A Dull Boy

May30

We are just wrapping up Memorial Day here, so a three day weekend of remembrance and outdoor eating has come to an end and tomorrow is back to work. Going back to work might be a bit of a relief since I’m tired and sore and could probably use some time at a desk rather than behind a shovel, but this time of year there’s always more to do in the garden than time to do it. At least I got to play a little on Saturday when friends twisted my arm for a garden visit and afterwards we took a spin out to the local garden center to see what’s new.

With an introduction date of 1992, the iris ‘Ominous Stranger’ seems like a newer one… until I do the math and realize that’s 30 years ago! This smoldering color looks fine close up but in the garden competing with yellowing tulip foliage, it gets lost.

Of course garden friends always bring a few goodies, and I may have bought a few more on our excursion, but in the grand scheme of things a few more treasures to plant is just a drop in the to-do bucket. Kind of like blogging, and with three weeks since my last post you can guess where that ranked on the list 😉

To me the 1950 iris ‘Port Wine’ seems old enough to qualify as historical. It’s shrugged off our late freeze, moody temperatures, and lack of rain and is making a bold show in the front border.

I have been somewhat busy but a dry May really de-motivates me, and with about four weeks since the last real rain I would say this qualifies. The bearded iris shrug it off but other plants are wilting and the grass is turning brown, and I guess I could continuously complain but what would be the point to that. Years back I planted with summers like this in mind but then a couple rainy years rotted all my iris and turned my cacti into bacterial mush so I changed course. Boy will I feel stupid again when I rip things out and replant the iris just to have them rot again.

Here’s the historical iris ‘Elsinore’, a special thing with some unique coloring that dates from around 1920. Of course it’s a favorite. I’d have more planted around but it tends to over-bloom, with all its growth fans sending up flowers rather than multiplying for next year.

Feeling stupid is nothing new, so I’ll just keep chugging along, stuffing the wrong plants in too closely, letting the weeds explode everywhere, and focusing on things which might just be a waste of time. Speaking of ‘wastes of time’, I guess an update on the earth moving is in order.

The back of the new addition has been dug to the level of the rest of the yard and I’m happy with the progress. Please ignore all the other dirt and rocks which still must go.

So before the update, let me just say that some people spend all day baking bread from scratch, or hours over a stove making tomato sauce. Both can be purchased for under $5 in the store. Some people spend months knitting sweaters and socks when they too are available for much less than your time is worth so let me just enjoy my dirt-digging waste of time thank you very much.

The slope up to the daylily farm has also been graded and I’m excited to say I have found plenty of rocks along the way. Never mind that the one in front is too heavy for me to budge, I can always rearrange the garden around it.

Maybe the eye rolls on top of the lack of rain is making me a little sensitive but I doubt it. Lifting shovel after shovel of dirt is far more useful than lifting weights, and the sideyard is much more pleasant a place than the gym. Also if you notice the damp soil in the last picture it’s because I washed off the wonderful rocks I found, all just to admire them more closely. Try doing that with the weights at the gym and I suspect someone would put a stop to it rather quickly.

The best part of all the shoveling is I’m finally bringing the back of my yard up to a level grade. It’s terribly rocky and poor soil, but at least it’s not clay or pure sand, and eventually mulch and compost(and water) will make a garden out of it.

So iris, dirt pictures, and complaints about a lack of rain. Hopefully it isn’t the same story all summer since I am planning on planting a few annuals and will end up resenting them if I have to water all summer. Maybe if I start really small I can ignore the dry ten day forecast and pretend that watering them in really well will be enough.

With all the amazing plants for sale, you wouldn’t think marigolds would find their way onto my cart but here they are. I’m quite pleased and they’ll go in the potager to fill up the space that should be filled with vegetables if I were one to enjoy vegetables.

You never know. Maybe we’ll get a string of thunderstorms and June will turn into a gray, humid mess and we’ll all have something new to complain about. Actually since I just ordered new pool filters and a couple billion other accessories there’s a strong possibility the weather will change just to derail my summer plans. Replanting iris would probably seal the deal, but even if it doesn’t I still like to remind myself it’s not January.

Have a great week.

April in Bloom

Apr21

We had our earliest 90+ degree day ever last week (33C) and I was unimpressed. Daffodils melted and hyacinths fried and the gardener turned on the air conditioning and did nothing in the shade. Three days later he froze standing around at a track meet with a brisk 41F (5C) breeze and the occasional snow flurry. Such are our springs. As usual things are busy and people are probably relieved that photographing snowdrops had to take a back seat to work and trips and home repairs, but I did take a minute Sunday to photograph a few things. Lets start at the end… the end of snowdrop season 😦

Here’s the double snowdrop ‘L.P. Short’ holding on to a last bloom while a sea of Spring Beauties (Claytonia virginica) bring on the next show.

Galanthus ‘Narwhal’ is still hanging on in spite of all kinds of weather and me stepping on him at least once…

Of course the end of snowdrop season is always a sad time, but at least there are plenty of distractions to ease the trauma. Actually as things come on so fast and furious it will be at least another month or two before the reality sinks in, and by then I can start digging a few bulbs and buying a few new ones, and dreaming of next season 😉

I might have added an Epimedium or two over the last few years. Shade tolerant, drought resistant, deer and rabbit resistant, nice all summer… I’ve been avoiding them for a while, but what’s the harm in adding another two or ten? This is ‘Purple something’ since I lost the tag and possibly didn’t write the name down anywhere…

As trees grow, this full sun garden is becoming shady in spots and I kind of like the early flush of spring bloomers.

Some dogtooth violets (Erythronium americanum) a friend gifted me a few years back. I was shocked to see them blooming this year, I thought for sure the cool speckled foliage would be all I’d ever get in this crappy, rooty, dry as a bone all summer, growing location.

From far enough away the somewhat-shaded part of the garden actually looks nice.

Shade is nice, but full sun is still something I treasure most. All kinds of bulbs are now filling in the beds and it’s awesome to see the return of color and growth, even if at times it seems to move along too fast.

The grape hyacinths are absolutely common, and somewhat weedy if not dead-headed, but the blue color is perfect and lasts a while.

For all the treasures I see in the garden, most of the people coming and going from this house don’t mention a thing about the garden. You can imagine my shock then when not one, but two people commented on the ‘pink tropical looking flower growing alongside the porch. Species peonies are nice enough but two people? Honestly I think they’re just messing with me, but when they immediately lost interest upon hearing the blooms only last a week or so, I knew they were authentically interested… even if it was only for a minute…

Peonia daurica by the front porch.

No one mentioned the dandelions, not even the fancy white Japanese version I’ve been pampering along in the front border. I wish it would seed around a little, that would surely draw more attention.

It’s a favorite of the rabbits at least. Taraxacum albidium must have a better flavor than the regular dandelions since I practically have to cage it to keep the bunnies off.

The daffodils might draw attention even if it’s never mentioned by anyone. I need more, and I need to move a few bunches back into full sun since they’re sulking in the shady spots I tucked them into. They’ll bounce back, but I was so proud of myself when I found all that room under the trees along the side of the yard. I guess there was a reason for the empty spaces since apparently nothing really wants to be there including the daffodils.

Narcissus ‘Bravoure’ front and center near the door. It’s very nice and refined and I can’t find a single fault other than I’m not so crazy about it. Maybe it’s too stiff. I really shouldn’t try and find faults.

Narcissus ‘Stella’ aka Kathy’s Sweetheart is not too stiff. She nods and sways and has joyfully twisted petals which fade from cream to white and I’m surprised how she’s grown on me. I was trying to be a show-daff kind of person but I guess I’m not.

This one just showed up. It doesn’t match anything which used to grow here yet I’m pretty sure it had a name at one time and I either never knew it or lost it. It’s a keeper though, I like how the color of the trumpet bleeds into the petals… something which I believe show-daff people frown upon…

Newer, fancier daffs which are not doing as well in the ‘terrace’ as I thought they would. It’s frightening to think how these should also be moved to a better spot.

I don’t remember ‘White Collar’ from last year, but this year he’s living up to the name and I definitely approve. Behind him is ‘Bronzewing’. Bronzewing is again amazing.

To be honest the shaded daffodils escaped the worst of the heat and are still somewhat nice when compared to the fried daffodils in the main beds. But what fries the daffodils grows the tulips, and from here on it’s the tulips which will shine.

Darwin tulips in the front border.

Years ago I took out the double tulips, but I must have missed one and over the years the one bulb has been clumping up nicely. I suspect it’s the tulip ‘Abba’.

Most of the tulips here come and go as I add new ones or accidentally dig up and then divide old ones, but the potager is filled with the tulips I intentionally dig and divide each summer. There are a couple hundred and although I planted them too thickly (entirely because I was too lazy to plant them properly), they still seem to be coming along nicely. There’s no room for lettuce or onions but by the weekend all I’ll care about is how amazing it looks.

More (mostly Darwin) tulips in the vegetable beds. Another warm day and the main show will start.

Honestly the tulip show is nothing when compared to the big shows where bed after bed is filled with a curated display of color echoes and blends, but I like it, and on a beautifully sunny day all the color is just a celebration of spring.

One day I’m telling my sister in law that this is one of the less-interesting, sloppy forms of tulip, and then two days later I think it’s one of the nicest in the garden. ‘Orange Emperor’ has a delicious color and I like the touch of green on a few of the blooms. Thanks Kimberley, I like it!

There is a little bit of a stink hanging over the display. The pear tree is covered in blooms and without a freeze in the forecast I’m anticipating a good deal of pears this summer. Fortunately this ‘Bartlett’ pear doesn’t seem to stink as much as the yucky stench of those Bradford pears planted all over the place. This one only comes on as a wiff here and there, the Bradfords stink up your whole car if you drive by with the windows open.

Plenty of pears to be.

While on the topic of flowering trees, the magnolias were amazing this year, but the heat pushed them over far too quickly. I’ll have to get photos next year of two new ones but for now the new standard magnolia ‘Ann’ is still putting on a great show. New flowers open for a while and the fruity fragrance always wins against the stink of a pear.

‘Ann’ will never be more than a small tree, and that’s a perfect size for this side of the yard.

The side of the yard where ‘Ann’ is planted is somewhat mucky in spring when runoff works its way down from the yard next door and the front of this house, and for a while the spring muck followed by summer drought rejected pretty much everything I planted here, but finally two plantings are doing well. Spring snowflakes (Leucojum vernum) and Snakeshead fritillaria (F. meleagris) rebel against good drainage and don’t mind sitting in water when water sits. Both are actually happy enough to seed around.

Fritillaria meleagris seedlings are blooming here and there below the magnolia and my plan is coming together perfectly except for the fact you don’t notice the purple flowers under the purple magnolia. Hmmm. But at least they’re happy 😉

Plenty of things don’t work out to plan here, and plenty more things don’t work out without a plan so miss-colored fritillaria are one more thing which needs moving but will probably stay put for decades. I’m fine with that. The thing or two which do work out keep me happy enough and for the next couple weeks I’ll be swimming in tulips and that’s more than plenty.

A mess of tulips

I hope your spring is also filled with plenty. Have a great weekend!

A Touch of Spring

Apr2

I took the dog out for a walk around the garden this morning and decided it’s still not shorts with a coffee weather, in spite of me trying. There’s a brisk wind blowing and with a temperature just above freezing I decided to give the thermometer a few more hours to warm up and instead cleaned the kitchen. I impressed myself, and now when my wife cleans up every other day I can bring this up as proof that I help… unlike the kids, who are still nearly useless for these things in spite of reports from work that they are quick and on top of things…

A new wave of early spring bulbs is awakening. Pink and purple corydalis, a few chiondoxa blooms, and a carpet of blue Scilla siberica. Each year I debate the ‘enthusiasm’ of the scilla, but it’s hard to think badly of so much blue in the garden.

Speaking of ‘quick and on top of things’, the gardener has been neither. Work is annoying and other than Wednesday afternoon, today is the first day he can get out there for anything. I’m sure someone will suggest he work on the next cabinet for the closet but maybe it’s too cold and windy for that. Sawdust blowing and swirling all through the garage is practically the definition of unsafe working conditions, and we’d be going backwards if some of that blows into the clean kitchen.

Fading snowdrops and the first peony sprouts. Neither cares that nightime lows can still drop well below freezing.

Maybe I’ll try and slap a few things together and then head out back with the shovel. Cold and windy is excellent digging weather and I still have a couple thousand tons of earth to move.

The spring snowflakes(Leucojum vernum) are up and trying to hold up to the battering wind. Someone mentioned that they don’t bloom long and now that’s all I think of when I see them, counting the days since they opened and questioning how many more days of bloom will be ‘long enough’.

What I should really do is divide and move a few billion snowdrops and stray seedlings. If I wait another year things might go beyond knowing who is who, and among snowdrop snobs having the wrong name with the wrong flower is akin to eating your salmon with a salad fork and we can’t have that.

I neglected to deadhead this batch of snowdrops (G.elwesii) last spring and will now have to deal with a sea of grass-like seedlings. Obviously they’re too precious to just weed out.

And now I’m hungry. I’m afraid to dirty the kitchen with a snack before anyone has the chance to admire it but am also pretty sure the empty bags of Easter candy will be a bigger deal, and no one will even acknowledge my hard work this morning. If you have coffee with your peanutbutter eggs it’s breakfast and people shouldn’t deny you breakfast when you’re cleaning the house for Palm Sunday.

Have a great week!

Cooler

Mar21

We missed most of the snow, but in general it was cool here last week. In a fit of mid-March optimism I drug a few of the hardiest things out of the garage and onto the driveway for a little sun and fresh air and then forgot about them for a few days. Things got cooler over the weekend with a Friday night low around 25F (-4C) and I had my concerns for the rosemary, Fatsia, and potted Dracaena, but in the light of the next morning they didn’t look too bad. Of course I left them out for the next night as well, with similar temperatures, because like a small child I’ll try and get away with it for as often as I can until things backfire. Some people only learn things the hard way.

A spring shower and March sunshine have brought on the big dutch crocus (Crocus vernum ‘Pickwick’). The rabbits only nibbled a few of the blooms, but they’ll be back soon enough to finish them off.

In spite of two cold nights, the calendar and stars both say today is the first day of spring, and I’m happy the heavens have finally caught up to where I’ve already been for quite a few weeks. It’s exciting to know that spring has been given its official recognition for the new year but also sad to think that some of the most exciting highlights of the year have already passed. Next week promises warmer weather and with it the peak of the snowdrop season and then the fading away while other things step up for their moment. Already the witch hazel are dropping their petals and the winter aconite are on their way to setting seed and I’m almost missing those chilly afternoons shuffling around the garden looking for the first sprouts.

In a nook shaded by the fence, the last of the winter aconite is holding on to bloom. Seed pods will come next, ripe seed thereafter, and soon I’ll be scattering a new crop of flowers into the next patch of garden.

I think this gardener is feeling a bit of a crash following the abundance of snowdrops this spring. They’re still amazing and a few late ones are just starting and trust me I spend more time than I should soaking them in, but maybe I’ll need some help coming off the high this year.

‘Melanie Broughton’ is just one of the many late forms which supply perfect flowers once the earlier sorts begin to look tired. Maybe I need a late bed strictly devoted to these kinds so they’re all perfectly perfect together. Surely the garden can handle one more snowdrop bed?

Maybe daffodils can be my methadone. In spite of this weekend’s turn to cold the first daffodils are just a few degrees of sunshine short of opening, and you can trust I have my eye on them.

New waterlily shoots frozen into the night’s ice. I’m continuously amazed that soft things like fresh lilypads and tiny things like fresh duckweed can survive a solid freeze.

Oops. One thing which I didn’t have my eyes on were the four pots of daylily seedlings which were put out into the coldframe last week. Daylilies are hardy enough plants, but for seedlings to come out from a cozy winter under the growlights and face a freezing cold night (or two since what’s done is done), might have been more than they should have to handle.

Kinda mushy and wilted, the frozen daylily seedlings will hopefully survive to enjoy spring. Hopefully.

Generally if things freeze off I’m quite quick to write them off and move on, since there’s never a shortage of new seedlings and divisions and gifts and purchases waiting to find a home, but the frozen daylily seedlings could really be a setback to the future of the farm. I was counting on these to provide the 2025 introductions which would be unveiled when I put out my first daylily catalogue. Golly. This really does throw a wrench into things.

You can’t look at snowdrops all day, so Saturday I decided to regrade the entire construction area. The wife kindly pointed out that working on closets would be a better use of my time, considering a machine could do this in a day, but God forbid I have to join a gym to work off my winter fat.

So moving a couple tons of rocky fill did help ease the stress of the ups and downs which come with building a world quality daylily farm, but the even better part to all the hard labour was filling in a few more square feet of the low spot which haunts me in the back of the yard. I feel like the Dutch must have felt when they reclaimed their land from the sea. Every square foot of flat ground holds the potential of a new planting area, and perhaps in their honor I should plant it all to tulips one year, just in case the daylily farm doesn’t keep me busy enough.

The lowest areas back here were perhaps three feet below where I’d like them to be, so into the dip went all kinds of stone and mortar debris, now to be topped off with a foot or so of rocky dirt/fill.

I’m estimating this job should be finished up somewhere around late 2027, assuming I don’t end up in the hospital first. Hmmm. Actually I’m surprised that didn’t come up in addition to the talk of closets, and honestly don’t know if I should be flattered or insulted by that. In another year I’ll be closer to 60 than 50 so…

In the last few days tulips have started to sprout in the potager beds. There will be no room for cabbages, but three or four heads of cabbage didn’t stand a chance against armloads of tulips.

Well that’s not the direction I had planned for this post. It’s the first day of official spring and as always I’ll be gardening as if I’ll live to be 120. In my opinion it’s the only option since imagine planning for a bucket-kicking at 90 and then sticking around for another 30! That’s a long time to regret the unplanted acorn.

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 😉

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…

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