Snowdropping ’22

Mar12

It snowed Wednesday. It’s snowing today. Time to revisit last weekend when winter thought it would be funny to go North for a day and see what happens. Now don’t go thinking that spring exploded around this end of Pennsylvania in just one day. For that to happen it’s going to take a string of warmer days and we’re no there yet (maybe next week?), for this glimpse of spring we needed to crack open the kid’s college fund, fill the tank with gas, and head down South to the outskirts of Philly. Spring is revving up down there and it was the perfect time for Paula and I to celebrate our annual Snowdropping Day!

Snowdrops and winter aconite (Galanthus and Eranthis hyemalis) around the Scott Arboretum

It was a warm forecast with just a trace of rain in the morning, so of course it was pouring when we arrived at our first stop. Rumor had it that Swarthmore College’s Scott Arboretum is rich with early spring bloomers and plenty of Witch Hazel (Hamamelis), and that of course turned out to be true. It also turned out that I was able to cross off a bucket list plant sighting by seeing Leucojum vernum ‘Gertrude Wister’ growing lustily in what is rumored to be its garden of origin, the Wister Garden of the Scott Arb. This double Leucojum (actually a fused flower, not double) still needs to grow in my garden, but for now it is doing very well for itself closer to home.

A fantastic clump of Leucojum ‘Gertrude Wister’ at the Scott Arboretum.

Gertrude Wister by the way is a name it wouldn’t hurt knowing more about. She was an accomplished horticulturalist and author in both the Philly area and nationally and instrumental in promoting plants and horticulture in the mid 1900’s. You can read more >here<.

Winter garden standards surrounding the arboretum headquarters.

So with Leucojum ‘Gertrude Wister’ checked off the list we continued to explore the grounds while enjoying the soft and then hearty drizzle. It seems only right that our snowdrop day would bring on precipitation.

Snowdrops (Galanthus nivalis) filling in amongst the trunks of a Metasequoia allee. Very nice if you ask me.

Actually the rain wasn’t too bad. I had a hat after all, so that at least kept my hair as stylish as usual.

Snowdrops, hellebores, and Rohdea japonica make for a nice groundcover under the dawn redwoods.

The rest of the visit was a ‘but wait, there’s more’ tour as we wandered from one witch hazel to the next. They were perfect and the rain only made their color shine more warmly, even when it stopped for a minute here and there.

hamamelis angelly strawberries and cream westerstede

From left to right, Hamamelis ‘Angelly’, ‘Westerstede’, and ‘Strawberries and Cream’

From pictures and descriptions I did not think ‘Strawberries and Cream’ would be a color I’d enjoy, but with a dark background and complimented by the yellows, it drew me in.

Growers of the spring blooming, Asian, witch hazels are probably aware that one of the more common problems is their tendency to hold onto last year’s dried and browned foliage. Some people claim to not mind but I prefer the leafless look, and have been neurotic about searching out hints as to which ones tend to hold leaves and what cultural conditions encourage leaf drop. I don’t know if I have any answers but we did see a few cultivars which held firm to last year’s leaves.

Actually I didn’t mind the bright orange of Hamamelis ‘Doerak’ against the rich brown of the wet leaves, but dry it out and I’m not sure I’d feel the same. Also there was another reddish cultivar who’s flowers were lost amongst the leaves, so I’m always going to place my vote for leaves-which-drop cultivars, and pass on this one.

Witch hazels are oddly rare in my neck of the woods, I suspect because they bloom prior to ‘go out to the nursery and buy all the plants for my yard’ day and people just don’t know about them, but slowly I’m finding plants and making a witch hazel show happen here. I’ve got reddish, orange, yellow, and need more of all but in the past I’ve been thumbing my nose at the ‘purple’ forms. Stupid me to think they wouldn’t show up in the brown and gritty winter landscape, I saw some awesome examples and of course now I have to do even more searching (Broken Arrow, Forest Farm, and Rare Finds Nursery will lead off the search).

Hamamelis ‘Tsukubana-kurenai’. I’m going out on a limb and suggesting this is a Japanese cultivar, and I believe I need this one.

A purple and another orange are just what I need. The oranges are my favorites, and ‘Chris’ has just enough of an orange tint to thrill me. I suspect it is named after the UK authority, collector and grower of witch hazels, Chris Lane, but I’m only guessing. Like many things today I feel like I can just guess at things and once they’re in writing on the internet that’s valid enough, but I’m digressing now… To sum it up here’s a >more qualified writeup on hamamelis< which you may want to look at. One mislabeled photo does not disqualify all the other excellent information the article contains.

Hamamelis ‘Chris’. Heavy flowering, large flowers, bold color. I loved it.

Hmmm. It seems like this might be a long post since I’m only about an hour or two into our day, but whatever. We’re up to about four inches of new snow here today so it’s off to our second Swarthmore PA stop, Hedgleigh Spring, the gardens of author/horticulturalist Charles Cresson.

I noticed that this is a neighborhood of above average gardeners, but Charles’ front garden states it loudly with a sweep of naturalizing crocus tommasinianus and patches of self-sown snowdrops.

On our last visit to see the fall camellias, Charles made the casual comment that we should see all the spring bulbs filling the meadow along the stream. Absolutely. We set the date but I’m not sure if Charles really expected us to go through with it based on the look he gave us when we showed up. I can’t believe it was the steady rain or our mostly soaked appearance because at least Paula had enough sense to bring an umbrella, I think it was explained later when Charles mentioned two phones suddenly began ringing the minute we pressed the doorbell. All was well though and off we went!

Some of the hellebores scattered throughout the grounds. My favorites are always the yellows.

Charles donates a plethora of special seeds to (among others)the Mid Atlantic Hardy Plant Society seed exchange, and I always have to smile as I see plants here which I have seedlings of in my own garden.

This ‘seafoam’ colored hellebore is one I have a few seedlings of. It has a greenish color with the slightest blue cast and I hope some of mine pick up a similar shade.

Several camellia seedlings also have roots here. Flowering was just starting but it still amazes me to see how vigorous these shrubs grow in this northern edge of their range.

The recent cold had only done a slight bit of damage, but the main show of camellias looked extremely promising.

There were quite a few other ‘wows’. The winter blooming Iris unguicularis was one of them. Perfectly formed flowers of rich colors were quite a surprise out in the open garden.

These Iris unguicularis had been enjoying the shelter of a clear plastic tote over the winter and I shall have to revive my own bucketing efforts because the results are absolutely worth it.

There were many Adonis cultivars as well. Some were just sprouting, some were being troublesome, and some were just excellent. In case you’re not in the know, Adonis amurensis is one of the earliest woodland-edge perennials to push up flowers in shades of yellow to red. Trouble free in a spot it likes, it’s not always easy to find a spot it likes, and at prices which rival snowdrops, the heartbreak of a lost plant is only matched by the sting your wallet feels.

Adonis in full bloom and quite happy. Single yellow is affordable, anything which runs to double or deeper shades of orange will require mortgage refinancing.

But enough on silly expensive perennials. We came to see little bulbs, and they were everywhere. Patches of named forms, drifts of the most common types, and seedlings galore with all kinds of excellent markings to thrill a galanthophile’s heart.

Small early bulbs were throughout the gardens. This is how I love them most, scattered and naturalized into comfortable patches.

Some of the patches were decades old and showed up all over, with the newest and rarest limited to just a few beds. Nearly each bunch had a story to go with it and to hear Charles talk of the forms and where they came from was a who’s who of the local gardening community.

Galanthus ‘White Dream’ was the most special non-special drop I saw. Amazing. Plain and white and perfect.

But what we really came to see was the meadow which lies behind the garden fence. When Paula got her first glimpse she grabbed my shoulder with that crazy look in her eyes which I of course never show and I was afraid she was about to jump the creek to get there.

The creek and meadow outside the garden proper. Mostly native perennials and bulbs. Lots of bulbs, from the earliest days of spring to the last days of fall.

Charles told us about the hours spent on knees digging and dividing and replanting clump after clump to spread snowdrops far and wide. Bulbs from elsewhere were added and over the last forty years seedlings have matured and clumped up and added their own genetics.

Most of the galanthus are G. nivalis, G. elwesii, and hybrids between the two. As usual crocus were everywhere.

We spent quite some time back there, first admiring the overall effect and then finally crouching down to examine anything and everything which looked specialer.

Charles and Paula inspecting the masses of daffodil sprouts and snowdrop blooms.

We found a bunch of cool things. I suggested that we take the three best forms and name them Charles, Paula, and Frank and start spreading them around in honor of the day, but of course they thought I was joking. Hah hah. Of course I was…

Prunus mume, the Japanese Apricot blooming away back in the main garden

We finished the tour and then continued to overstay our welcome. It had stopped raining and after I said how much I loved the Prunus mume and Charles said it self seeds all the time, we were all rooting around through the mulch looking for seedlings. Our visit had really degenerated into what it always does, the schedule goes out the window and we end up dirty.

Eventually it was off to the next garden. Matthew and Jamie Bricker were completely polite about us showing up at 5pm on a Sunday to drag them through the garden. They’re about three years into a new garden and it’s astounding how much they’ve already accomplished in a garden which had to be wrestled back from overgrown neglect…. Plus three kids and plenty of home improvement projects… I was suddenly very insecure about my own questionable progress 🙂

Just a small slice of the Bricker garden. Snowdrops were already spreading into decent clumps all over the garden, all nicely mulched with a plethora of sweet gum balls from the mature sweet gum trees (Liquidambar)

This is where the pictures end. We ran out of light before we ran through our hosts’ patience but it was great seeing how far this garden had already grown and the shape it was taking. We will hopefully be back. The Brickers are putting together an outstanding snowdrop collection and for local gardeners and Gala attendees they’re already a great source for potted extras. Once he gets more settled into the new spot I suspect he won’t mind being listed as a source, but for now… well it never hurts to ask 😉 I’m sure you’ll be able to find him on Facebook.

Snowdrops (‘Brenda Troyle’ actually) in the dark. It was still far too warm (and dry now) to call it a night.

I don’t know if Paula thought I was joking when I said we were still going to get through her garden by flashlight, but we did. It was warm, the drops were open and glowing, and the wind had settled down completely. For the first few minutes the rustling in the garden was a bit eerie but then we realized it was all the nightcrawlers brought up by the rain and active in the warmth and it was slightly less creepy. Even in the dark by flashlight with giant earthworms stalking us it was a perfect end to the day. Her garden looks great as all our gardens did that day, and as usual our snowdropping day was an excellent start to the season. Now if it would just stop snowing…

Thanks to our hosts, enjoy the season, and all the best!

Bulbs Can’t Freeze

Jan21

Freezing seem like as good enough topic as anything because that’s all we seem to have in the forecast. This is like the third week of real winter temperatures and after a bunch of warm years it seems so…. endless. Realistically three or four months of winter wouldn’t be anything surprising in this zone, so with two more months to go there is no reason to complain. It’s just the warmer years of late had me kind of enjoying witch hazel in January and snowdrops throughout. Toughen up I say! Truthfully I should be grateful for the nice solid cold, and the way it freezes up the soil and tells the bulbs to hold on, don’t be fooled, February and March will be early enough to start your growing plans.

Colchicum x byzantinum bulbs are big, and my soil is shallow, and often they just push themselves up and practically sit on top of the soil. Obviously in this position and with temperatures down to 0F (-18C) the bulb and new growth will freeze

Some of the top spring disasters (off a quite lengthy list) have been the result of warm winters which bring things up way before their time. Hellebores in particular must be an unusually optimistic plant which falls for this fake spring followed by a hard freeze every time, but snowdrops can be fooled as well. Often I’m surprised by how well tender growth can survive brutal freezes but it’s not always a happy ending. Right now a better gardener would be covering some of these goodies to keep the worst of the weather off of them.

We will see how well ‘Godfrey Owen’ tolerates the rest of winter after having already come nearly into bloom. Tonight will be cold, next week looks colder.

I guess that brings me around to the title of this post. I often see claims that hardy bulbs need to be protected from freezing, especially those in pots. I disagree. I used to pot up bulbs and throw them into an unheated shed where they would freeze solid for months without ill effect. I’ve dropped bulbs in the fall and had them root into the surface, survive winter exposed and also do just fine. There’s more to it of course but without exposing my own ignorance I’ll just point out a few ‘excepts’ which I’ve come across. Bulbs need to begin rooting before they freeze. Potted bulbs should be on the dry side before freezing. Exposed pots which freeze and thaw repeatedly will suffer. -and the one which I can’t figure out is that potted bulbs will rot when snow melts and then re-freezes on the surface of a pot of bulbs, especially later in the year. My balcony gardening year was always off to a tragic start when a big pot full of tulip and crocus sprouts would all just stop growing after a cold spell hit with snow or rain freezing on top of the pot. Weeks later I would finally give up and pull the still green and solid sprouts out, leaving a rotted bulb behind. 😦

Well that ended on a sad note. If anyone has some thoughts on this let me know. I find the easiest way around this is to just cover planted pots with autumn leaves and then uncover them as soon as temperatures warm, but you know how greedy I am with my autumn leaves! Maybe a board on top to keep the snow and rain off would be good enough, I just have to remember to try that (again) and make a note of how it works out.

In the meantime stay warm and consider that (here at least) the daylength is getting longer by about two minutes each day and we’ve added about 30 minutes since the shortest day of the year. I’m sure we’ll be in flip flops before you know it 😉

A May Lull

May18

A cool and rainy week with a busy schedule have kept me out of the garden for a few days. By that I mean there were enough weather and work excuses to avoid any real work, since even a rainy day does not cancel the daily garden tour. In other gardens the lilacs overhang azaleas, with dogwoods and redbuds shading the lawn, and banks of rhododendrons exploding in color… but I’ve only a few dogwoods and little of the others, so here the spring crescendo of tulips is followed by a slight lull of green.

The blue camassia are a flash in the pan here and only seem to flower for a week or so. It’s a nice show, but the blue columbine (Aquilegia vulgaris) is just as nice and lasts longer so I may (again) try and dig all the camassia to get rid of them. This time I’ll try and get all the bulbs…

Right now there may be a lull in the flowering, but after several months of white and brown, green is still an excellent color, and with its various shades and shapes, and the surprise of variegation and chartreuse or purple tints, even a green lull makes for a nice show and it should really be enough.

Blue columbine (Aquilegia vulgaris) was originally found in the woods behind the house, and rescued when the bulldozers came. It’s not native and fancier colors and forms exist, but I like it well enough.

Most people can stick with well enough, but I admit to a short attention span and fickleness so of course I want other things to follow up as the tulips fade and the bearded iris are yet to come. The columbine is good, and usually moneyplant (Lunaria annua) fills in with a nice purple, but I think I need more alliums.

Tulips and daffs have all been deadheaded and are disappearing under the next wave of growth but just the columbine and a few moneyplants (it’s a down year for this biennial) are in bloom. The blue is nice, but note the bold little ‘Candy Corn’ spirea in front. I can’t believe I planted it, usually spirea disgust me, but this one is so offensively bright there was no resisting.

Back in the day the budget was much tighter, and a few flowering onions always seemed to be just too much when a big bag of tulips could be had for the same price. Today it’s a different story. A couple new alliums are just pennies once you’ve paid off the monthly gymnastics bill and bought a couple pricey snowdrops.

Allium ‘Gladiator’ was my first big allium. I was hoping for bigger, but tall is good too! Over the last 15 years one bulb has become many.

So I will see what happens. The problem is settling on just two or three rather than a dozen, and I of course will be looking for suggestions from my friends. I already have a few leads 😉

‘Gladiator’ is also doing well in the potager. Phlox and other perennials are coming up just in time to (mostly)cover the allium’s yellowing leaves.

Yeah, the yellowing leaves. Just as the flowers open and draw a little attention, the foliage starts dying back to compete with the show. Trimming them back or hiding them in a border are two options for better gardeners.

The green centers are cool.

The yellowing allium foliage can be a deal breaker for some, but here it barely registers. I run a messy garden and fortunately some delusion of diamond in the rough or some bizarrely inflated ego syndrome allows me to still share photos online. I should be embarrassed most of the time, but luckily it’s a rare day that I see some perfect garden photo and suddenly question my entire gardening hobby (as well as the public settings on this blog).

The mountain of snowball bush (Viburnum opulus ‘Roseum’) is probably the only perfect thing about the potager right now. It should be weeded. And planted. And tended. One of these days…

Ah, whatever. Let’s finish with a disclaimer on the potager. The raised beds are excellent, the sand paths are perfect, the whole idea of the potager is much better than the usual mess, but it’s still just a mess. “It’s not you, it’s me” I tell the garden and I suspect the garden understands. My weaknesses is a love of interesting, and it’s just too interesting to see if the resprouting cabbage stumps from last year will form heads or if the missed potatoes from last year will amount to anything. Good thing no one expects this garden to feed a family.

A few parsley seedlings went into this bed, but I’m still working myself up to weeding out all the rest. Besides obvious weeds there’s a nice clump of lettuce, many tomato seedlings… random hellebores…

So what did I do today? Clear a bed and plant beans? No, of course not. I was working in the front border dividing tulip clumps. Just for the record, it’s too early to divide tulips. The foliage should be yellowing and it’s not but whatever. Dig up a clump, shake and pick out the smaller bulbs, and replant. No careful soil improvement, no watering in and I guess we will see what comes of it. Smarter gardeners would have pulled them all and tossed them after flowering, it’s just a few dollars to replace them, but I don’t think it will surprise anyone if I admit my gardening is more of an ADD drifting through ideas rather than a focused plan with a to-do list. Reinventing the wheel has always been a passion of mine.

Have a great week, and I hope it includes plenty of plant-time 🙂

Out of the Blue

May6

Seriously. If anyone has ever considered abducting me, all it would take is a white van and the promise of a plant inside. What!? You have a variegated clematis in there? Move over, let me see…

Within days of starting a conversation about bulbs with a new online friend, I was convinced Crinum lilies were missing from my life and I needed a few. A week later a (quite heavy) box from Jenks Farmer shows up on my porch and I’m tearing up the garden making room for a bulb or three.

The Crinum bulbs which showed up were huge. I was so excited I made sure every vaguely disinterested family member had an opportunity to admire them and hear a little about them. They seemed very grateful.

It’s not easy just squeezing a cantaloupe sized bulb which needs several square foot of space, into a fairly full perennial border, but I no longer even pretend to worry about it.

Realistically, four square feet of space would be a good start for planting a small crinum. Obviously this bed has quite a few four foot gaps which need filling 😉

I worry about stupid things instead. There were a few grassy threads of something which looked like allium seedlings in the spot where the one crinum should have gone. I’d really like them to be allium seedlings, but they’re too small to risk moving so of course I planted the $40 crinum in a second best spot crammed between a hellebore and penstemon in a spot which was unavailable until I moved the 90 pound “landscape” stone out of the way. I thought this was the best option rather than risk anything happening to the six or seven tiny weeds which maybe have a 15% chance of become amazing alliums in another half decade or so…

Crinum powellii album nestled into its new home. It might be an expensive annual this far North, but the bulb is huge and if all goes well maybe a single flower stalk will grace the garden before winter smashes all my dreams of global warming granted hardiness.

Let me just mention the alliums quickly. They’re three bulbs of Allium karataviense ‘red and pink hybrids’, and even at 50% off during a late November clearance sale, they were still kind of costly. Not snowdrop-costly but still kind of pricey when you consider they’re basically just onions with an ego. Of course they’re too self-important to bother splitting and multiplying, but maybe those seedlings are a start.

I think their broad, water-repelling foliage is very cool in itself, but the flowers aren’t too shabby either. I suspect these are hybrids based on Allium karataviense ssp henrikii, but that’s only if you really want to make your onions sound fancy.

I’m going to apologize now for going on and on about tulips again. A short post mentioning some new crinum bulbs was the plan, but then I got tulips on my brain again, and well…

The hot colored tulips mark the last stage of the front border’s spring flush. It will face a short lull now as (I hope) the summer bloomers come along, but for now it’s awesome. Also please note it’s been an excellent dogwood year 🙂

In case you haven’t noticed, my garden follows manias, and I’m sensing another tulip mania coming on. Bulbs will be dug, moved, stored, replanted… and hopefully next year there will be even more tulip excitement! Unless of course some epimedium thing or bearded iris obsession develops, you never know. Sometimes I like to consider how nice this garden could look if the gardener would only focus and organize, but obviously that hasn’t happened and instead I always opt for “interesting”, even if it’s only interesting for me 🙂

I think black tulips are interesting. The gray leaves of Scotch thistle are also interesting, as well as the weedy yellow roadside mustard behind them. I think I should let the mustard go to seed and check those out for spiciness, that might also be pretty interesting!

Awesome is also a good option. Some of the tulips rate pretty high on the awesomeness index.

No idea on the name of these luscious cherry with orange flowers, but they rate awesome. The white with red flames behind aren’t too bad either, they came in a mix and I believe they’re the tulip ‘Happy Generation’.

The one new tulip purchase for this year were the antique ‘broken’ tulips purchased through Old House Gardens. If they return next year I’m sure you’ll see too much of them, but for this year the five single bulbs I planted are more of an obsession rather than an amazing landscape show. An obsession because of the beautiful, virus-induced patterning and its connection to the raging tulipmania of the 17th century, and just plain interesting because of the great age of these cultivars. The ones planted this year range in age from one to three hundred years old!

The solid color of these tulips has been ‘broken’ by a virus they carry. I shall keep them away from other tulips (and true lilies) and hope for the best.

As I was considering how old the tulips were I kinda felt a little old myself. There I was admiring the nice blue mat of what I think is Polemonium reptans and I realized I’ve been tending this plant in some way or another for over forty years. It was growing in the garden of my parent’s house 51 years ago when they bought it and it’s one of the first things I realized I could move and divide and not end up killing.

I don’t know if this is plain old Polemonium reptans or some selection or some other species or hybrid, but it just keeps chugging along year after year. Never sets a single seed, but slowly creeps along.

Things that I can’t kill are good to have. They say Crinum lilies are next to impossible to kill so that’s promising, but any idiot knows that winters here are cold, and considering that I know winters here are cold, that may explain my decision to plant them…

It’s been pouring rain today. I made a point of photographing the primula sieboldii yesterday as a memory of what they looked like before they drowned.

So as usual we will see where these questionable decisions lead. Container crinums would likely be a smarter choice but then I would have to find a big enough container and that might be even more trouble than dealing with the loss of yet another borderline plant. In any case if I hedge my bets with a bunch more tulip plantings this fall I’ll have plenty to keep me happy in case the other stuff fails, so obviously my apparent madness is actually a well devised plan of attack.

Hahahaha, sure it is. Have a great week, and remember to stay away from those white vans, even if they say they’re full of rare violets and hosta 😉

Spring!!!

Apr29

This is the time of year when I like to complain about how terrible my allergies are. The burning eyes and runny nose and sneezing… they’re really not all that bad but it’s the only season when I have something to blame my general laziness on. It’s not aimless sloth, it’s dust and pollen. I’m a victim I shout but then someone suggests I come in out of the polleny wind and clean the basement. As if.

A few primrose have not only survived, but have even prospered in the dry shade which has suddenly appeared in parts of the garden. I swear I just planted those trees a year or two ago.

Saturday was actually a pretty busy day around here and things were weeded, mowed, pruned, and a few things were actually transplanted. That’s good but in the sprit of easing into ‘hard labor season’ the gardener took Sunday off and photographed a few things. The photo shoot was followed by much sitting around, and then the week since has been much of the same.

More shade treasures, Lathyrus vernus was mowed by rabbits in March, but fenced in April. This spring vetchling could have been nicer but at least a few flower buds survived.

My excuse the past two days has been heat. 79F yesterday and 84F today. The warmth was such a shock today I almost started an inside cleaning frenzy before coming to my senses. Fortunately things didn’t have to go that far since the house is again super neat with both kids home all day in a return to online learning. I’m sure every parent recognizes the sarcasm dripping off every word in that last sentence.

The pink form of Lathyrus vernus, ‘alboroseus’, was fenced before the rabbits got to it. Anyone else would recognize that fencing should be done each spring but I like to surprise myself anew each year.

So now I’m trying to burst on past this wall of laziness and at least get a blog post up. My garden has a springtime peak as the tulips and dogwoods come into bloom, and I’m absolutely ready to devote hours to just wandering around admiring bloom after bloom. It’s similar to snowdrop season except there’s more than one color and I don’t have to crawl around on my hands and knees.

Some of last years divided and replanted daffodils, this one a nameless double which looks similar to ‘Tahiti’ but just a bit more yellow and slightly smaller.

The daffodils are really in full swing and the Darwin tulips and other early season tulips are opening to join them. I know I brag about it all the time but this mostly exposed and summer-dry garden seems to be just what these tulips enjoy.

This is what the snowdrop bed degenerates into as other things come up. The daffodils are intentional but only the reddish ‘Spryng Break’ tulips were planted, the rest came in via compost or squirrels.

The vegetable garden had been a major tulip stronghold, since every batch of compost and every turning of the beds seemed to spread them a little further, but last year’s raised bed project cleaned that up a little. Many bulbs were collected, flowering plants potted up, and some were just lifted to new spots, but I did try to reduce the numbers…

The front bed is filled with bulbs collected during construction. For some reason I hate the color mix and every day I am just minutes away from pulling the short purple and white tulips and tossing them… it may still happen. The back bed just needs emptying out… way too much yellow 🙂

Once the flowers are over and the foliage yellows, the bed above will be lifted, dried, stored, and replanted in the fall. The flowers are sparse and small this year, but next year they’ll be fine again having spent the whole spring growing rather than suffering a mid April move. I just need to get a few more pinks into the mix and get rid of the dumpy little purples.

I probably planted these tulips as well. I probably even thought it was a good spot and I wouldn’t need the room for more brocolli and lettuce tranplants.

Although the raised beds… I mean ‘Potager’… is having a down tulip year I still think tulips are a far better idea than just planting more cabbage. More leftover and stray bulbs were planted in the concrete bed and (1) they did fine in a kinda exposed bed and (2) prove I need more red as well! I can honestly see a day when the entire potager is filled with tulips 🙂

I gave away some ‘Spryng Break’ bulbs but these were deemed “too small” to pawn off on unsuspecting gardeners so they were replanted. Now of course I’ll have even more and still not know what to do with them all… but I do know they’ll have to be planted next to something other than the short and moody burgundy ‘Muvato’ now behind it.

Yes. I do like tulips. Tulips and only the occasional deer make for a wonderful spring and I don’t know what I’ll do if the deer start making a habit of visiting.

The fine red outline of this Darwin hybrid will slowly bleed into the flower until it becomes completely orange. I love it but have just too many of this one.

A lack of deer does not mean complete bliss. Some parts of the garden are plagued by tulip fire, which infects the foliage and blooms and makes overcrowded and damp bunches turn to mush. Th potager re-dig helped immeasurably as did mulch and thinning, and this year I’ve been spraying with Neem oil and between that and a drier spring it all seems to be helping. A better gardener would destroy the infected plants and not replant for five or so years but…

Some tulips seem more susceptible to tulip fire. This orange late tulip has practically melted away while ‘Pretty Princess’ seems untouched.

I could really go on and on about tulips but I’m just about blogged out for the night and I’m sure you’ll be fine without my babbling. I’ll just leave you with some tulipomania from the front yard.

Tulip ‘Pink Impression’ on the left, and a few not-pink impression on the right. All are excellent.

Tulip ‘Burning Heart’. A big beauty who keeps coming back just as huge as they were in year one.

The star magnolia is finished but I think this end of the front border still looks decent. It could use a few more tulips of course, and more daffodils won’t hurt either!

Tulip ‘Beauty of Spring’ anchors the other end of the front bed. The red on this one will also spread as the flower ages. With all the yellow daffodils I don’t know why I needed more yellow tulips, but there they are.

Fun fact. As I was double checking the name on ‘Spring Beauty’ I came across an online site using an older picture of my clump to sell their wares. I wonder if this entitles me to some kind of site discount…

Anyway it’s bedtime, so I hope these past few days also have you out enjoying the garden and reveling in the explosion of color called spring. Perhaps it’s not spring in your neck of the woods, and in that case I hope there’s plenty of other joys to discover this week, in any case the key word is ‘enjoy’ 🙂

The Night Before Spring

Apr22

This afternoon the cold front which has been sweeping across the country reached this end of Pennsylvania, and temperatures have been dropping since. Once again I’m wearing a long sleeve shirt and right now I’m considering wearing it to bed. The chilly thing got old real quick when the snow flurries started flying again.

Magnolia ‘Ann’ is a common and relatively cheap variety, and this afternoon it’s amazingly special and perfect and I’d still grow it even if every yard had one. I’m hoping tonight’s freeze doesn’t end this.

I’m 95% sure all the wisteria buds were fried by our last freeze, so this current one isn’t even cold enough to make me nervous. I was eyeing the tomato seedlings which sprouted on their own, and was thinking about using them for a big tomato sauce planting this summer but I guess tonight will decide how that ends up. A different gardener would have their seedings already growing indoors and nearly ready to plant out but this gardener is a little more go with the flow. He’s even too lazy to dig up a couple trowel-fulls to shelter in the garage, and in fact he thought a better use of time would be to browse daffodil offerings online and place orders. Hmmmm.

A few of the daffodils thinned and re-planted last summer, narcissus ‘Beersheba’ on the right and ‘not-Indian Maid’ on the left. How annoying that after years of growing, one online check and I find ‘Indian Maid’ is a supposed to be a multi-flowering jonquilla, and not a single bloom large cup….

I was sort of aggressive last year with bed building and daffodil thinning. I don’t regret it, but I do miss them all slouching around the back of the vegetable plot and moving on from the earlies to the lates, even if they did make me feel guilty for their neglected growing conditions. One plus to less tomatoes is that it opens a whole raised bed to fill with new daffodil varieties. So far I know there will be at least eight and of course planting season is still six months away so anything could happen.

Narcissus ‘Stella’ is a newer one for me, and I’m shocked by how much I love the old fashioned pre-1869 look of wavy petals and nodding blooms.

Even with a three year moratorium on new daff and tulip purchases, they trickle in anyway. Gifts, surprises, impulse buys, they slip across the border and I complain about where to put them, not having room, and whining about not giving the ones here already the care they deserve, but within a few years they settle in and make the garden a richer place. Sure there’s a point in caring for what I have, but honestly it’s been years, and if I was really serious about taking care of what I have…

Narcissus ‘High Society’ in the front beds. A well respected variety which just never thrilled me, and as ‘the cull’ continues I’ll need to re-home a bunch of these.

Part of my problem is (1)I like smaller clumps, and (2) I’m sloppy and always dropping a bulb or two in some spot where it takes off and forms yet another clump.

Don’t know how ‘Jetfire’ and ‘maybe Bravoure’ ended up here, but both are doing well in a spot I thought was too shady for nice daffodils. Actually the colors are stronger and fade less out of the sun, so maybe more of the orange and red cups here is a good plan?

Years ago I made the “mistake” of dumping a couple hundred moldy and rotten tulips on the compost pile, only to find them coming up all over the yard in every spot where a little compost was meant to help. Last year I was determined to not let a single daffodil repeat that fiasco. Extras and the unwanted were dug right after and during bloom, and after sitting out in the sun and rain in five gallon buckets I eventually dumped the stinky mess into black plastic bags which sat out in the 90F sun for another few weeks. Finally I dragged the bags behind the compost pile where various wild animals proceeded to rip through the plastic and root through the mess looking for all the tasty worms and maggots which were feeding on all the decay. Half rotted bulbs were scattered all over, and obviously these tortured and neglected bulbs thrown around and never planted grew just fine and even flowered this spring. Also somewhat obviously, many of the cared-for bulbs which were dried and stored and sorted somewhat properly, ended up molding or rotting. Sometimes I wonder why I bother.

Growing right where the skunk or raccoon left them, like an idiot I’m looking at these and thinking they’re so nice I should really plant them out and re-think tossing them. Every day I have to fight the urge to sabotage my grand ‘thinning the herd’ daffodil project…

Must. Stay. Strong.

‘Accent’ was divided a few years ago and is looking good.

I am liking how the divided bulbs are looking, and really need to keep going. Rather than review splayed and floppy clumps of crowded bulbs flattened by a windy day I’m enjoying sturdier plantings where the individual blooms can be appreciated more.

Daffodil ‘Firebird’

I’m serious though, I have to keep strong. Even bulbs divided just yesterday were actually last divided five or six years ago and it’s time to give them a little attention again. I feel bad being ruthless with such giving plants, but…

More clumps in need of thinning.

So that’s a pretty elaborate story to cover my latest daffodil purchase, and to be honest I’m pretty sure no one but myself would notice that there are any fewer flowers in the yard compared to last year. What they will notice though, and I’m sure share a few comments on is when they see me wandering around the yard in October with a concerned and confused look on my face and a couple bags of “even more” bulbs in my hands. I could get defensive, but I’ll just say you don’t even know my struggle. Tulips are still on a no-buy list and you can’t have too many tulips, even if they sprout up out of your compost.

‘Flaming Purissima’, a genetically streaked tulip, as opposed to the virus-streaked tulips of the past.

I’m possibly more excited about tulip season than I am about daffodils. A few antique ‘broken’ tulips slipped in while no one was looking and I’m anxious to see them bloom.

The virus which causes the streaked flowers of ‘broken’ tulips is also showing in the leaves. I didn’t think growing a virused tulip would bother me but it’s all I see when I do the rounds.

Tulip season will be awesome. I know this weather is just a blip in the spring arsenal but I do feel for the people suffering through serious snow and magnolia frying temperatures, and I hope they sail through it somewhat unscathed. Regardless tomorrow we start climbing back up into civilized temperatures and I’m sure we’ll be complaining about heat soon enough.

All the best!

Untitled

Apr12

Spring has taken an odd turn here. The weather has been fantastic and there’s been time to spend in the garden but I have absolutely no interest in doing anything. Maybe it’s the lull effect. Snowdrop season come on so fast and was over so quickly, it was hard to keep that high going. Then the warm days were followed by two nights of hard freeze which singed the corydalis and melted half the hyacinths, but oddly spared the magnolia buds. This has become the norm lately, but for some reason the freeze-damaged flowers have me a little bored, and the return to warm days has me hesitant about starting too much transplanting. Fortunately the front garden looks ok with some spring daffodils, and my little twig of a magnolia cutting has grown into something which finally shows off.

Magnolia stellata, probably ‘Royal Star’ anchoring the far end of the front border. You can see the mother plant from which this plant came from to the right of the neighbor’s house.

I’m 87% sure last week’s freeze again killed all the barely pea-sized wisteria buds, but the almost open magnolias are fine. Go figure.

This year the flowers have a flush of pink to them, but that will fade to white in a couple days.

Right now, with a nice cover of shredded leaves, the front border seems optimistically weed-free, so even if there is transplanting and thinning to do I can still pretend it’s all under control for a few weeks longer. A gardener with more foresight and enthusiasm would probably scuffle through the mulch with a hoe now, before the onslaught of seedlings put down roots, but…

The daffodil ‘Tweety Bird’ flopped a little for the 21F night but has bounced back without a second thought. I’d say it’s one of my absolute favorites.

As I said, the hyacinths are probably the one bulb which took the biggest freeze-hit. Some are fine, but many either melted or suffered freeze damage to the flowers. Of course with all this pessimism running through my veins all I see are frosted flowers, even though I know I’m the only one to see it.

It saddens me to see the damage on ‘Woodstock’, but maybe a lost year of flowering will just mean a bigger show next year!

The hyacinths usually lead the garden into full daffodil season, which is also normally a big thing, but last year’s purge of the narcissus beds has left a noticeably smaller show in the back yard. Again, I’m the only one who notices these things, but I do miss them.

Maybe “MORE!!!” is the solution I’m looking for. I could divide up the hellebore ‘HGC Silvermoon’ and spread hyacinths all over… and then wonder how I ended up with so much pink 🙂

Actually the daffodils will be back next year, they just need a year to settle in and bulk up, but what I still want to celebrate is my first self-sown daffodil!

‘Holland Sensation'(supposedly) on the left, and a nearly identical seedling to the right.

I had been watching the daffodil seedlings for a few years and of course had all these amazing possibilities in my head, so it was a little bit of a surprise to see a nearly identical child show up. It’s going to be interesting to see what the others turn out to be since there are quite a few ringing the mother clump… all about a daffodil stem’s length away from the seed source.

Tulips will be next.

Honestly there are still plenty of daffodils to come. They’re later than normal from the digging and drying and storing process, but there will still be enough. Tulips on the other hand, there are never enough tulips! I replanted some of the ones I dug last year, but they were stunted from the ‘in the green’ transplanting process so only about half will bloom this year. But that’s not a bad thing since the transplanted tulips are showing perfect foliage, and that’s not been the case recently. The foliage is usually scarred with the pocks and streaks of the tulip fire fungus, and the tulips I didn’t get around to moving are again showing this kind of damage. I considered fungal sprays, but they all sounded so toxic I was going to just try digging these as well until I saw Neem oil spray. An organic option which doesn’t sound too eco-toxic so I’m going to give that a try on top of moving them. I’m not 100% sure when is best to spray, and I’ve never used it before, so please let me know if you have any suggestions.

Cleaning up the pond. Of course the pump broke halfway through.

Since we ended up on the repulsive subject of tulip fire, let me just stay with the theme and say that pond cleanup is also repulsive and probably the most disgusting part of spring cleanup. There was a slimy layer of rotten leaves coating everything, with a robust algae population and who-knows-what-else ecosystem of muck. Even with gloves it would be super-gross, but of course I was too lazy to go find them, so into the unknown my fingers went. The best part though was when the dog found something delicious in all that muck to chew on. What a disgusting little beast. Yuck.

So sorry about that segway into grossness. It’s probably just a symptom of my dark mood which will evaporate just as quickly as the first tulips open. In the meantime I wish you all a wonderful and safe week!

A Bit of a Chill

Apr2

The low last night was 23F (-5C) and tonight promises more of the same, although possibly a little warmer… as if that matters… so I’m going to dwell on the warmer days from earlier this week. To the relief of many snowdrop season here has ended and we are hurtling forward through corydalis season but not yet fully into daffodil season. After the highs of the snowdrops it’s almost a lull, but then I looked at the photos. Not bad at all I thought, although a few more days of snowdrops would have been nicer.

‘Tweety Bird’ is my first daffodil to open making a ‘bold’ contrast to the pinks of the corydalis solida ‘Beth Evans’.

Weird how the sun and warmth melted the galanthus yet hasn’t really brought on much of the other stuff yet. I suspect it has something to do with the weeks of snow cover and some things growing up through the snow yet others waiting for the melt to happen first.

Scilla mischtschenkoana picks up right after the snowdrops finish, but even in a good year barely flowers for more than a week or two. One rough week of work sometimes means missing the whole thing!

It might sound like complaining when I lament how short a bloom season might seem but honestly I bore quickly, so this (with the exception of a quick snowdrop season) actually works in my favor. There’s always the excitement of a next wave approaching and as long as a hard freeze doesn’t ruin things… hmmmmm…. maybe I shouldn’t yet discount late hard freezes…

Pasque flower (Pulsatilla vulgaris) is one of the first perennials to bloom, right alongside the hellebores.

Pasque (Pulsatilla vulgaris, formerly Anemone pulsatilla) flowers are a full-sun perennial which I don’t think I’ve ever seen for sale on a nursery bench. Of course they flower too early for Mother’s Day and don’t last long, and in this age of “does it flower all summer?” the answer is no, and some people just don’t want to hear that. Actually many sensible gardeners aren’t crawling around their perennial beds yet, and the pasque flower’s early blooms pass perfection so quickly I don’t blame them for not bothering with this plant, but I of course love their fuzziness and optimism against cold and ice and always end up thrilled to see their blooms catching the springtime sun.

Same pasque flower, other side while a cloud passes.

I bet a few early, miniature daffodils in cooling lemon and white tones would be perfect alongside even more pasque flowers. Other species come in reds and pale yellows and whites, and they’re easy from freshly sown seed and… well I digress again.

Galanthus ‘Peardrop’ is one of the latest to bloom here.

Sorry for throwing in two last snowdrops. -I was doing so good!

‘Galadriel’ is an elegant beauty with a fitting name. I should move it to a more open spot where it can be a focal point… hahaha, as if any of those spots are still empty 😉

That’s it for snowdrops. I hope there’s something equally exciting on the horizon, and I think I have it here with this next sprout.

A plate-sized eruption of foliage means the cardoon (Cynara cardunculus) really is as hardy a sort as promised. Cardoons have always died away over winter here, so this is mega-exciting. I guarantee you’ll hear more about it in a month or two! (please ignore the sea of allium seedlings in the background)

Maybe the promise of a year filled with cardoon photographs wasn’t what you were hoping for, but at least I didn’t sneak in another snowdrop. Here. Corydalis are also not snowdrops, and after a few years here they’re also not as formally named as the latter.

Maybe Corydalis ‘George Baker’. The plant on the left looks rightish, but the other side of the clump looks a little different.

Honestly I can’t keep my corydalis straight. Besides being promiscuous they must somehow resent how I try to pamper named cultivars while overlooking equally attractive stray seedlings. Out of spite the $15 named corm disappears while a sea of seedlings comes up to surround the lonely label.

Last year the final named form in this bed opted out on renewing for another year. Maybe it was the weeds, but everyone else seems relatively happy.

I don’t mind. They come up, flower, seed, and are gone before I even think about the other perennials and annuals which share this same space later in the year. Maybe native plant purists and lovers of bare mulch beds will complain about weediness, but just come here I’d say, and I’ll show you some weeds you can complain about.

Ugh. One has even jumped across into the next bed. When I dig a few of the daffodils I’ll try and remember to weed out this corydalis.

I’d like to move a few of the nicest forms into a bed where they can clump up, but so far my clumsy attempts at moving them in bloom has caused more casualties than it has attractive corydalis plantings, but eventually I think I’ll get it.

Everyone here admires the corydalis. I’ve been informed this little guy lives under the porch and often comes out to sun himself on bits of trash while admiring the flowers. Word is he is really looking forward to meeting my friend Kimberley 🙂

So then this….

Magnolia are well known for how bravely they endure the ups and downs of early spring…

The weather started to “shift” yesterday.

Forsythia ‘Show Off’ which I planted next door. I’d show you mine but it appears the soil on my side of the property line produces more rabbaliscious growth and as a result it hasn’t broken the four inch mark because of its annual pruning.

And now for a few hellebores. I dug up a few as giveaways last week and have to say it’s a much nicer way to clear space for even more hellebores than sending them to the compost pile would be. It would be nice to think I’m “upgrading” but since the new ones are unflowered seedlings, who knows but at least it’s much more exciting to see something new next spring!

I think this was supposed to be ‘Pink Fizz’, a single pink, but sadly I ended up with this very un-single flower 😉

I have a little thing for growing hellebores from seed. A few get planted every fall, and eventually the pipeline is full enough that each spring there are new surprises from the years past.

I believe these were supposed to be a ‘slatey’ mix of seeds. Kind of average, and not really slate-ish, but still nice for a few springs.

Someone was too lazy to separate this pot of seedlings when planting. I like the effect!

I might have too many of these… a double pink hellebore, maybe ‘Nellie’ from seed I ordered 8 years ago from Australia. They’ve finally gotten some room and are looking great, but 6 plants of it!?

The hellebores will be fine with the cold. Most everything will be fine until it’s not, and even then it will likely recover for next year. *yes I’m talking about last year’s lost lily season*

A frozen peony (Paeonia daurica) this morning with other frozen stuff…. all recovered by 2pm.

I just noticed that the melting peony is back to almost normal. Maybe now it’s okay to take a stroll and see how everything else has made out, and briefly consider the wind and how likely it is that I’ll do any gardening today. I actually want to work out there, but with low 20’s tonight maybe I’ll wait one more day before transplanting a few little white bulbs around. They probably wouldn’t care either way, but choosing patience would make me feel a tiny bit better considering tonight’s cold will likely kill most of the flower buds on the wisteria (again).

Oh well. It’s always something and if worse comes to worse I know where the Easter chocolate is.

Have a great holiday weekend!

Seven Years and Counting

Mar9

Prepare yourselves for the 2021 snowdrop season. They’re starting to come up in earnest and if it’s as warm and rainy this week as they say it will be, all the drops should be open or at least up by this weekend. Of course I’ll photograph nearly every one. Multiple times. I will understand if I don’t hear from a few people while this goes on. Seriously. Please don’t even feel obligated since there are already enough people ignoring the guy who wanders around in the cold mumbling and kneeling and photographing dirt that a few more won’t matter. I’ll be oblivious anyway.

In general snowdrops are nothing much to look at unless you have a couple decades worth of adding and dividing and transplanting under your belt. But small progress can be made. Here’s an un-named Galanthus elwesii which a friend shared with me years ago. It faced death many times before I knew what I was doing, but in 2013 I found a good spot, and in 2014 it finally escaped the muck and cold and narcissus fly attacks which were holding it back, and bloomed beautifully. It even earned a spot on this blog.

A perfectly average no-name Galanthus elwesii. It’s one of my favorite garden treasures.

All my purchased snowdrops start as one bulb. One bulb is nothing much to look at. You tell someone you have ten different varieties and they ask “where?” and then you head back inside to warm up. But eventually one becomes five becomes fifteen and you are on your way, and one year you go outside and say ‘wow, I could almost call that a clump’… and then you look around quickly to see if anyone saw you talking to yourself again…

Seven years and a couple days later. Obviously I’ve done nothing to it in the meantime, just waited.

So I think I have clumps. They didn’t all take seven years, and some are not even close, but it’s fun, and today my mother in law accidentally made eye contact as she drove by and stopped to tell me it wasn’t summer. I said it’s warm enough, and then without any prompting she said ‘oh you do have flowers already. Will they be ok if it gets cold?’ I went on too long. She regretted it.

Have a great week, and to the non-snowdroppers I’ll see you in a couple weeks 😉

A Gala Approaches

Mar3

There’s an American snowdrop event coming up, and I just assumed everyone knew about it simply because I knew about it. Funny how narrowly a person’s brain can work, and I’m sure it means something related to a spectrum or some other analyze-able thing, but of course I’m getting distracted again. What I want to say is David Culp’s snowdrop Gala is happening this weekend and I want you to know, and this year it’s not a matter of me throwing it in the faces of those too far away, it’s me letting you know that this year it will be available to anyone with access to Zoom (via internet or phone I suppose), and who has purchased their admission ticket (for information and $29 tickets click here). It’s not ideal of course. I’d rather be there in person, browsing and meeting, and hemming and hawing about just one more plant purchase, but at least it’s happening. Also it’s happening in a way that people across the world can join up with and participate in, and I think that’s something excellent in itself. Not everyone has the luxury of living in the midst of a plethora of snowdrop lovers.

The event runs Friday to Saturday with a string of speakers, mixed with Q&A segments, vendors, and a live auction. It should fill everyone’s snowdrop tank for the season 🙂

Of course my snowdrop tank doesn’t need filling. All the galanthus-love this weekend will surely just make it overflow with galanthus joy, and that’s fine with me! Yesterday the warm weather had me slogging through mud puddles and poking through snow piles looking for spring, and although I didn’t find it I did find some hopeful signs. Really hopeful, and between that and the strong sunshine and the turning of the calendar to March I’m inches away from quitting my job and becoming a full time poker around the garden.

Every hour meant more snow melt and a few more inches of open ground. Spring is just aching to grow! *please disregard the yet to be tidied mess*

Full time garden poker does not come with benefits, so I did indeed go to work this morning, but even with the thermometer at an icy 16F(-9C) as I pulled out of the driveway, the thought still sat in the back of my mind.

Here in the foundation beds along the front of the house, the snow had melted one day prior and the snowdrops had already been able to stretch out a bit.

My latest check of the weather shows beautiful sunshine and no temperatures too disgusting to worry about. I’m sure by the weekend I’ll be cleaning out beds and poking away to my heart’s content and I think it’s about time. There will still be melting snow to ignore but once snowdrop season starts I can ignore a lot.

Except for tornadoes and hail. That’s a snowdrop season I don’t ever have to repeat. Enjoy!

sorta like suburbia

more than you ever wanted to know about my garden

Category Archives: spring bulbs