Snowdropping ’23

Feb26

It’s a shameful fact that for as much as I talk up the year’s snowdropping adventure, I also drag my feet in getting the post up. It’s been a week. A week and a little, and I need to stop going through the pictures again and again, reliving the day, and just get them out there with as little babbling as possible. Fortunately the morning is cold so maybe for a few minutes I can be productive while the flowers here soak in the sun before standing back up… and again completely distract me.

Naturalized snowdrops (Galanthus nivalis), winter aconite (Eranthis hiemalis) and spring snowflakes (Leucojum vernus) in a Pennsylvania park.

I started the morning on my own, wandering through a Philly area park admiring the century old blanket of snowdrops and other spring bulbs which carpet the now neglected former estate. There used to be a dream that I’d stumble upon some priceless new variation in white here, but over the years I’ve become satisfied with just seeing them greet the spring each year and carry on unbothered. Between my crawling through the underbrush and bending over backwards to admire trees it’s a miracle I haven’t yet left the park on crutches after tumbling down a rocky embankment, but so far so good.

When planting trees always remember proper spacing and mature height.

I survived, and so off to meet Paula at her garden. It’s been a few years since I’ve had a full-sun, comfortably warm visit there, and this year we made it a priority.

The patches of snowdrops are becoming sheets!

I always get stupidly excited to see all the bulbs in bloom, but this year to see it all in full sun with the blooms wide open I may have let out a naughty word as I got out of the car. That’s a lot of &*^@g snowdrops was my eloquent first impression.

I always love the mossy bed surrounding this ugly old ‘Kwanzan’ cherry tree. There’s so much character in the tree and even though it’s a pain fighting the roots and keeping it in shape I hope it stays for a number of years.

It’s hard taking it all in yet finding the time to focus on all the different forms. She has quite a few and there’s a story behind nearly every last one. Fortunately Paula knows me well enough to not get offended when we’re talking about one clump and suddenly I turn to take a picture of something else or jump over to a new plant!

A big clump of a big drop, ‘Rodmarton Regulus’.

My wish list always grows during these garden visits.

One of the greenest of the greens, galanthus ‘Green Mile’.

A growing clump of ‘Amy Doncaster’

The witch hazel Hamamelis x ‘Princeton Gold’

There was something other than snowdrops which really caught my eye (besides the hellebores and witch hazels), and that was the pink viburnum (Viburnum x bodnantense ‘Pink Dawn’) in full bloom. It actually caught my nose, and I followed the scent over to where the shrub was tucked into the shrubby edge of the garden. Of course I’ve already looked for a source 😉

The fragrant pink blooms of Viburnum x bodnantense ‘Pink Dawn’

With all the distractions, this visit was running into our typical behind-schedule run-mode, but because we sometimes know our limits we made sure to pencil only one more garden into the day.

White snowdrops, blue reticulated iris, and a bunch of other things spread around the driveway slope of Paula’s garden.

It’s almost time for the Galanthus Gala, and Paula’s got a bunch of stuff dug and potted for the day, but that doesn’t mean there’s not more planning and preparation needed. I knew she was headed over to David Culp’s Brandywine Cottage to meet with David that afternoon and discuss, so of course I invited myself along.

The fenced in vegetable garden feels like the heart of the gardens at Brandywine Cottage, and even in the middle of February there’s a jewelbox bed of floral treasures outside the gate.

The gardens were at a snowdrop peak and I don’t even know why I’m bothering to post since books have been written and photos taken which are far superior, but it was an exciting visit and David was nice enough to say ‘post what you want, I enjoy reading your blog’…. um, did you catch that? David Culp said he knows I have a blog and says he might have read it? Honestly I’ll probably try and work that into nearly every conversation I have from this snowdrop season beyond, and I hope it’s not too embarrassing when he finds out.

Yellow on yellow with winter aconite and a nice yellow hellebore with just a faint blush of speckling.

Oh and also these pictures. David’s last two books, ‘The Layered Garden’ and ‘A Year at Brandywine Cottage’ were photographed by Rob Cardillo, so I hope I don’t embarrass myself on that level as well since all my photos rely on luck rather than skill.

Plantings along the driveway. There was actually an apology that we missed the lavender sheet of crocus which had mostly ended.

Not the fanciest view of the cottage, but this view shows how every bed of the garden is layered with snowdrops, snowflakes, winter aconite and other goodies which shine before the perennials and shrubs take center stage.

David and Micheal know how to live, and ‘A Year at Brandywine Cottage’ sounds real fancy with decorating suggestions, planting ideas, and delicious recipes and all the things you like to see in a book, but the crazy thing is that’s just Tuesday to them. You pull up on a Wednesday and there’s a bowl filled with floating hellebore blooms, celeriac soup with a crème fraîche, a toasty living room with fire burning, cutflowers, winter arrangements inside and out, friends pulling into the driveway… It’s pretty cool.

Paths through the garden, snowdrops are settling in everywhere.

There was a bunch of snowdrop talk. There was also snowdrop work which was in progress, but you’ll have to wait until the gala to hear more of that since the heart of it was going on in the growing beds. Clumps were being selected for dividing and potting up in order to fill the sales table, and for the sake of honesty I had to steer clear of any place where shovels and fancy snowdrops were close to one another. We headed round to the meadow and up through the hillside instead.

Paths meander throughout the sloped areas of the garden. If you’re familiar with ‘The Layered Garden’ you’ll know this all began with a noxious, weed-filled slope and a run-down shell of a cottage.

Treasures are tucked throughout the hillside.

Of course we stayed too long. The light was already dimming as we meandered back off the hillside.

Hellebores and a million other things cover every inch of the slope, and there’s much more slope than you can see here. In another week or two the scene will completely change as all the narcissus come in and the hellebores really get blooming.

The hillside is filled with hellebores, and for many people ‘Brandywine’ is more a strain of hybrid hellebores rather than a cottage. There’s a reason for that. Early on in the development of modern hellebores David asked friends overseas for the best and brought back a bunch of these to the US to start ‘dabbling’ with his own hybrid strain. He wanted a few “nice ones” for the slope and needed more than just divisions could supply, so over the years the ‘Brandywine Hybrids’ came into being. They were my first experience with a more upscale hellebore and the strain made plants with clearer colors and more outward facing blooms available to even the more average gardener.

A red section of the slope just getting started. Notice they’ve all been trimmed back of their old foliage. Thousands of plants all trimmed neatly and the debris removed…

A perfect combination of structured shrubs, background evergreens, and spring enthusiasm.

So hellebores are awesome, but for a little while longer all my focus is on snowdrops and snowdrop galas. David Culp’s snowdrop gala is set for this upcoming weekend (March 3rd and 4th) and will again make Downingtown Pa the epicenter of American galanthophiles, either in person or in spirit. There will be online events, in-person and virtual talks, auctions, and Q&As, plus my favorite part the specialty vendors. I’ve been good and only contacted one seller for a super-special plant, but that doesn’t mean my budget ends with that. There’s a reason I’ve been holding back with online sales 😉

So maybe I’ll see you there, maybe I’ll see you online, maybe I’m glad this weekend worked out well and didn’t disrupt my plans on attending, but however it works out I hope you’re having a great end of February!

Snowy Drops

Feb23

Sorry, but a little snow isn’t going to stop the madness.

Snowdrops with winter aconite and a few cyclamen.

Here’s ‘Kildare’ again. The white of the snow really brings out his green nose.

‘Aphrodite’ is one of the newer witch hazels here and has been settling in well.

1 bloom, 1 bloom, no show, no bloom, no bloom, one bloom. That’s my record so far in the six years ‘Norfolk Blonde’ has been painfully tolerating the conditions of this garden. This year to add insult to injury, a pale drop I found in a wild Ny population is putting out two blooms, and they look just as special as the blonde I paid for and have been nursing along. #shadenfreude

‘Blonde Inge’ again. I love the clump this year and now with a little snow the yellow interior seems to glow through.

I’ve been informed this in not the real ‘Magnet’ and for now on I shall refer to it as ‘Notmagnet’. I bought a “Real Magnet” and it’s kind of behind and a little to the right of center and looks just like ‘Notmagnet’ except for the label being different. Don’t let a stray ‘Notmagnet’ on the far right distract you from the ‘Real Magnet’ just next to it, and just for the record I like ‘Notmagnet’ a lot because he’s a good doer.

eranthis orange glow galanthus backhouse spectacles

This orange ‘Orange Glow’ Eranthis hiemalis really is aglow today in the snow. The spot where I threw all his seed last year was scraped by a bulldozer so I’m hoping for a new batch this spring.

‘Rosemary Burnham’ did indeed hold on to her color this year as a result of the cooler weather and refreshing snow. She’s looking very elegant to me.

And that was fast. This post only took about 30 minutes, but getting distracted by other snowdrop pictures, previous blog posts, Facebook snowdrop pictures, witch hazels, long term weather predictions, and potato pancakes all took their toll and brought the full investment to about two and a half hours. Hmmm. Me thinks someone is easily distracted 😉

No Apologies

Feb19

The contractor was supposed to put sheetrock up in the closet, and I did have plans to get a few coats of spackle on it and hopefully be able to paint by Monday, but he didn’t. Thank goodness for that. All of a sudden he’s the bad guy and I “can’t do anything more until the sheetrock is up”, and spent the whole Saturday looking at snowdrops. To make it look good I cleaned the kitchen while waiting for the sun to warm things up outside, but for the most part I was 100% unproductive. Maybe I needed that today. We’re dealing with a child who can now ask about borrowing the car, and that’s somewhat traumatic since all I can think of is never having a full tank of gas again.

The first of today’s favorites, ‘Kildare’. An elegant Irish snowdrop with a nice green lined tip.

Actually he seems to have gotten it in his head that he’s also buying a car. Maybe now is the time to break the news that their car/college fund has been “invested” in snowdrops and there’s not much left in the cupboard for things like insurance, gas, and new vehicles.

Finally. The ‘like a weed’ snowdrop which thrives for anyone and everyone has quit being miserable here and is now growing like he should. ‘Flore pleno’ is the basic double form of the common snowdrop (Galanthus nivalis) and can quickly make large, showy clumps… for most gardeners.

He’s not getting the car tomorrow though. Tomorrow is Snowdropping ’23 and the car and myself are heading South for a full day of snowdrop overload. Hopefully it will be like pre-gaming for the Galanthus Gala, although if next Saturday’s snow materializes it will tragically erase my gala dreams by rescheduling a school competition to conflict with the gala. Oh the irony of a nearly snowless winter bringing a storm on the exact day when I need it to not snow. Grrrrrrr…..

Alongside the potager a more recent snowdrop bed is beginning to fill with goodies. ‘Long Drop’ is quite a nice snowdrop even though I don’t really need another plain white drop becoming a new favorite. It is though…

Whatever. The weather started out cold and ended up beautiful and that’s all that mattered today. Many drops are up and many are at their peak, and I’m going to quit commenting on how remarkably early this is for us even though it is.

‘Bloomer’ has become a nice patch, and I’m pretty sure I share a photo of this favorite every spring.

Next week is supposed to be cooler and if it is I might not even complain as much about missing garden time and going to work. With the Monday being a holiday that’s also a great thing. I think I’ll celebrate it as Galanthus Day this year rather than President’s Day.

A new one for me, Galanthus fosterii, is a species snowdrop with large flowers and fresh green foliage. It’s supposed to be a little picky about its spot in the garden so if you don’t see a photo next year you can probably guess what happened.

Whatever. The garden season is off and running and I could get used to this.

Snowdrops still a little floppy after a 23F night wilted them all down. Hopefully real cold and a dump of snow don’t still come to visit this winter.

‘Blonde Inge’ sprouted up in three days. I guess things are done waiting it out and just growing as if it’s March. The warm weather tomorrow will open these up and should reveal their glowing yellow inners.

So of course I’ll have more to report after tomorrow’s excursion and hopefully it’s as good as they normally are. I’ll be with snowdrop nuts all day, how can it not be? Enjoy!

A Beautiful Day in February

Feb17

Wednesday was beautiful and I got home just in time to see the latest blooms opening under the soft glow of evening night. That sounds exceptionally fantastic. In reality I ran into the house, ignored the family, grabbed the camera, and rushed outside to grab some pictures before it became too dark for my mediocre photographic skills. I almost made it all around the garden before dusk. Things are great and beginning to enter the territory of full bloom, and it’s disgusting I have to work for a living.

‘Diggory’ is completely up and open and has taken on his distinctive ‘puff’ shape. He’s really an exceptional snowdrop.

I’ll try to be quick today.

Alongside the driveway snowdrops and winter aconite are now joining with the pinks of the first cyclamen coum flowers. This is my favorite early spring combination of blooms.

Alan Street’s ‘Blewbury Tart’ is a favorite of many snowdrop lovers. For good reason.

‘Green Brush’ is picky here, and I’ve had to take up offers for replacements twice already, but he still stands out as an excellent green tipped snowdrop. I hope he continues to multiply in this spot.

There was no begging an offset of ‘Ronald Mackenzie’ from anyone. In a moment of insanity the gardener bought one of these “difficult to please in the garden” yellow snowdrops and is still holding his breath on year two, even though Ronald seems to tentatively approve of his planting site.

An orange snowdrop? I almost gave a little gasp when I saw the tinted glow on ‘Anglesey Orange Tip”. Last year I missed it (the color fades as the flower opens fully) but this year it’s unmistakable.

More snowdrops are yet to come, but today the front border along the street is beginning to gain a respectable show of yellow winter aconites. As an aside, it appears the gardener tried to get a stepping stone path started last year, but it also looks like he came up a little short…

‘Rosemary Burnham’ comes up with her deepest saturation of green and then fades either slowly or rapidly depending on the sun and temperature. If it gets cold tomorrow (which is predicted) this color should last nicely!

‘Brenda Troyle’ is one of the first named snowdrops planted here, and it’s nice to think that all the single bulbs will eventually become similar clumps given nine years of growing.

Hopefully that wasn’t too bad. This weekend I’m planning to get in my annual snowdropping adventure to points South, so of course that always deserves a post of its own, and in just about two weeks (March 3&4) there’s David Culp’s Galanthus Gala in Downingtown Pa. That’s a lot, so don’t start looking for a break in the snowdrop posts just yet. If all goes well there are many more to come so keep that “oh nice Frank, good for you” comment ready ’cause I’m barely getting started.

Earliest Spring Ever

Feb14

We can usually squeak our last day of local skiing in during the first week of March, but this year the middle of February will be stretching it. Spring seems to be here. Not Easter dress, bouquets of tulips spring, more of a garden waking up, could still get buried in snow kind of season where you’re somewhere after mud season but not yet ready to put the winter coat away completely. None of that makes sense, but maybe it does, and I suspect that’s a reason you still read this blog rather than just skim the pictures… not that I could blame you for skimming, it’s all just snowdrop nonsense again!

Winter aconite (Eranthis hyemalis) and snowdrops (Galanthus nivalis) next to the driveway.

Although it’s been remarkably warm the plants still don’t seem to have that urgency you see after a March blizzard melts and everything erupts. Tulips and daffodils are still lying low and only a few crocus have started sprouting. The snowdrops seem eager but a few are still holding back as if they’re also a little apprehensive regarding the calendar. Whatever. I declared spring last week and spring it is. The entire garden was finished off this weekend and nearly every bed is cleaned of winter debris and cleared of tired hellebore and epimedium foliage.

Just like my definition of spring’s arrival bucks the trends, my ‘cleaned up’ beds will also not please everyone out there. There are still leaves everywhere, but at least the birch trees were power-washed last fall, so thank goodness for that!

A good amount of rain is forecast for Thursday and that combined with more warm will likely get everything sprouting. Even a cold Friday night (just in time for the weekend) won’t be enough to stop the progress.

More leafy beds. ‘Richard Ayres’ in the center is looking better than he ever has, the mild weather has spared this early bird from his normal beatings.

You may have noticed I allow quite a few leaves to stay on my beds and if you really insist on knowing more I’ll be happy to go on and on about it. Around here my autumn cleanup has been reduced to barely cleaning out beds, mowing all the leaves up from the lawn, and then just dumping the chopped mulch over whatever lays there to cover it all up in a nice consistent chopped leaf look. I act like it’s a careless activity but to be honest I’m almost neurotic about stray grass seedheads falling into the mulch and having their beige-ness contaminate the brown-ness, and having spots where there are too many whole leaves, and not enough chopped bits to settle everything down, and…

This spot by the compost has just enough broken bits of twigs and small leaves to look like it just happened. Even the bit of brick looks like it was just left where it fell rather than placed there because I liked the mossy look of it.

So is it obsession or just some elaborate story being spun to cover up a sloppy cleanup? Maybe I don’t even know myself, but I do know my policy of mowing whatever I can saves me from a ton of trips to the compost pile. Weeding and compost turning and digging and hauling are a bunch of work so why not throw everything on the lawn, suck it up with the mower and then use it elsewhere (or back in the same bed) as a mulch to keep down the weeds? Saturday there were piles of hellebore leaves heaped on the lawn, Sunday there was a nice mulch smothering the bittercress in the tropical bed. I think that’s a win-win.

This is the first spring I’ve ever actually seen ‘Egret’ show it’s distinctive upward curl to her petals. Exciting? Of course. It doesn’t take much with snowdrops.

So it’s not even mid February and the garden is already tour-ready. I’ll be spending the next few weeks leading tours through the garden and reminding visitors to follow the official snowdrop path and to not stray into the moss garden. I’m sure everyone will be thrilled with my snowdrop stories and of course be amazed by my name dropping. Boy will I be busy.

A few years ago a friend gave me a tiny sliver of the yellow snowdrop ‘Dryad Gold Bullion’. She’s done well and even if she looks similar to her ‘Wendy’s Gold’ parent, I think she’s slightly more vigorous.

When the tour buses stop I wonder if they’ll notice the still-not-repaired bulldozer tracks across the yard, the scaffolding, and the piles of gravel and scrap siding. And the mud. Hmmm. Maybe in my enthusiasm I’m missing a few things but such runs the passions when spring comes knocking, even if winter was all of 8 days this year 😉

The First day of Spring

Feb5

I’m sticking to my guns and declaring today the first day of spring. Non gardeners will spend the next three months whining and complaining about cold weather and chilly winds but some people are only happy when they’re complaining, so good for them. The sun was out and the temperatures shot up to sweatshirt weather and I did next to nothing all day, just sat around and then sat around some more. My second coffee probably took an hour to finish and hopefully I didn’t get a sunburn in the process since I was outside for that plus another few hours sitting, wandering, sitting, poking, sitting, uncovering…

The yellow snowdrops are my favorites. Here’s ‘Wendy’s Gold’ fully up for the season and pristine after spending a few days under a bucket.

In case you’re wondering how things made it through the frigid cold, they’re fine. So many things were starting to grow and I had my doubts about all those tender sprouts but only a few things took a hit and the majority look ready to take on the season at full speed. I’m glad the cold was so short lived, I think that made a huge difference.

‘Rodmarton’ wasn’t even covered and still looks good. As far as double snowdrops go I like this one a lot, with green tipped, fat blooms that stand high on sturdy stalks.

So now that spring is here I shall also announce the start of the over-sharing season where this blog fills with a monotony of white and green and sometimes yellow flowers which vary about as much as an island full of golden retrievers. Hmm. How’s that for an image? Shipwrecked sailors would run the risk of being licked to death but would likely lose consciousness first from laughing too much. But yeah, lots of snowdrops on the way so fair warning.

‘Sutton Courtney’ is also up and open. I love this one as well and she seems to be on the mend again after the gardener stupidly dumped several inches of soil on this bed to raise it some more without replanting the bulbs higher. Don’t do that.

Maybe winter will return. Maybe you’ll get a break. I don’t think so though, so if you’re going to try and stick around just get those standard ‘looks nice’, ‘oh I love them’ comments ready and you won’t even have to read a post since they’re all going to be nearly the same.

At least I’m excited. Hope you have a great week!

That Was Rough

Feb5

We are on the fourth day of winter here and there’s even a dusting of snow on the ground to make it look serious. People were finally zipping up their winter coats and by Friday most of the mountain lakes had ice extending from shore to shore. Seeing winter weather here was half a relief until I looked at the ten day forecast and saw at least three days next week where the daytime high was over 50F(10C), so calm down. Don’t pull out the ice fishing equipment just yet.

The snowdrops (Galanthus ‘Colossus’) are mostly wilted and flat in the cold. That’s a good thing actually.

Based on the daily news reports I’m sure everyone was aware that cold weather was headed across much of the US this week. I’m actually surprised there were no evacuation postings based on the way they were describing it, with dramatic windchill predictions, ‘record-breaking’, ‘life-threatening’ lows and all the dangers associated. Maybe someone even named the cold front. Cold front “Karl” is bearing down on the Northeast, buy your milk and bread (minus the egg$) now!!! before the brutal assault begins.

I did manage to bucket a few clumps and then threw fleece over this bed for good measure after ‘Mrs Macnamara’ and ‘Barnes’ flexed their previously damaged foliage and made me feel guilty about neglecting them last time.

Today when I woke up we were down to -2F (-19C). That’s about right in line with a normal winter low, even if this winter has been nothing close to normal. I strolled around a little in the afternoon when the thermometer had risen to around 20F and things might not be too bad. In spite of how advanced many of the sprouts were, two days of cold prior to the plunge allowed plants to get ready for the blast. The witch hazel curled up and the snowdrops went limp. Limp, sugar concentrated snowdrops don’t freeze as well and the wilted foliage doesn’t burst as easily from expanding ice crystals. Tomorrow when spring arrives we will see what bounces back. Hopefully most everything will since the coldest weather was just one night and things were somewhat ready for it. Nature can be smart, probably smarter than an idiot teen who needs to be told to go back into the house and put on a coat before this car is going anywhere for goodness sakes it’s not even 8 degrees out…

It was so nice and sunny (yet cold) Thursday after work that I did go a little overboard with the freeze protection. Cut evergreen boughs, buckets and fleece were doled out for the most precious and precocious of the snowdrops.

I really can’t blame the teen entirely. His father is the one who planted all these European and Asian snowdrops and witch hazels, and thought a winter garden would be a good idea in a climate which welcomes brutal winters. He’s not exactly the brightest either but let’s not dwell on that right now.

Even the regular golden winter aconites(Eranthis hiemalis) are thumbing their noses at this winter. In another week they’ll be sprouting up everywhere with an enthusiasm better suited to March.

So in another moment of brightness I’m declaring the winter of ’22-’23 to be over. February and March can be cold here but I’m giving up on winter, and next week everything is being uncovered and I’m starting the official spring cleanups regardless of historical averages. I should be disturbed and cautious but that’s our world these days and I’m saying it’s time to plan for snowdrop season and make a few calls for this spring’s snowdropping adventures. Giddyap I say and plan on making the best of the warmth!

Spring in January

Jan30

Saturday was awesome. Nearly 50F (10C) and sunny, with just a touch of wind kicking up in the afternoon, it was the kind of weather which might be a touch warm for an Irishman but for me it was a perfect spring day… in winter of course. We are still in a weather pattern which has been luring more and more plants out of the ground and into harm’s way, and things could come crashing down any minute. Actually that minute might be this Friday night when a front is threatening to knock lows down to about zero (-17C) so we will see.

The warmth and sun have coaxed the pale yellow winter aconite (Eranthis hiemalis) into full bloom. These flowers will melt in the cold, but the plants should survive to try again in spring 2024…

Oh my gosh I have so much random babbling to get out of my system that I barely know where to start. Perhaps complaining about a lack of blog views is a perfect place to begin since I’m already on to the woe is me, the weather is getting cold for two days, pity party. 2022 ended and my stats are the lowest numbers since 2014. Rough calculations on my part show that in that same period of time the global population has grown by 253 million, so as you can see it’s even worse than you would think since even a quarter billion supposedly tech-savy babies can’t be bothered to visit my blog. Shall I change my business model or content? Maybe branch out into alternate platforms and super-connect with social media? Heh heh, you know me better than that, obviously continued laziness will be my answer, and you can expect few to none on those new tricks on the horizon.

Galanthus ‘Bess’, with ‘Richard Ayres’ behind will suffer melted blooms in near zero cold, ‘Bess’ will probably be the worst just as she was two years ago from another freeze but maybe the lazy head gardener can cover a few things to help them along.

I happened to notice my visitor stats when I received notification that 2023 will be my ten year anniversary at Sorta Like Suburbia. You can take my word that a ten year anniversary on a blog which I don’t think I started that long ago did not help me feel any younger for a recent birthday celebration. Also not helping were reminders that in another year I will be eligible for senior discounts at most of the local restaurants.

Galanthus ‘Castle Plum’ is so perfect today, and one of my favorites for an early snowdrop. Still only one bulb after several years but who am I to pressure him to start having babies?

Obviously this gardener is not the type who gets bubbly and excited for his birthday, just in case you didn’t notice. My thrill was that the weather was beautiful and my celebration was being able to finish cleaning out enough of the front street border so that the earliest flowers can come up through something other than dead twigs and windblown trash. It might be early. It might be too early, but things are coming up anyway and if I wait longer my clumsy footsteps will do more damage to the plants than this and other likely-to-still-come hard freezes.

This hellebore (unlike others in the garden) doesn’t usually suffer from extreme cold snaps. I’ll let you know how it makes it through this one.

By the way, I also noticed that my earliest posts from the golden days of this blog were much shorter and far wittier. Maybe I should at least make an effort to keep this short.

More pale eranthis (only pale ones since the normal dark yellows are still waiting for warmer days). Some of these snowdrops might make it, but they’ve also lost flowers in freezes in years past.

…and more helpful. Posts about how things should be grown and what you shouldn’t do (I’m very good at that!) might be something to reconsider rather than endless whining about how we are finally going to have two cold nights this winter.

‘Mrs Macnamara’ rarely makes it through a winter here without a beating from the cold. Last winter was so rough on her she’s actually blooming a bit sparsely this year, and if she wasn’t such a good grower I’d have sent her to a more Southern garden years ago.

So here’s my tip for sudden freezes while your plants are already in growth. Buy a greenhouse. Fill it with hardy things like snowdrops and cyclamen so that a broken heater isn’t the end of the world and it might be a fantastic diversion for when the arctic visits. It will be a great place for ‘Mrs Macnamara’ and she deserves it, doesn’t she?

‘Daphne’s Scissors’ will probably not appreciate the cold but might also be just fine. When I was reviewing this photo I noticed the vertebrae of some poor little creature’s spine at the base of the clump. I guess the garden is always an up and down, life or death kind of place.

So I don’t know how we ended up on the topic of greenhouses. Hmmm. More economical advice will be to invert an empty pot or bucket over these tender shoots and maybe that will help with icy winds or possibly to catch a few degrees of protection. It will be worth it and I’m already preparing a scolding for myself for not bothering.

The Turning of the Tides

Jan27

I had a nice surprise Tuesday morning on the way to work. The normally dark and gloomy ride was brightened up by something I haven’t seen in a while, a sunrise. To call it a sunrise is giving the event a bunch more credit than it deserves, but it was a pinkish glow spread across the edges of a smattering of clouds and was much nicer than the black abyss I’ve gotten used to over the last few weeks. It’s a hopeful moment. There will still be plenty a day before I can walk into work with an actual sun over the horizon, but until then a promising glow in the morning counts for a lot.

With or without morning sun, the first of the witch hazels (Hammamelis x ‘Pallida’) has opened up for a full-bloom show of color in the otherwise bleak landscape.

The promise of seeing daylight again on the ride to work is a nice affirmation that days really are getting longer and spring will someday be more than an idea. Nice isn’t always good though, since this week typically brings the very coldest days of the season, and getting all sentimental and hopeful weeks too early can be torture when a string of snowstorms rolls through from February to March. Actually it can get expensive as well. People get delusional about expanding vegetable gardens and starting viburnum collections and planting new cannas everywhere. People can also get judgmental toward delusional gardeners, and let me state clearly here that that’s not ok. You should never be judgmental about people just trying to make the world a better place, and that’s exactly what a February gardener is trying to do with their not-as-well-planned-as-they-could-be new plant decisions.

First blooms on a new little witch hazel. ‘Spanish Spider’ was a totally unplanned and perhaps unnecessary purchase which is proving itself invaluable and essential this week.

For now on I will consider midwinter purchases as brilliant, perhaps genius, foresight. Leave the bean-counting to accountants and go ahead and buy as many bean seeds as you think your ‘Year of the Bean’ needs. Tell the naysayers they’re the type who would drive unrecognized genius to cut off an ear, and unless they want to be part of the problem they should instead help choose a nice yellow Romano pole bean to go with the heirloom purple.

More pale yellow Eranthis hiemalis are hearing the call of spring…. or maybe winter… they are also called winter aconites after all.

So enough with the aimless babbling and back to the garden. We’re still running a good bit above average temperatures. Skiing is happening but the ice fishermen are still on the sidelines, and plants are still trying to start growing just a little too early.

Peony shoots always seem to come up too early. These Peonia daurica buds look awfully exposed but they’re really quite hardy. At least that’s one thing I won’t have to worry about.

Fingers crossed that the early sprouts mean an early spring, and not a disaster of melted and blackened tender foliage in a month or two’s time. A few things are still reeling from December’s blast.

The fall blooming snowdrops (G. elwesii ‘Barnes’ in this case) did not appreciate going from North Carolina to Newfoundland in 12 hours. I see new growth though, so I suspect all is not lost.

A Sternbergia lutea (autumn daffodil?) which might be worse than it looks. All the browned damage is right close to the bulb and the rest of the leaf might follow as the damage works its way down.

Another Sternbergia lutea just a few inches away, further out into the garden which should have been more exposed and therefore damaged, but no, it looks untouched. The narrower foliage could mean something, and it’s also from a different source. Maybe it’s just variations in the species, but who knows?

Some of the hardy cyclamen (C. hederifolium and C. coum) were blasted by the cold, but I know they’ll recover, and by the looks of these early buds there’s still a good chance for an excellent spring flowering.

Obviously I can’t leave off on a gardening report with a down note on snowdrops. They’re inching forward, and hopefully still pace themselves in spite of the continuous above average temperatures.

The double ‘Ophelia’ is moving right along and should make a great show in a few more weeks. Unlike some, I don’t think she’s ever been bothered by a later freeze.

A few snowdrops are always eager to get started. Some years it’s cold enough to hold them back to bloom alongside the later varieties, other years they pop up early, hopefully miss the worst weather, and the season is extended that many more weeks:)

‘Wendy’s Gold’ will bloom during the next nice day, I suspect Sunday or Monday… right before the possibility of two actual winter days… maybe…

So snowdrops are still good just in case you were worried, and by the way the winter garden is also still good even if winter hasn’t been as healthy as he should be.

Another year of seed cleaning and sorting is finished and now my little coffee table is all tidied up and set for the main round of seed sowing.

It’s all the usual suspects under the lights, plus a few pots of daylily seedlings for the farm. If all goes well this will become a deliciously overgrown mess again by May.

There’s always a few new things. Someone gave me a bromeliad (Neoregelia) last summer and after a billion hours of online bromeliad searching I can proudly say I still only have one and I also haven’t moved to the tropics to grow them better. Go me!

I wish I could say the same for succulents. Who knew 20 bucks on Etsy could get you a tiny box of 10 mixed Echeveria agavoides cuttings!!?? 20 more bucks can get a handful of lithop seedlings to show up at your doorstep!!

So not to brag, I think I’m handling the depths of winter quite well. Witch hazels on the way, snowdrops in bloom, and exciting things under the grow lights. I could get used to these non-winters… assuming the two days of cold next week don’t become a habit… but even if they do there’s still always those longer days, the stronger sun, and there’s only so much winter can do against that.

Have a great weekend!

Into the New Year

Jan15

It’s been a bit chilly this weekend, and this morning’s low of 21F (-6C) is about as close to normal as we’ve come this month. A January thaw isn’t all that unusual for the region, but having the entire month with each and every day at above average temperatures is. Next weekend the longer range forecast has Friday night going one degree below average, but that might be our only chance for the month. I was raking last Sunday rather than skiing, and that level of productivity on a day of rest is far less my style than bumming around on a ski lift.

The first of the Asian witch hazels are opening, with Hamamelis x ‘Pallida’ in the lead.

On the plus side I was able to spread a compost mulch over the last neglected snowdrop bed and start trimming hellebores. Things are starting to sprout and I’ll take the warm weather as one last chance to finish last autumn’s cleanup and freshen things up for the approaching snowdrop season. According to my far-less-than-scientific records, this winter has echoes of 2021, which barely tried to get cold until the end of January, and then sat us in snow and cold until March… which sounds complainy but was actually perfect for holding everything back until it could sprout more sensibly. 2021 might have been my best snowdrop season so I apologize if it sounds like I’m wishing for cold to come just so things here develop well 😉

This double red hellebore is always eager to sprout, and maybe I can trim off the old foliage this afternoon. The autumn leaves are staying though, I’ve reached the point where nearly every leaf which falls in the garden remains in situ.

Even if arctic cold never develops (beyond that little try at an ice age in December) I’m 98% sure this winter and spring will be amazing. I have buds showing on new snowdrops and color developing on new witch hazels and dreams of an astounding 2023. The only roadblock I see is catalog browsing, which has been a tad addictive the last few weeks. I blame the long nights and too cold to do anything/ not cold enough to do other things weather, plus some delusion that I need to order obscure bulbs and shrubs which will haunt me all summer waiting to be planted. The last few years have been fairly restrained as far as buying new plants so maybe I deserve something? But no! That kind of thinking is so dangerous during the post-Holiday season when I’m dealing with cookie withdrawal.

Unlike many of the other early snowdrops, Galanthus ‘Faringdon Double’ lucked out with the December cold, and appears to have settled in well for her second year here.

I’ll have to retire to the winter garden and do some repotting and watering to get my mind off hardy crinums and early blooming viburnums. There’s plenty to do in there with budding amaryllis and flowering cyclamen and cuttings which need more room. I have to see where I’m going with things this year since a casual count of pots is already close to 200 and I haven’t even seriously begun in there. Oops.

The first winter aconite. A pale yellow sort of Eranthis hiemalis which always blooms a few weeks earlier than her brothers. If the weather stays mild they’re fantastic, if the weather turns harsh they freezer burn.

Actually I should go work on the closet organizers. That’s honest work which makes me look productive even if I’m about as excited about carpentry as I am for doing my taxes, but at least it’s more rewarding and it keeps me out of the garden (mostly). Perhaps I need more stain and a run to the box store is in order, and as a reward someone gets to look over their succulent selections for a little carpenter’s treat to take home along with the stain purchase. Hmmm. That would be the fourth ‘carpenter’s treat’ this month, and obviously not helping the pot count.

Have a great week and obviously a 4$ succulent on a stain run doesn’t count as a plant purchase and is still a better choice than a 6$ coffee or ice cream… not that I’m really ruling out the icecream…

sorta like suburbia

more than you ever wanted to know about my garden