Cool

Mar14

I’m feeling a little guilty since I expected great things for this snowdrop season, but never expected it to go on forever. I’m apologizing. Sorry that every post for the past few months has mentioned ‘snow’-anything, and as the East coast gets a little winter weather, and parts of the West coast tunnel through to find front doors and buried cars, I’m also sorry that there’s no end in sight. I’ll try to be quick.

The view from the street is starting to hint at a snowdrop theme, and I think they’re ready for some more dividing and spreading around this spring for an even better show next year.

These photos were taken yesterday afternoon, and today we’re looking at about four inches of snow covering them, but the white stuff always melts quickly in March, even when a foot or two drops. Fortunately we don’t have that here… Sorry Eliza 😉

Finally a flower that’s not white. Crocus heuffelianus, ‘Tatra shades’ doing well but I bet a little dividing and spreading around (once they go dormant) would make for an even better show next year.

A light snow will highlight any new sprouts and flowers which stand out above the snowline, and surely mark them for decapitation by rabbits, but for a few days at least we were able to enjoy them. The rabbits probably figure out real quick that snowdrops are a yuck thing, but crocus are not, and once they find the first blooms they’ll spend the next night or two searching out every last flower in the yard. Good for them I guess. I do get annoyed when they keep coming back to eat every attempt the crocus make at growing foliage, since it will weaken next year’s show, but for the few days the crocus are in flower I don’t mind sharing… a little…

A white flower which is not a snowdrop (Galanthus). I love snowflakes (Leucojum vernum), and this form, which lacks nearly all the green of the normal tips, is even more special. I need to divide and spread around this and the clump behind so it bulks up quicker and puts on an even better show next year.

So that’s two flowers which are not snowdrops and I feel less sorry again, so back to normal!

Can you tell I never pruned that rose last year? Add that to the list. Also add dividing ‘Augustus’ to the list, he’s the drop in the front and with such nice foliage I think dividing and moving him around to a few new spots would make for an even better show next year.

Did you notice a few snowdrops behind ‘Augustus’? They’re all random patches of the giant snowdrop (Galanthus elwesii) and are quite a few more snowdrops than I need. It’s hard to plant new snowdrops when the spots are already filled with old snowdrops so I might have to address all the less-special clumps and their seedlings this summer. Seedlings. Don’t even get me started on seedlings. I have baby snowdrops coming up in all the wrong places, and even though every snowdrop is special your own babies are even more so which means they all need attention.

I’m guessing this is a seedling of ‘Blonde Inge’ because of the bright yellow inner petals, even though I’m not sure how a seed managed to travel the six feet between here and the mother clump. There are a few more scattered about but they lack the yellow and are just plain green. All of course should be divided and moved to spots of their own for an even better show next year.

Although it’s a good excuse, the gardener here isn’t using the on-again, off-again cool weather and snow as a reason to sit on the computer all day looking at daylily sales. He did already divide and move a few bunches of snowdrops to new locations. To be honest it amounted to about 25 minutes of work between vacuuming plaster dust and scooping ice cream, but it does fall into the work category so that’s a good thing. Take a trowel or small shovel, dig deep to avoid slicing through the deeper bulbs… which for some reason always happens anyway… tease a few bunches apart or take it down to single bulbs if you’re greedy, trowel out a new spot and shove them in at the same depth, give them a little drink to settle in. My gardener uses a water-soluble fertilizer like Miracle-Gro as the drink, but better gardeners with more ambition could work in soil amendments and organic fertilizers to start your new plantings off on a good footing.

The new stone wall will probably need rebuilding some day as a result of poor workmanship, but at least the results of the 20 minutes spent planting these snowdrops will last. I can’t wait to see them settle in for an even better show next year!

There’s snow on the ground, the year is barely off to a start, and I’m already obsessing about next year. Sounds about right. I hate to think what I would waste my time with if it weren’t for the garden, probably something silly like managing retirement investments, or monetizing a youtube channel or Ticktock feed. Who needs that, right?

Enjoy this flashback to winter, and may all your bids on your favorite daylily auction not win especially if you were counting on a lot to not win since that’s a bunch of daylilies even if you have a daylily farm to plant. Yeah 😉

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 😉

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!

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!

A Week of Flowers-Day 7

Dec7

Congratulations to Cathy on another successful Week of Flowers, and all the flowery joy which her and other bloggers have brought to computer screens across the world! I’ve enjoyed the adventure and as expected will wrap things up with one last flowery bulb.

Colchicums!

During the late days of summer and throughout fall, colchicums(autumn crocus if you’d like, but they’re 100% not crocus relatives) bring color to the fading garden. Depending on your frame of mind they’re either the perfect end to the bulb season, or the first heralds of the new growth of fall and winter.

I’ve posted plenty on colchicums in the past, so won’t bore you with too many details, but these bulbs will sprout their hosta-like foliage in the spring, die back for the summer, and then erupt with fresh flowers in the fall just when everything else was starting to look tired.

Colchicums popping up through a groundcover of leadwort.

Even out of bone-dry, late-summer tired soil, colchicums still manage to wake up and look fresh as if everything for the new season will be perfect.

Colors range is white or pinks with single or double flowers. The whites can be really nice although here in my gray planting it might still need some developing.

And that wraps up Cathy’s Week of Flowers. I hope your early December days were brightened by the color, and your long nights refreshed with dreams of flowers past… a good type of refreshing, not a Dickenesque haunting by the ghosts of seasons past… and if you still need some more refreshing, consider it’s just two weeks until the winter solstice and lengthening days strengthening rays and then it starts all over again!

Enjoy your break while it lasts 😉

A Week of Flowers-Day 6

Dec5

The week of flowers continues and I think I’ve stumbled across one of those revelations which probably everyone else already knew, but when it’s about yourself you’re always the last to know. My revelation is that I’m a little bulb obsessed. Any bulb or corm or tuber seems just a bit more special than your average bunch of roots or twigs…. or quite possibly it’s just whatever I’m thinking about that week… and this week it’s bulbs. Whatever. Better to not think too long on things like this since the last time it happened I decided I needed to bring more ‘other’ bulbs into my life, as in adding more Lycoris to the garden. It’s been a painfully slow process waiting for them to get settled in, watching them sulk, wondering if I can blame anyone other than myself for torturing these poor little things, and then one flower comes up and I’m on the computer for hours looking for more info to distract myself with.

Lycoris x squamigera, the hardy magic lilies which thrive in most gardens but not so much here until recently…

Most of the magic lilies aka spider lilies aka hurricane lilies aka nakid ladies are not quite hardy enough for this garden, but several are, and they’re usually the type of flower which sets its roots down, blooms with abandon, and then outlives the gardener and homestead… unless they’re here of course. Here they’ve limped along for years until just recently when they decided to humor me with a few exquisite blooms.

Opening pale yellow, and then fading to a strawberry blush, Lycoris x houdyshelii is a borderline hardy cross which finally sent a single bloom up this summer. I hope I don’t have to wait another three years for the next bloom.

Maybe someday I can report back on the secrets to success with these, but today I think it’s better to just enjoy the flowers and reflect back on the cozy hot and humid summer days of their season.

The peppermint surprise lily (Lycoris x incarnata) is supposed one of the easiest and best growers, and last summer mine acted as such… it just took four years for it to figure that out!

In the South, I’ve been told red spider lilies(Lycoris radiata) grow like weeds. Here in the North their winter foliage can cause problems, but last winter’s mild stretches seemed to make at least one bulb happy. Sadly my other two bulbs decided to rot from all the melting snow runoff, so a 33% success rate is terrible yet it’s also good enough a success rate to fire up my delusions for another few years.

I have high hopes for Lycoris x caldwellii which has been growing in the garden somewhat vigorously for years but only flowered for the first time this summer. I think my plantings need more sun.

So that’s a lot of complaining for day 6, and I apologize, but hopefully the pictures have brought on a few thoughts of your own late-summer flowers, pool-time, and cricket-filled evenings and that’s always a good thing. Another good thing is a visit to Cathy’s Week of Flowers on Words and Herbs and all the additional flowers you’ll see there.

Have a great week!

A Week of Flowers-Day 5

Dec4

I’m taking it easy on day five of Cathy’s Week of Flowers celebration. I guess I don’t party like I used to. Today with a single photo I’m celebrating the heat of late July and the entire month of August, and the hot red flowers of Lobelia cardinalis. This moisture loving North American native plant finally settled in just off the back porch in a somewhat shaded and often damp corner of the house. While the cardinal flowers are in bloom, hummingbirds run a near constant turf war with guards and hit and runs and and the constant chatter of chases and aerial combat. A gardener who sits nearby to enjoy the shelter and shade is guaranteed a face-to-face barrage of insults from some tiny hovering pint-sized fighter pilot. Hummingbirds seem so tiny and cute, but in reality they’re little flying honey badgers.

Cardinal flower filling the end of the shade garden.

Hope you are enjoying your weekend, it’s a beautifully sunny morning here and although it’s also on the cold side, the rest of the week looks tolerable… and by tolerable I mean good shipping weather for a little box of succulents…

Merry Christmas to me!

A Week of Flowers-Day 3

Dec2

My mother’s family is all centered in Northern Germany in the city of Osnabrück, and my mom would tell stories of their summertime beach trips cross the border to the barrier islands off the coast of the Netherlands. It’s really not all that great a distance and to be honest if someday some genetic testing finds a bit of that Dutch-tulip-loving DNA in me I would not be surprised. To me tulips are nice. Obsessively nice, and if someone were to say to me ‘but they’re so much work’, I’d have to point out that my kids aren’t exactly a picnic, and if you’re looking at dollars I would guess one Christmas’ worth of either child’s presents is probably more than I’ve ever spent on tulips… Hmmm. Guess who just had that “what is Santa’s budget this year” discussion?

Tulips in the potager. They’re dug and dried for the summer and replanted in the fall after the tomatoes and peppers freeze off.

Let me just quickly add that in my garden we rarely have tulip-eating vermin such as deer, the rabbits are quite lazy (or full of other plants), and the tulips seem to just like the soil here, enough so that they usually perennialize even when not dug. I know that’s not the case for everyone so please let me enjoy this one success!

Darwin and Triumph tulips mixed into the front perennial border.

A garden filled with tulips and daffodils is one of the best announcements of spring’s arrival.

These are a few of the antique broken tulips of the earliest days of the Dutch tulip industry. I’m still trying to find a spot they like here, for me they’re not nearly as vigorous as the newer types.

Fortunately tulip season is followed by irises and peonies and clematis and a billion other amazing spring flowers. If that wasn’t the case I’d probably need medication and a few days in a dim room by myself in order to recover from the high.

Tomorrow will be a quick post. It’s hard to move on from tulips. Thanks Cathy for giving me the excuse to revisit one of my favorite times of the year, and if you’d also like to revisit more floralific seasons give Words and Herbs a visit for more of Cathy’s Week of Flowers

A Week of Flowers-Day 2

Dec2

Okay, so it’s only day two of Cathy’s Week of Flowers and I’m already cheating a bit. These are the flowers of my winter garden, a fancy name I like to use when referring to the fluorescent shop lights in the back of the (slightly) heated garage. From now until the weather warms again it will be my garden home base where I sow seeds, strike cuttings, repot and pot up all the plants which don’t mind living on the cool side, but prefer not to freeze.

Geraniums (Pelargonium cvs) don’t mind cold nights and cool days and will flower all winter.

Amaryllis (Hippeastrum) are almost a required flower for any indoor grower. This treasure was given to me by a friend who collected and grew on seed from one of his own bulbs. I love it!

In a good winter I’ll have a few primula seedlings potted up and ready to crack out of the ice mid-winter, to bring indoors to force along. Sadly this year the primula seedlings were a neglected bust…

On and off through the winter an occasional succulent will throw up a flower stalk. This Echeveria (E. diffractens I believe) is usually quick to develop flowers once it comes indoors, showing off this bright orange explosion of color from December into February.

Hopefully no one has been offended by all these mentions of cold and winter and ice, but I’m sure Kathy has fired up the troops and there are more summerly visions of flowers if you need some warming up! Give Cathy’s Week of Flowers a visit for all the links and I’m sure she’ll have a good dose of color from her own garden as well. Enjoy!

sorta like suburbia

more than you ever wanted to know about my garden

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