up but are supposed to be better spreaders and less tasty to all things which love crocus as much as I do. Unfortunately Pennsylvania rabbits must be a less refined bunch since in my experience they mow down all crocus equally.

They sure would look nicer spotted about in a velvety green carpet of lawn, but this is the Pennsylvania tundra so you get what you get!

I don’t mow this patch of thin grass until late, so waiting for the crocus foliage to die off naturally is no problem, but if you are a mower keep in mind that the crocus need to grow for five or so weeks after blooming in order to build up next year’s blooms. Because the rabbits were so brutal on both bloom and foliage last year I didn’t think I’d see any flowers this year, but fortunately they came through even if a little weaker. Luckily the snowdrops are not at all tasty to bunnies.

The first snowdrops opening in the backyard. They’ve multiplied but not so much that I can’t still count every last bloom to compare to 2014’s show…. sad and desperate, I know.

I of course did not follow the rules of common sense last year and ended up adding more new and expensive snowdrops to my garden. They’re just as white and drop-shaped as my free snowdrops and all the other ones I have, but they’re much much better 🙂

Galanthus ‘lapwing’

Another new bulb added last fall is iris “Katherine Hodgkin”. Everyone loves Katherine for her subtle colors and intricate patterns…. except me. I have a lower class of taste and of course prefer the brightest colors, and this one doesn’t show up as well as I’d like. My mother of course will like it, and my wife too if she ever happens out into the garden before May, but I on the other hand say “meh.” Hopefully our children will not inherit their taste from me but will instead be the perfect blend of well rounded, refined, garden loving young adults. Optimism is one of the highlights of spring.

Iris “Katherine Hodgkin”. Makes me think of dirty snakes. I bet it’s virused too, I can see darker blue streaks in the blooms on the left and believe this is a sign….

A couple more warm days and all the early bulbs will be blooming. Crocus are a favorite and along the warm south side of the house the first of the plump and bright dutch hybrids are opening. I wish they lasted longer, but nothing lasts forever and when spring turns warm and sunny I always make a point of getting out to see them.

Dutch crocus just starting to bloom in the warmest parts of the garden. The bees will be happy, the bunnies too.

Yesterday was beautiful, today not so much. I want to get out there and clean up but don’t want the neighbors judging me for gardening in the cold, gray drizzle. Looking at the forecast, Easter Sunday is supposed to be the most promising day, but Godless and crazy is probably a worse label than just plain old crazy so maybe I’ll try and get a few things cut back and cleaned up before then. Fortunately I was out there last weekend for a start (the backyard snow melted briefly before the latest batch came down, so I rushed out to do some raking and trimming!)

The vegetable beds cleaned, straightened up, and ready to go. I even went over the lawn with the mower to give it a springtime “vacuum” of twigs and other debris.

It’s going to be a lazy cleanup this year, I can feel it already. Electric hedge trimmer to cut everything back, mower to go over it once to chop, mower bag emptied on the beds to cover up all the leaves and bits which I didn’t bother raking out. Done. I need more time to transplant and divide, and gift plants with shovelfuls of compost. Plus the mulched debris will keep down many of the self sowers, and I think last year’s “riot” of volunteers was a little messier than I want this year. Always have to keep things changing!

Best springtime and Easter wishes to all, enjoy the weekend!

When the going gets tough….

Mar27

The tough go elsewhere….. like south a hardiness zone or two!

Leaving the below freezing temperatures behind for a couple hours doesn’t make me a quitter, right? It was only a day, and when a friend and I worked out the details some cold, snowy, January night, the idea sounded like a great one. It was, and the adventure started off with a two hour drive south to her place.

An early hellebore (didn’t get the name) highlighting the early blooming snowdrops (flore pleno) and darker leaved hellebore sprouts.

My friend admits to being a galanthophile and since I might also be drifting in that direction I suppose it’s only fair I warn you ahead of time. There will be plenty of snowdrop pictures.

Snowdrops with a touch of green on the bloom are always a little different. Galanthus ‘green arrow’ looks nice enough, but I of course am still in my big-and-fat-is-better stage.

I tried to resist hinting too much that I wouldn’t mind one of nearly all of them!

Here is a snowdrop with a green blush, which is how I like my greens best. A good guess on the name would be galanthus ‘cowhouse green’.

What can I say about a fantastic clump of yellow?

Galanthus ‘Primrose Warburg”. Wow!

This was a long garden tour. We talked about the different varieties, where they were growing well, what seemed to be doing best, and what we still dreamed of getting our dirty little fingers on! It was a great visit, and it’s not that often I can mention snowdrops in every sentence and not get some kind of sideways glance or a poorly concealed eye roll.

We came to the conclusion that the common double snowdrop, galanthus ‘flore plena’, is among the best drops for making a nice display in your garden beds.

Of course one cannot live on galanthus alone, so the supporting trees and shrubs also called out for attention. Here’s one which caught my eye and caused a little bit of inner conflict at the same time. It’s the willow-leaf spicebush, and after a bright show of autumn color the leaves hang on throughout the winter. I thought I despised trees and shrubs which play the trick of holding on to their dead leaves (fancy term for this being marcesence), and would never have considered adding it as contrast and winter interest, but I found it oddly appealing and might have hinted towards a few seeds or a cutting or two someday. What do you think of it?

Not the best picture, but it shows lindera glauca’s smooth khaki winter foliage. According to my host it will all drop off (making a mess?) once the buds break. Hardiness is zones 5-7 according to what I found, so it should be ok in my frigid garden.

How can you resist a late winter carpet of blooms with crocus studding the lawn?

I loved this old cherry tree underplanted with a carpet of late winter bulbs and snow crocus naturalized in the lawn. A perfect view for right outside a window.

The garden tour (and lunch of course!) were only the start of our adventure. We jumped into the car next and set off to a nearby abandoned farmstead to check out the naturalized drops there. Clearly a different setting than my friend’s garden!

Your standard abandoned Pennsylvania farmhouse, all grown up and over with invasives like locust, bittersweet, and multiflora roses. General decay all over but I was impressed by how well the chimney brickwork was holding up.

Back in the day I’m sure this was a completely different place, and while investigating the property my friend found she actually knew one of the former occupants. It was a different place back then, one where children were being raised, lives were being led, and someone planted a garden. A garden which likely contained a small patch of snowdrops at the doorstep, a patch which during the years of abandonment has spread.

Filling in between the house and street, naturalized snowdrops between the weed trees and vinca. They look cold because they were, and even with warmer air temperatures the ground was still frozen solid.

Naturalized snowdrops spreading over the years look even better when paired with a few decades worth of winter aconite (eranthis hyemalis). Throw a few cyclamen in and you’d think you were at one of the great estates!

Galanthus and winter aconite

There was little variation amongst the plants (all galanthus nivalis), but how can you beat the pure white flowers and fresh healthy clumps. Special or not I admit I “liberated” a bunch found growing in a rubble pile next to the foundation. Maybe they’ll start their own sheet of white at my own house, and live on after these drops are likely erased in some future redevelopment plan.

Galanthus nivalis filling in and doing its thing before the oriental bittersweet leafs out again and refreshes its chokehold on this woodland.

Abandoned house=spooky, and no matter how blue the sky or how nice the sun was coming out it still wasn’t a place we wanted to open the picnic basket at, so we wrapped things up, jumped back in the car, and headed on to our next spot.

I sure didn’t want to enter the building even if the walls still look solid… but even if I was feeling brave, those dark, empty windows still give me the creeps.

We are such slow, lingering adventurers that by the time we made it to our final stop the light was already at that low springtime evening angle which gives everything a nice glow. Perfect for a real photographer, but even my point and shoot method gave me a few decent pictures.

Galanthus ‘Sam Arnott’. Seeing this makes me forget all the snow and ice back home.

When we first pulled into our friend’s driveway I just let out a hushed wow. I’ve never been anywhere that has clumps of special snowdrops lining the driveway, and to tell the truth I was so distracted I forgot to take pictures.

This clump of galanthus ‘diggory’ makes me understand why it’s such a coveted snowdrop. Those fat little pantaloons of white would look great in any garden and I’m excited to think I might have one lined up for this summer 🙂

We spent the rest of the day here of course, talking, exploring, and just plain old soaking up the time with snowdrop friends. Of course there were other plants too but I think all involved were just a little obsessed with one plant group right now 😉

Yellow adonis amurensis ‘fukujukai?’ with what else but a snowdrop.

This friend likes to bulk the clumps up before putting them out in the open garden. This was another wow moment looking at the drops which I only knew by name until today.

Along the back are a few ‘Trym’ types with their green outer patches and the lovely ‘Mrs Thompson’ is in the front. This is the kind of planting which makes me glad I wasn’t left alone with only my conscience to guide me.

There were plenty of things for the wishlist on this trip, but gardeners if anything are sometimes generous to a fault. I couldn’t believe the haul which filled my trunk on the way home, a mix of purchased plants which my friend had picked up for me on an earlier trip, plus some other goodies which she knew I wanted. I felt guilty as we walked from spot to spot with a shovel, but to look at them now just makes me even more excited about spring.

This tub of galanthus and eranthis could be its own garden.

Spring has got to be close now, and the fact that it rained today made me realize just how long it’s been since something non-frozen has fallen from the sky. I wasn’t thrilled to be out there, but it was perfect weather for planting new snowdrops from our trip, plus two new ones which I found in the mailbox today from Carolyn’s Shade Gardens! Bring it on I say 🙂

Like bees on cherry

Apr28

I have a love/hate relationship going on with the weeping cherry near the garage. For all of seven days in early spring(less if it’s warm) it puts on its floral show, and when it does I hate the dirty white color. The tree is filled with dead twigs which need removing, it frequently needs pruning, and its trunk harbors a colony of carpenter ants(just waiting to stage an assault on the house). The few redeeming qualities of the tree are what have kept it off the woodpile. The wintertime structure of the weeping branches appeals to me, and early bulbs seem to like growing in its dank, rooty, shade, but most of all for the few days when it’s in flower insects far and wide swarm to what must be the first nectar buffet open in the neighborhood.

The daffodils are coming on, but they just don’t pull in the pollinators like the cherry tree does.

Here’s my first attempt to get a video of the blossom orgy. If you risk clicking, it’s about a one minute phone video I took and although there are many reasons why I do not expect it to garner more than 15 views tops, I hope someone out there likes the buzzing (turn up the volume) and the fluttering.

I did try to get a few still shots of bees, but that realm of photography is still way beyond me. If bugs are your thing I highly recommend giving Donna a visit at Garden Walk, Garden Talk. Now there’s someone who knows her way around a macro lens.

sorta like suburbia

more than you ever wanted to know about my garden

Category Archives: early spring