Spring?

Apr27

Last Sunday was fantastic. There was sunshine and warmth, and coffee on the porch, and then here was a nice stroll to look at plants. Then there was more looking and some sitting and then a little more looking. I believe things were actually growing as I watched and that’s a nice change from the chilly standstill that the last few days have had us at… and the snow… but nearly all of that melted when the warmer weather rolled in. Eventually I even did a little work!

This spring has been good for the hellebores… except I probably have too many and I probably have even more seedlings coming along so I probably should open up a few new spots and not plant other things there since I’m opening them up for future hellebore seedlings…

I’ve been a little down on the garden due to gloomy weather and construction debris, but just a couple hours of short sleeve gardening with spring flowers opening had me flying high again. My weedy, disheveled potager with a few tulips close to opening had me imagining the grandeur of Keukenhof right here in my own backyard, but now the reality of another gloomy day has brought me back down to earth. I think it will be nice enough, but things could still use a bit of work here.

Anemone x lipsiensis is a cute little spring bloomer. I bought a little root the same year a friend gave me a piece and I assumed they’d be the same thing but they’re not. Now I need to decide if the smaller, paler clone on the left is different enough from the one on the right to bother separating.

I think a breakthrough was finally making a move on the poor little boxwood hedge which was upended when construction fill had to be shuttled from the foundation hole to the low spot in the back of the yard. My jelly ‘topsoil’ was squeezed to the side by the weight of the backhoe, and when it squished over it took the hedge with it. Part of me wanted to rip it out and rethink things but then the other part decided it would be worth digging out and straightening up. So… the hedge along the potager will be dug and returned to its upright position.

My sad and abused boxwood hedge. All winter it’s been nearly pushed over and I’ve been back and forth on what to do.

The hedge across from it is a different story. It’s also riding a wave of squishy topsoil and I think that wave is about to crash.

The even sadder and more abused neighboring boxwood hedge. Maybe it’s time to say goodbye.

Come to think of it I’m not all that happy with the swingset in the middle of the yard anymore either. The kids don’t use it all that much and when they do they’re not toddlers I need to keep an eye on, rather they’re teens who wouldn’t mind hiding with their friends somewhere off to the side. Hmmmm. And don’t even get me started on the trampoline.

Construction has not been kind to the pond. It’s a muddy mess which fills with runoff, but the waterlily is returning and I see duckweed bits floating about so all is not dead.

Maybe changes are afoot. It’s not surprising that poorly planned projects of five and ten years ago need updating, and the sad truth will be that their replacements will likely be just as hasty and poorly planned. Obviously I’m one of those people who needs to learn everything the hard way.

A pile of rocks might as well become a wall so as to not look so much like a pile of save-them-somewhere rocks.

Don’t think that my whole beautiful weekend was filled with the joys of stone moving and hedge lifting, there was also the fun moment when a small jackhammer showed up so that “if I wanted to start taking out the concrete patio section and digging out new basement stairs” I could. Lucky me!

Virginia bluebells (Mertensia virginica) can be floppy and messy and rapidly die down when the weather gets warm, but I’m determined to get a few settled into the garden.

So even when my day of rest was topped off with three hours of jack hammering and digging I still thought it was a fantastic weekend. The weather was beautiful and I even snuck in a quick hike and garden center run with the daughter. She got it into her head to trim Grandma’s spiral evergreens, pull weeds, and also wanted to plant a few flowers, so needless to say I was thrilled to hear her speaking my language and found the time to look at plants with her 😉

‘Jetfire’ is a nice little daffodil that looks all yellow most years… until a cold spring comes our way. Then the trumpet burns orange just like it likely does every year in more reliably dismal climates.

All this is still a lot of raw construction talk and torn up earth, so hopefully the next batch of photos will be more pleasing and flowerful. I think it will be. The daffodils are beginning and with tulips right behind them I’ll be thrilled, even if the sun is lost and gloomy weather returns. You can’t hold spring back forever.

This year the yellow trumpet daffodil ‘Tweety Bird’ holds the record for longest bloom. A full month after first opening, it still looks exceptional, and it doesn’t hurt that this small trumpet flower form might be my very favorite daffodil form.

‘High Society’ just barely missed the bulldozer blade. It’s such a highly regarded, good grower, and I can’t think of a single reason to justify my luke-warm opinion of this plant.

Hope the garden did well for you this weekend. I feel recharged and can’t wait to get back out there, especially if it’s heavier on the sit and look side than it is jack hammering and stone hauling 😉

Have a great week!

The Give and Take

Apr15

So spring is here. Maybe not spring for non-gardeners, because I have yet to see the flipflops and tank tops come out, but for a couple hours Wednesday they could have and that’s promising. Of course we’re not out of the woods yet, but each day the light is longer, and each afternoon the sun shines stronger, and every day there’s something new sprouting up in the garden.

My favorite patch of Corydalis solida. They started as named forms, but with seedlings popping up all over I’m less and less confident and less concerned each spring as to who is who.

The last two afternoons have been warm enough to almost feel hot (up to 78F Wednesday) and that can be a shock three days after snowflurries were flying, but so far the plants are taking it in stride. A few more days of this and things will all begin to fade and droop, but so far we’re not there, and so far the forecast looks promising for a return to digging and planting weather as opposed to porch sitting and iced beverages.

Being a little on the odd side, I always look forward to this very uninteresting patch of hyacinths flowering. They’re mostly seedlings of the bulbs I moved out a few years back, but I love the slight variations which have shown up from the original pink planting.

The rainy, colder weather in early April (without any more brutal arctic blasts) has made for an excellent hellebore season. I’m again telling myself I need more of them and have been out there counseling last year’s batch of seedlings to grow faster.

Some nice yellow seedling which hold their flowers outwards a little more. There’s a picotee seedling in there as well, which is nice, but it hangs its flowers much more.

There are some amazing newer forms of hellebores out there these days, and they’re so much easier to find than just a few years back. That doesn’t mean I’ve gotten my hands on them yet, but at least there’s a chance.

A plant of ‘Onyx Odyssey’ not being very showy but being very cool with its glowering attitude.

My biggest problem with new additions is convincing myself that a few older ones need to go. Sometimes it’s too easy to get attached to plants just because…

A nice springtime blend of colors on these seedlings. I don’t think there’s much hope they’ll ever be divided even though they should have been divided…

Ok, for the most part I don’t get too attached to plants, even the annoying ones which you fuss over for years and then they still don’t amount to much. Maybe if I keep telling myself that I can finally pull those washed out, muddy colored hellebores on the side of the garage.

Nothing muddy or washed out here. These are doubles from the Winter Gem series.

I won’t even bore you with the less exciting hellebores. They’re actually pretty nice, but when you need space you need space!

More seedlings. These qualify as ‘nice’.

Somewhere else in the garden is short on space and that’s the winter garden. A couple weeks ago I tossed all the succulents out from under the growlights and into the cold, as well as a few other things which don’t mind flirting with 32 degrees and a little frost. The amaryllis can handle a mild frost, and it’s about time they stopped overcrowding my indoor space.

It’s still about a month until our last frost date so I’ll be quite busy if another freeze rolls in, but a few flurries? a bitter wind? These plants will just have to get over it.

If worse comes to worst I’ll throw a sheet over them for a night or two, and if worst comes to tragedy it will free up a few pots and I just won’t tell anyone that I killed yet another batch of plants 😉

The cold frame, ahem ‘Sand Plunge’, did an excellent job last winter, and even my Sabal minor palm seedlings overwintered with just a few burnt leaf tips.

I wish I could say the garden, yard, and house have all emerged from construction projects as well as they’ve survived the winter. Progress is slow and our ‘guy’ is just a two person crew with other jobs always coming up.

The massive piles of soil are off about half the lawn, and I was able to dig up and rake off all the stones and fill which would have smothered the grass. You can see it’s a little yellow and lumpy, but at least I can roll a mower across and not throw up a rock every couple inches.

Sometimes the other jobs come up as little surprises here. Last fall just a small slice of the front garden had to be moved for the work to get started, and now last week just a little more ended up in the cross hairs. “We have to figure out what’s gong on with that sewer line” is how it all started.

A lot of dirt can come out of just two small, but really deep, holes.

“Wow that’s weird, the line has to be here somewhere”

Maybe you can make out the top of a ten foot ladder to the far left of this photo.

My only request was to be careful around the little weeping spruce, and since the excavator liked the small magnolia he tried to save that as well… but apparently bunches of tulips and daffodils, roses, iris, hellebores and clematis, do not make the ‘save’ list. Oh well. As I was watching the excavator rip up the quite hefty root ball of the rose ‘William Baffin’, and saw the teeth of the scoop slice through the iron roots of the giant reed grass I thought better him than I.

The next afternoon. More soil scraping, rock raking, wheelbarrowing, and lawn uncovering and it doesn’t look nearly as bad.

Hmmm. What can I replant there? I suspect enough things will come up that I really don’t have to even consider adding anything, but it might be good to get new plants just in case.

Actually my new budgeting theory calls for a plant tax on all major construction expenses. Kind of like a cost of doing business, and here’s how it works. $2,000 for a new bathroom vanity? A 5% plant tax means $100 bucks goes over to the gardening budget, and I think that’s a very reasonable rate. Between the new vanity and the sewer repairs I was able to visit three nurseries over the past week and added a bunch of plants I have neither the time nor space for. It was fun and I don’t even care if they don’t all get planted. It’s kind of like not finishing your dinner when you go out to eat I guess. Sure you paid for the side of fries, but why get all guilt ridden when they go cold and you just send them to the trash? At least unnecessary plants can be enjoyed on the driveway for a few months until they finally dry out one too many times 😉

It wouldn’t be the first time. Just enjoy spring, we’ve earned it!

An End Before the Start

Mar27

Yesterday I made a point of getting outside for a few pictures before whatever happens happened. Those of you who’ve visited this blog ever probably know that this gardener has more than a passing fancy for snowdrops, and sadly this year the season has passed in a blur with other things and weather taking priority over the hope for idle days in the sunshine crawling from snowdrop clump to snowdrop clump. Instead I was out at night with a flashlight, out in the rain, or wind, or cold, and none of those scenarios make for good picture taking. It happens, it could be worse, and with several clumps disappearing or dwindling this year I guess it was as good a season as any to have fly by. Next year will be perfect I’m sure!

A grainy, just before dark photo of the ‘White Trash’ bed from about a week ago. Galanthus ‘flore peno’ and other “common”, “messy”, and “no special merit” snowdrops fill this bed, and it’s one of my favorite plantings.

We won’t dwell on the weather of course. If a gardener ever hopes to enjoy their snowdrops in this area they need to be prepared for a season which goes from an early spring thaw one week, to frigid temps and snow and ice the next, to overly warm shorts and T-shirt weather for five days, back to snow and a hard freeze. I can always stay inside, but the snowdrops can’t and sometimes end up a little beaten down.

A nice galanthus nivalis with just the tiniest green mark inside. Someday I hope to find an albino, but for now this one keeps me happy.

So here’s where the survivors are at. For you’re sake I’ll try to write less and photo more 😉

Galanthus ‘Cordelia’ a little sloppy yet hanging on and Cardamine quinquefolia just starting with its pink flowers. A few people have lodged complaints about the cardamine’s spreading ways but it looks like I’ll have to learn the hard way.

I can never speak poorly of big flowers on a non-floppy plant. ‘Imbolc’ is representing and hopefully hangs on for a while during our cold spell.

Galanthus ‘Erway’ has a nice paleness this spring which is fairly normal but not always this pronounced.

I think I show galanthus ‘Moortown’ each spring. He’s such a hefty brute.

My thoughts are always mixed on anything from sharlockii blood, but this one has turned out nice. A Belgium drop with lots of green and inner petals almost as long as the outers.

Please don’t even fall for my woe is me comments on this year’s season. Even a bad one is still better than the suffering my non-snowdropping neighbors are enduring. I see them washing cars and trying to liven up a dead yard with a few plastic Easter eggs and realize that my yard has been bursting with bulbs for the last month and more, and the garden year is already off to a good start. Missing the snowdrops is as much my own fault for not being independently wealthy as it is the cruel ups and down of the weather, and maybe a few less garden visits and ski trips would have also helped. I’ll try to work on that… maybe…

A doubled winter aconite (Eranthis ‘Gothenburg’) flowering for the first time after two other years of ‘no thanks’. Please don’t die now is my reply. In this garden new and hard to find winter aconites like to die the year after finally looking nice.

So now I have nothing to look forward to except hundreds of spring bulbs and sprouting perennials and wave after wave of new color every day! Sure there will be a few hiccups along the way, but still I can’t even imagine things being bad enough to make washing the car a decent alternative.

More bulbs popping up. The unspellable Scilla mischtschenkoana doesn’t ask for much but does fade quickly in anything warmer than sweater weather.

I don’t know how people manage self restraint around all the small ‘minor’ bulbs which could fill their gardens. I mean I do, but there are so many tempting crocus and bulb forming iris and corydalis that I really can’t judge anyone who ends up with a bed devoted to species tulips or spring blooming colchicums.

I vaguely remember these not blooming and me digging and dividing the clump. For a couple days they’ll be amazing and then the next great thing will roll along and I won’t even bother to dig out a label for an ID.

Even for someone who is the definition of restraint, things can build up. If I had any backbone whatsoever I’d mow down seedlings, dig bulblets, divide crowded clumps, and just toss the excess but I’m like one of those people who grew up poor and then for a lifetime can’t throw out a decent pair of shoes or nice cardboard box, or even throw out the last six Easter eggs even though you did manage to eat at least two dozen of the ones the kids dyed. Waste is a sin, and who wastes corydalis seedlings?

Hyacinths, corydalis, crocus, and winter aconite were never planted here. I wouldn’t even know where to start if I tried to return this to the original species peonies, single snowdrop, and Muscari azureum (both white and blue forms!)

Before I leave the subject of restraint, here’s a link to an International Rock Gardener article on >the many species and forms of winter aconite (Eranthis)<. I’m not tempted, but perhaps others will enjoy looking at all the different variations you can plant in addition to the not-common-at-all yellow.

I have no plans to show restraint towards witch hazels. They will be crowded and poorly grown but Hamamelis ‘Aphrodite’ needs more company.

I do need more spring snowflakes (Lecojum vernum). I consider them the messy big brother of snowdrops but they come in yellows and doubles and I’m forced to live with just the species form and that’s been making me sad. Not sad enough to go wash the car, but sad enough to wistfully search for other forms which exist but are separated from me by an ocean and at least seven time zones. I don’t think adding two or three new ones would count as a lack of restraint, it’s definitely more of a widening your horizons kind of thing.

The straight form of the spring snowflake (Leucojum vernum, not the summer snowflake L. aestivum, that’s different!).

Unlike most bulbs, Leucojum actually enjoy a poorly drained soil which doesn’t dry out and will suffer in a drier spot. Think riverbanks and wet meadows, and if you find a spot they like you might as well plant a few snake’s head fritallaries (F. meleagris) since they also like that same mucky kind of spot.

A nice pure white form I found a few years back. It’s a nice thing and nicely complements the “yellow tipped” ones behind them… if only they would stay yellow…

And again I’m going on too long. Let’s just photo along and get through hellebores and the current weather.

The first hellebores are starting. A couple nice yellow seedlings.

A surprise anemone form hellebore seedling. I was hoping for a double, but this might even be better.

Construction continues. Maybe today I’ll bundle up and try and dig out the snowflakes and hostas which probably won’t come up through the two feet of excavated fill, but then I’ll look at the rocks and dirt in the pond and feel guilty about not addressing that.

Yesterday it wasn’t raining and snowing too much (just like last Sunday which was the only other time I’ve been out during the day lately) so I spent a few hours scraping fill off the lawn and hoping that at least half the yard can be sort-of back to normal for the year. For what it’s worth “scraping fill off the lawn” means shoveling wheel barrow after wheel barrow of hard-packed rock and dirt and then trying to find the old turf underneath and then exposing enough with a rake so that it comes back to life. I suspect in another week or two it will be mostly smothered and dead so that’s why I’m trying now. In spite of the biting wind… and on again off again rain showers…. and frequent snow squalls….

The snow stopped melting and the light was fading, so the lawn is as good as it’s going to be.

I might not like it, but most of the garden doesn’t mind a little snow and sleet this time of year. We will see what happens tonight though. It’s supposed to be frigid again.

Back in the day I never even imagined I’d have bunches of hardy spring cyclamen here in the mountains of Pennsylvania but then they happened 🙂

I might look at the pond this afternoon. We will see. The winter garden might be a nicer option with its somewhat warm temperature and lack of an icy wind and gloomy skies. It’s a jungle and I need to trim it back which of course means cuttings since I can’t waste a single shoot. Obviously these will be cuttings I do not need.

A patriotic blend of geraniums, oxalis, and streptocarpella. The blue streptocarpella is much too large.

Cuttings galore and I think I should chop everything first and then see how much I can use afterwards. Right now I’m not sure if the water I throw on this thicket even hits the pots underneath.

The amaryllis have been nice. This is a seedling a friend gave me and I might need a big pot of it, even though it multiplies like a pair of miss-sexed hamsters.

I’m going to have way too many geranium cuttings. What to do, what to do…

…and the primrose seedlings have come along nicely. I can sit at my little table contemplating seed orders all the while enjoying the promise of spring and an occasional wiff of primula fragrance.

So that’s where things are at and I’m hoping for a few less-busy weeks to come. In the meantime thanks for sticking it out and if you’re relieved over the missing snowdrops don’t get your hopes up too much. Cooler weather means the season may stretch out the further north you go and I still haven’t ruled out northern snowdrop visits 😉

Have a great, restrained, week!

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!

Four Days in February

Feb24

It’s still winter here but the days are lengthening and the sun feels stronger. I’m pretty sure the cold won’t last forever but to hear some people talk it’s absolutely brutal, and the whole winter has been an endless cycle of cold and wind and grey, and they can’t wait for things to warm up again. Sometimes when I’m feeling brave I’ll ask if that means you’ll be able to finally complain about the heat, but those days are rare and lately I just say yeah, it’s a tough life we lead.

Day 1: Sunday outside in the miserable cold. Child on right, friend on left.

Sunday was cold, but on Monday it warmed up enough for at least one person in the neighborhood happy, and that guy didn’t even hide in the muddy, bulldozed backyard, he proudly trimmed and mowed and pruned in the front yard in spite of the odd looks and obvious hints that it was still 100% winter. Actually 100% winter meant the ground was completely frozen and dead stalks broke nicely at their frozen base, bulbs were still asleep and safe from clumsy footsteps, and most importantly there was no mud. Did I mention there’s plenty of that out back?

Day 2: Monday early afternoon. Mow it all down with the hedge trimmers.

It might be too early to do all this cleanup but guess who doesn’t care. I’m sick of the mess and there are snowdrops on the horizon, and I want those coming up without all the debris of last year making them look sad. Chopped leaves- ok, last year’s dead stalks and freeze dried hellebore foliage- no. Everything was hacked down with the hedge clippers and then raked onto the lawn for a mulching with the mower. Into a mulch bag it goes and I think it looks far better. A final tidy once March gets moving should set everything up until June 🙂

Day2: Late afternoon and I think it looks all ready for the earliest spring bulbs. I just have to keep an eye on the construction trucks so they keep the ruts to a minimum… hahahaha

Day 3 was all rain. Warm and rain. For as much as the sun melted the snow, it barely softened the frozen soil, but the rain did and it brought on the first snowdrops up by the house.

Day 4: I snuck out of work early and caught the last light for a few photos. Amazing what a sheltered location and just a few warm days can bring.

So the warmth won’t last but the urge to grow will, and when cold slips back tomorrow these flowers will lay down for a week or so and then come back strong once spring gets a little more determined. Out back a few things are also making an effort and that’s nice to see but if I were of the complaining sort I might be tempted to mention how our ski days are numbered. Oh well. We shall assume there is always a next year.

Day 4: ‘Rosemary Burnham’ is all rich greens as she first comes up. There will be fading over the next few days, but right now she’s perfect.

Hopefully your week is going without complaint, and as a warning to forestall any further complaint risks, let this be your first warning that way too many snowdrops will soon flood this blog. You might have another week, so enjoy!

A January Thaw

Feb16

Saturday I put on a sweatshirt and the Christmas lights came down. Of course the job is ten times easier when a couple extra hands join in, but surprisingly both children had much more important things to do so only the dog was there for me. He’s not quite as helpful as you might think. The lights all came down and then the porch got a good hosing off, and once that was done I rewarded myself with a little puttering around. The front foundation bed (the warmest spot in the garden) got a little cleaning up and the sprouting snowdrops are all ready to show off to best effect. Too bad we woke to actual snow the next morning.

Snowdrops up to their ankles in the white stuff again. Most are still just fine, although here and there is some singed foliage and freeze dried scapes.

You could barely call our last warmup a January thaw. First of all it’s February and second of all we barely melted the snow from the last storms and there’s still a good amount of ice in every shady bed and covering most of the lawn. I’m an optimistic early cleaner, but even I left plenty since I know the cold still has another week or so in it. Back inside to the winter garden. I’ve been taking cuttings and repotting amaryllis. Primrose are showing buds. It’s everything the outside garden isn’t.

Look at the cool foliage of this variegated pelargonium. No idea on the name, but I’ll be interested to see how much of the pink remains once the temperatures warm up.

The winter garden can use the attention since once things warm up outside I can barely be bothered with watering anything indoors. The amaryllis will be cool and a few are already showing buds, but overall the indoor gardening space is beginning to get tight with all the new pots I’ve been adding. I was joking with a friend that what I need is a spring garage sale to clear out everything from under the garage lights, but then what would I do if I needed a few dozen pots of succulent cuttings in June? Bet they didn’t think of that.

This red salvia is the perfect color for February. Cestrum nocturnum (night-blooming jasmine) is the taller plant and I really hope I get some blooms on it this summer.

Two pots of Cestrum nocturnum is probably one more than I need, but night-blooming jasmine is one of my latest favorite plants. It was one of those things which followed me home from a late autumn garden visit. “Take this, you’ll want this” was what I was told as branches were lopped off and pushed into my hands. Of course I dutifully added them to the haul and didn’t think much else of it until the sun began to set as I motored home again through the mountains. Slowly as the scenery turned to night I began to take notice of a sweet scent filling the car. Night-blooming jasmine is a real thing and I enjoyed a thoroughly perfumed car ride for the tail end of my trip. I’m already imagining a hot summer night where the deck is filled with a jasmine fragrance, but of course I shouldn’t count my chickens before they’ve hatched since any number of things can go wrong between now and then.

I don’t care though. It’s still February and 2022 will be the most perfect and perfumed gardening year this plot of earth has ever imagined or experienced. Weeds will be non-existent and rainfall will arrive perfectly timed and only at night. Mosquitos and gnats will lose their taste for (my) blood and I’ll practically live in the garden. And it won’t be a dirty, sweaty, often bloody life it will be all cold drinks and white shorts. Absolutely.

And if you believe that you’ll probably also believe I’m not going to mention snowdrops one more time. The forecast looks to be warming and plans are afoot for a Philly snowdropping trip late next week and I’m all ears for new gardens to visit. It will be fun I’m sure so until then enjoy your week 🙂

Winter Interesting

Feb5

A warm day, a storm, and now it’s cold again. That should bring this blog mostly up to date, and I don’t think anyone will be poorer for the summary. There are blogs with much more inspiring garden and snowdrop photos and Paddy’s ‘An Irish Gardener’ comes to mind immediately, and you may wish to pay him a visit before I get started since today’s tale of gloom and doom will not involve even the hardiest winter flowers flowering.

Golly Godfrey, you’ve been through snow and frigid below 0F temperatures, and now it’s an ice storm? Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

I surprised both myself and the dog when the camera was grabbed and the door was opened and we all headed out for a tour of the sleety garden. It was still all gloom and precipitation but I do like the look of an ice storm so off we went to see how things were holding up.

I’m not much for dead stalks as ‘winter interest’ but a nice bunch of sedum can hold its own all winter.

Overall it looked nice. Not good, because no ice storm is ever a good thing, but as long as we’re not losing power and can stay off the roads and not have to endure the cracking and snapping of falling trees, I can see the beauty in it. Tomorrow is supposed to be sunny and promises to bring out the sparkle of the ice, but with wind and temperatures maybe barely out of the single digits you won’t see me out there.

Possibly the most photographed Cardoon stalk of all time, this thing still fascinates me. I also love the russet hues of the ‘Dallas Blues’ Panicum as a backdrop.

I really can’t complain about the cold. All the sprouting things are locked up in frozen soil, just like they should be, and will now wait at least until late February. It’s almost a normal winter and of course that has me suspiciously waiting for the next shoe to drop.

‘Midwinter Fire’ is an excellent dogwood for winter color. I wouldn’t mind a few other colors but this one by itself puts on quite the show.

One down side to a ‘normal’ winter is that I’ve been banking on global warming and planted a bunch of stuff which doesn’t appreciate ‘normal’ lows. I guess we’ll see what happens this spring. Maybe the cold hasn’t penetrated too deeply yet. It was a very warm December after all.

A Magnolia grandiflora seedling of a hardier (I hope) sort. The leaves don’t look too bad, but March has a way of bringing out the damage and it’s likely all the leaves will drop by April.

Besides Crinum lilies, Agapanthus, and palmetto palms, there are the “hardy” camellias. I can almost feel them glaring at me as I walk around, and I know they must be thinking winter in Charleston would have been a lot cozier.

This ‘Survivor’ seedling still looks pretty good, in spite of the icing. Let’s hope it looks just a good thawed out again.

As long as it’s cold, I wouldn’t mind a good snowstorm to top off the ski runs and keep me out of the garden a little more. The slopes are all ice right now and that’s not fun. Also not fun is going into the winter garden and chasing boredom with pruners and potting soil. I confess I’m taking cuttings of succulents again, and if February doesn’t warm up soon I’ll be up to my ears in baby plants, none of which this garden needs.

Evergreens on the berm are slowly growing in to cover up the view of our industrial park neighbor.

Speaking of things the garden and gardener didn’t need: (1)the yard is still ripped up with bulldozer ruts and construction debris, (2) The under-construction sewer lines froze up, and sewer lines don’t drain when they’re frozen, and (3) Covid has come to visit our corner of suburbia. Everyone is in recovery and cases were mostly mild, but still it’s something we didn’t want added on the to-do list.

The promise of better days. Blueberry buds which will hopefully bring blueberries and fill a few pancakes this summer.

So now it’s down to reminding myself each evening that I don’t need new plants ordered when half the garden is in need of leveling and cleaning up. I’ve ruthlessly crushed dreams of more caladiums, dahlia gardens, bean fields, onion plantations, tender bulb experiments, begonia collections, mini conifer forests, sunflower fields… and that’s just last week. I’d still drop everything to drive an hour to pull terra cotta pots out of someone’s trash, but as of 11pm Friday, February 4th I have not ordered any new plants or seeds.

Hard to imagine now, but in just three months the dogwoods will be covered in bloom again.

Btw seed exchange seeds don’t count. They’re practically an obligation if you belong to a society and I would be selfish to not support the Rock garden or Hardy Plant or American Primrose or the Magnolia Society’s work. It would be like walking past a church bake sale just because you’re on a diet.

Hope everyone is going into the weekend safe and healthy. The cold won’t last forever and even here the snowdrops will bloom again.

More Cold

Jan27

It looks like winter will last at least another week. I kind of blame myself since in early January I was a little chilled and pulled out the winter coat for a walk around the garden. Mother Nature must have seen and said “Oh really? Hold on and I’ll show you some real cold” and now here we are. This morning on the ride through the mountains I saw a -6F (-21C) and then on the way home it was already down to 0F. I guess I was glad to have the coat.

The Temple Nursery catalog arrived as well as my NARGS seed exchange goodies. I would say snowdrop ordering and seed sorting was the perfect way to spend a Friday night 🙂

Even in the cold, the ridiculous dog still insisted on running about in the dark, sniffing out rabbits and investigating every suspicious shadow. Again I was happy to have the coat. It wasn’t until I made it to the winter garden that things started to look more promising. Flowers in bloom and growing plants are a nice diversion away from cold and work, and although the dog was annoyed that I would slip out to the garage rather than stand by the door letting him in and out every ten minutes, I though my winter garden time was a nice recharge.

I was able to get my hands on a tiny bulb of Narcissus romieuxii ‘Atlas Gold’ and it’s now in flower under lights. I thought it would be a bolder gold, but instead it’s a fantastic lemony yellow.

Even in the winter garden it’s a little chilly tonight so I didn’t stay long. The Rock Garden Society seeds are sown and ready to get thrown out into the cold, and now I’m entertaining the idea of more seeds. That’s a terrible idea of course, but you know what a couple days of cold can do to a gardener and I’m trying to fight that urge as well as bulb orders and tropical plant pre-sales. And new perennials. And a couple caladiums… just in case…

There’s still February to get through you know? Stay warm 🙂

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 😉

The Winter Garden 2022

Jan14

Monday morning was one of the coldest days of the year and this weekend is also set to drop as low as 1F (-17C), and although we are only 14 days into the year that’s about as cold as Sorta Suburbia has been in a while. The temperatures only last about a night or two and the ground is still barely frozen, but only time will tell how these surprisingly normal lows will work with my new, optimistically mild, global warming planting plan full of autumn blooming snowdrops and zone 7 Crinum lilies.

Happier plantings are sheltered in the garage under fluorescent shoplights. They’re experiencing a few ‘chilly’ nights, but nothing even close to the freezing cold outside.

A better gardener would put this cold-induced break to good use, planning seed orders and organizing planting plans, safe in the knowledge that borderline plantings are well protected, but all this gardener wants to do is eat. Not just hearty stews and roasted potatoes, but more so late night bags of chips and “one more” handful of m&ms followed by a big glass of milk. Then some ice cream. Then maybe another look in the fridge, just in case. Outside just a few witch hazels are fenced, and not a single snowdrop is bucketed, but inside there’s been a lot of attention to sitting around and… eating….

Also safe inside are the plants too precious and too tender to abandon outside. They don’t do much all winter, but they’re something nice to look at while nibbling pretzels.

I can think of no better place to sit (while snacking) than the winter garden. When it’s dark out I can almost convince myself that this array of shoplights in the just-above-freezing back of the garage is actually a greenhouse or uber fancy conservatory. When the weather is cold it’s a room filled with green to hang out in, watering, puttering, pruning, plucking… doing all the stuff that the cold makes uncomfortable outdoors.

My official coffee drinking, seed cleaning, label writing, phone browsing, beer sampling, winter patio seat in the winter garden. I heard a crack last weekend and that’s got me slightly concerned about all the m&m’s, but that’s something to worry about in May.

There have been a few watershed moments in this year’s slightly excessive winter garden adventure. Ooops. I admitted that the winter garden is a little “extravagant”, but I blame it on last winter when I killed off a shameful amount of potted cyclamen. Cyclamen have been the stars of my winter garden for a few years, but then suddenly a winter of lazy, careless watering did in a bunch of them. This fall I needed backup plants. A visit to an open garden and a cutting swap started me off. The Amish country and various nurseries added a few more. Friends helped. Cuttings for overwintering added to it all. It’s all reaching a quite pleasant crescendo in my opinion.

Blue streptocarpella and flower buds on a red salvia. The salvia is being overwintered, and the buds should probably be clipped off… but I do like flowers 😉

Recently on Facebook a friend shared an article about the “dark side” of plant collecting. The home time and isolation of the pandemic had set unprepared gardeners off on a vicious binge of buying and collecting, and people were amassing hoards that amounted to hundreds of plants. “amateurs” my friend commented, and we laughed. I read the article myself and to be honest it made me smile to read about these plant collections and see the smiling faces of such happy gardeners. I think I might have missed the dark in it all.

A cool aloe which I couldn’t resist. ‘Snow Fox’ will join my other potted succulents next summer but for now just sits dry and mostly dormant on the dimmer end of the bench.

Just out of curiosity I counted pots in the winter garden. Normally anything under 6 inches doesn’t count, but this time I just went ahead and easily reached 150 pots back there. Hmmm. Then I took a few more cuttings and made it 152, just to slip a little further into the dark side.

This succulent comes in off the deck and spends the next three months flowering. I love it. Every little bit of leaf off the flower stems will try to root, so of course I made another pot of cuttings with those.

At least taking cuttings keeps my hands busy and out of the chip bag. I joke about not having the garden prepared, but at least my hoarding skills have me ‘winter gardening’ prepared. You can never have too many saved pots, and emergency bags of potting soil on hand. It’s awkward sneaking out into the frigid outdoor lot of the box store to try and wrestle a frozen bag of potting soil into your cart, so have it on hand in August so that you don’t have to make up some lame lie about ‘I don’t know, my wife told me she needed potting soil tonight’ when the cashier asks you what in the heck you’re doing. At least I can plan ahead in one area.

I’m quite pleased with how the cane begonia cuttings are doing. They’ll need bigger pots soon enough, but of course I’m prepared for that when the time comes.

Sometimes a rare ray of good fortune may shine upon you. A friend shocked me last year when she informed me they were officially downsizing and leaving their mature garden behind. “I think there will be a few things you’ll want” she said, and of course I agreed, but it was really all the accumulated trash like leftover pots and soil, bits of twine, scraps of fencing, pottery shards, opened bags of soil conditioners that I really wanted. Of course she knew that already. Only another gardener would want this stuff, and when I picked up a carload a few weeks ago I had to agree that I did want it.

More begonias and a cool Oxalis triangularis (maybe ‘Fanny’) which I was given a couple rhizomes of. I’m halfway tempted to pull out and plant a few of the purple leaved ones stored dormant under the shelf as companions to this one.

She gave me a box of terracotta pots which she may have never used. They’re small and there are a bunch of them and they’re much more trouble to move than lightweight plastic but I’m far more scared of them than I am of hundreds of hoarded houseplants because I really love them. What the *heck* is wrong with me that I’m staring at a box of clay pots thinking they’re so nice. I could understand if they were antique cloches for protecting delicate snowdrops during an ice storm, intricate wire topiary forms, but they’re stupid clay pots. I’m worried about what might happen if I start cruising garage and estate sales. I think I might buy every one I come across.

Clay pots and grandma’s geraniums. Cool people don’t seem to like pelargoniums but such a nice edging of variegation on the leaf, and the flowers are so delicate.

At least clay pots don’t have any calories… that I know of…. and so that must make a few too many of them a harmless distraction. As of today I only use them for succulents and a few potted bulbs, so even these are too many, but I really need more. A birthday is coming up. I wonder if putting ‘old, dirty terracotta pots’ on the birthday list could replace the usual underwear and socks?

Another aloe (‘Blue Elf’) with a few flower buds forming. I hope a lack of water and cool temps can keep them from developing too fast. Although I love winter blooms, I’d rather see them come up strong outside rather than spindly and weak in here.

So as usual I don’t really know how this post ended up where it has with underwear and socks. Let me try and re-focus with African violets. My mother used to grow them and so did my aunt. My grandmother grew them. They used to be Saintpaulia, but now I see they’re Streptocarpus sect. Saintpaulia and I’m not sure how that changed anything but I also know that about a year or so ago I needed to grow them again. I know these urges, I resisted. I almost made it but then cracked last fall and bought one and then I asked a friend for cuttings. I found online sources but only looked. I found one marked down. I guilted a spouse into buying me one at the grocery store after a few ‘admit it, you’re never going to wear that, I can’t buy you anything’ Christmas returns. I now have three violets plus two cuttings and I think I’m ok but then realized this afternoon I volunteered to stop at the store just because I thought they might have more. Hmmmm.

An African violet. This weekend will be cold and maybe I’ll take a cutting. I don’t need more but whatever.

African violets don’t have calories either. As far as I know adding another would be a victimless crime even if I’m lying to myself about picking up milk for the kids when I stumble across it. So what if I end up in a grocery store that’s 35 minutes away, it’s always good to shop around.

Have an excellent weekend, stay warm, and fuel that furnace responsibly… even if some of the fuel is chocolate, beer, and cheese 😉

sorta like suburbia

more than you ever wanted to know about my garden