I love watching the foliage emerge on our small trees, like this Acer tschonoskii aka Korean butterfly maple.
I was clipping a few crossing branches and decided to bring them indoors to enjoy, along with my first daffodil of the season.
A simple celebration of spring.
But nothing ever seems to bring a smile to this guy's face.
It has been warm enough that the early spring plants are popping up quickly. The only problem is that this coming week has overnight lows going down to 20°F.
Since they are early bloomers they may be fine with a big chill, but I don't want to take that chance. I'm covering them today with evergreen branches — just in case I am being too optimistic. The branches will be easy to remove and light enough not to harm anything.
Iris reticulata
One of the first Hellebores I ever bought, Royal Heritage Strain. I moved it a few years ago and it has settled in with no problems
Another old clump of Royal Heritage Strain Hellebores.
Helleborus niger 'Sunset Group' has large flowers that face outward and foliage that lies flat, making a very nice display.
Helleborus foetidus 'Red Silver,' aka Bear Claw Hellebore, is looking gorgeous. It's come through two winters very nicely.
The flowers are usually less dramatic on mine than in warmer climates.
One of the Hepaticas finally showing some color. This one can be seen across the garden once it's in bloom.
Two clumps of Crocus tommasinianus 'Lavender Striped' emerging through the old foliage of Japanese Blood Grass.
Erythronium 'Pagoda' are up before any of my other Erythroniums have made made an appearance.
Luzula 'Solar Flare' interplanted with snowdrops; an idea I adopted from Adrain Bloom's garden in the U.K. The big rock has lichens all over it that are the same color as the Luzula.
Before the cold weather hits us, I made a dwarf display of these early season favorites.
I couldn't resist placing it near this painting as the colors seemed to echo each other to me.
For the first time in months, I was able to pick a few flowers in the garden to bring indoors.
The first Hellebore I ever bought: Royal Heritage strain developed by John Elsley at Wayside Gardens.
A mix of nicely scented Snowdrops.
The coming week offers rain and warm daytime temps, but chilly nights in the low thirties and possibly the twenties. Still very much March weather.
For the first time in many years, I've managed to get an Orchid to re-bloom. I bought this pair in December 2019 for holiday decor; put them out in the garden last summer until the danger of frost was imminent and then they came indoors. I followed a philosophy of benign neglect and it seems to have worked. The two plants, however, are blooming about three weeks apart so I am glad I was not wedded to them flowering as a pair again.
I was hoping I might have Snowdrops to bring indoors this week. The ones next to the house on the south side are up, but want more heat and rain to make a show. I keep looking at them out the window but the changes are imperceptible to my eye. The weather is nice enough, however, that my gal pals and I are going to meet in the driveway this afternoon for the first time since last fall.
The best news is that I got my second COVID vaccine yesterday and Mark got his last week. What a relief and what a thrill to know we can spend time with our vaccinated friends and family in just a few more weeks.
Just to remind you of my holiday treatment of the fireplace mantle: A beaded Christmas tree and a pair of votive lights and i called it done.
The flowers that were on the dining table during the holidays took a long time to fade.
I decided to enjoy their slow demise by moving them to the mantle and adding a dried fern leaf that nicely matched the browning flowers.
Mark enjoyed the Foo dogs so much that I added them to the opposite end of the mantle. There were just enough bits of teal in his painting that the dogs and the vase seemed appropriate partners for the painting.
I replaced the flowers went I went grocery shopping recently to complement my new painting, which we'd swapped for the little girl's portrait.
Mark decided that the new painting perfectly melded his painting with the textile filling the wall space next to the fireplace.
This is a closeup of the top of the beautiful Miao baby carrier. The Miao people are one of many different Chinese ethnic groups.
Miserable weather, miserable news. Thus I am sitting opposite the fireplace to enjoy the view before I lose myself in a book. Hope you are all managing to survive this scary end of Trump's administration. Definitely sending thoughts and prayers to Joe and Kamala.
I usually do a January post about the highs and lows of the prior year in my garden. I started to write one weeks ago, but could not really bear to think that much about the last year. But Kris Peterson, who gardens in southern California and blogs at Late to the Garden Party, inspired me with her recent post highlighting lovely moments in her garden each month. As she pointed out, our gardens were our refuge this past year. I don't think I've spent more time or enjoyed myself more in my garden than in 2020. Here are some of my favorite moments.
JANUARY: This month is almost always cold and snowy in Wisconsin, so my gardening is virtual. Most mornings I've started the day with dreamy stories and photos of houses and gardens via emails from the UK version of House and Garden magazine. Below: The Jinny Blom designed garden at Chalkland Farm in winter via HG magazine.
FEBRURARY: I began gardening in order to have flowers and herbs to put in a vase. I am especially drawn to containers, like this one, that look equally good with or without flowers. This was one of the last purchases I made before lockdown.
MARCH: Our delightful pair of ducks flew in right on schedule; a moment of normalcy in this very unusual year.
APRIL: I was delirious as each new plant pushed up in the spring and spent a good chunk of the month on my stomach attempting to capture all of it with a camera. Erythronium 'White Splendor'
MAY: I spent much of this last gardening year pulling out weeds that had become "groundcvoers" and replacing them with an assortment of native Carex species. Flowers of Halesia tetraptera (Carolina Silverbell) have fallen on the Carex in this photo. That tree came out late in the summer but I'll always remember this moment.
JUNE: It was a glorious year for Peonies of every type.
JULY: One of my favorite views is this foliage grouping on the slope below the Tea House. Clockwise from left front: Hosta 'Spritzer,' Cornus 'Golden Shadows,' Adiantum pedatum, Tiarella 'Running Tapestry,' Carex Divulsa, Brunnera macrophylla 'Alexander's Great,' Deinanthe caerula and Heuchera 'Autumn Haze'
AUGUST: My last haul from the late, and very great local nursery, Flower Factory. I can barely imagine where i will find such big beautiful plants, both the every day and the unusual, in the future. We have many good local nurseries but nothing quite like David and Nancy Nedvek's Flower Factory.
SEPTEMBER: At last my hardy Begonia is finally big enough to make a stunning statement.
OCTOBER: Our gorgeous new deck, made of Ipe wood, was finished in time for us to sit outdoors and enjoy it until the snow arrived.
NOVEMBER: An autumn filled with intense fall color on perennials, shrubs, trees and grasses.
DECEMBER: This was the scene in the garden in early December and it looked the same after a late December storm. Very likely it will continue to look this way until March or April. But I am not going to think about that.
A number of pre-COVID months ago, one of my favorite local artists, Richard Jones of Studio Paran, closed up his glass studio to my great disappointment. Thus I was thrilled when he sent out an email saying that his website was still up and was featuring all of the treasures he'd found as he cleaned out his studio. I treated myself to this unmatched grouping of a pair of candlesticks and a vase. It graced the table for all of our meals — regardless of the changes in table settings — all last week.
Richard's containers are beautiful with nothing in them. I thought that this one could easily be overwhelmed by its contents, so I opted for just two flowers; different species — Hydrangea and Chrysanthemum — but the same color.
Our Christmas Day dinner featured blue and white dishes and accoutrements. I added this pair of intensely colored Foo dogs to the mix to make it less traditional.
This turned out to be Mark's favorite combination; a total surprise to me. We continue to enjoy it on a clean table ready for a new week of holiday dinners.
Bursts of sunshine
A new painting: "Arkansas Blacks" by Jonathan Wilde. I bought that apple variety at the farmers market this summer.
I baked two kinds of cookies, candied orange peel with an 1801 recipe and dipped them, apricots and walnut-stuffed dates in chocolate. It was deliciously enjoyable with no deadlines for parties or shipping or anything but our enjoyment.
Best wishes for a pleasant and safe holiday for all of you and your families.
I posted a version of this foliage display on October 26th, noting I had actually put it together on October 14th. It's now more than a month later and it's still looking good enough to use on our Thanksgiving dinner table — with a bit of sprucing up.
I added a number of Bergenia leaves which had started to get burnished bronze and red out in the garden. The rabbits tend to munch these during the summer, but they return in the fall and are untouched now.
I decided to make one last foray around the garden as the bouquet still looked a bit blah even with the Bergeinia foliage. The addition of variegated Arum italicum foliage and yellow Epimedium leaves definitely brightened things up, along with an 'Autumn Brilliance' fern frond.
Epimedium 'Waterfall' is the only one of my many Epimediums to turn this wonderful buttery color with dark edges.
I clipped this Maidenhair fern frond when it was a flat fan. In the house everything has delicately curled up.
I only grow Arum italicum 'Ghost,' a plant that appears in the autumn when the weather cools down and pops up again when the snow melts. There are other varieties with different degrees of patterning that I continue to lust after. I've never been able to buy one as they are always sold out as soon as I seem to discover them in on-line nurseries.
The wonky flowers on star fruit (Penthorum seloides) get better and better as the days go by.
Hope you have a pleasant and safe holiday.
Now that it's November it's time to acknowledge that there is little left in the garden to bring indoors. That means it's time to bring out the old favorites to highlight this season. The temperatures in the last week have hit 70°F. or above every day; so it looks like November but definitely does not feel like it at all.
Though I would never grow this plant as it's invasive, I love it for autumn decorating. Someone at my local farmers market always has some stems each fall.
This tiny teapot is too small to actually use but too sweet to keep hidden away. We use the tiny cups now and again for sake.
One of the real joys for me this autumn has been the lack of pods on our honey locust trees. Last year I filled a number of big bags with them in an endless cleanup process that went right into spring.
I hate picking up the pods but I love the look and texture of them, ranging from lacquered to velvet. I saved the biggest and best of them a few years ago and just bring out this wooden bowl filled with them when I want a hit of rich autumn color.