Each Little World

Atlantic blues

We had such a gloriously warm day mid-month that my local grocer put a display of potted bulbs right outside the store's front doors. It was the first time that live plants had been for sale outside since the autumn. I bought two plastic containers of Hyacinth 'Atlantic' bulbs and repotted them all together in a big terra-cotta container. They've been sitting on the shelf under the big Boston fern until late last week when I realized they were about to begin their show. 

I moved the pot to the top shelf and took a couple of photos on Saturday afternoon when I got home from the daylong Resilient Landscape Symposium hosted by Allen Centennial Gardens. When Mark came home and saw me, he announced that he'd taken a photo earlier in the day (above). But in just a few hours the stems were pushing each other out of the way as their flowers opened and the plant looked quite different.

It's a glorious sight and the fragrance is as intense as the color. It borders on overpowering. 

It's provided a much more cheerful spring view than the scene out the windows which still shows a fair amount of snow. Since these bulbs were labelled by name, I went on line and discovered they are hardy to Zone 4 which means I can plant them outside when their indoor moment is over.

Can't get there from here!

Who is that woman with the iPad desperately searching for access to her front garden?

No matter which way I turn my path is blocked. The stone steps are completely inaccessible. 

The driveway boulders are now mostly visible, but the wheelbarrow access path out near the street is still under the snow.

Thank goodness I've got the Piet Oudolf movie Friday night and an all-day garden symposium on Saturday to take my mind off all of this snow melting so very, very slowly . . .

Mid-march mess in the garden

Last Thursday afternoon it was 60°F. (15.55° C.) and pouring rain. I went out on the deck and attempted a shot, but decided that trying to capture rain against snow is above my skill level.

I took these pictures the next day when the temperature was 35°F. (1.66° C.) at noon. It was cloudy, starting to lightly snow and the wind definitely made it feel more like winter than spring.

I was able to see where the main paths in the back garden are and decided to reconnoiter. The snow was slowly sinking and a few spots were bare; but not as much open ground as I expected. The rain coming off the roof of the Tea House has worn a trench into the ground.

This is the area I call the Sacred Grove and is flat and south-facing. I really expected to see some snowdrops up here but no such luck. That's a half-buried bag of leaf mulch on the left that I never finished spreading on the garden last fall. So it will be used this spring instead. 

Across the path, things look pretty much the same. 

All the evergreens — including my new variegated Boxwood — appear to have survived.

The difference in color of the needles on this Pinus cembra (Swiss stone pine) is an indication to me of how deep the snow was in this area. It suggests the snow covered the second layer of branches. 

The rocks that are beginning to reappear are covered in lichens. That's Epimedium 'Domino' which I had to cage after critters started munching on it in early spring last year. 

The snow was very crusty though not thick enough to support my weight. It was thick enough, however, that I had to stamp my foot down to break through it as I made my way around. It was awkward and slow-going. 

First snowdrops for real

When a friend posted last week that snowdrops had made an appearance in her garden across town, I thought I better start watching the location where mine appear first: right outside the library window on the south side of the house. And sure enough Friday morning, there they were. Just one clump was visible (in the lower left) pushing through the ice-crusted snow and the detritus from the Chamaecyparis that the rabbits munched on all winter under that thick white blanket. I took this shot through the window from indoors. 

I ventured outside a bit later in the day to look at the snowdrops' progress from the other direction. Despite the chilly temperature — 35° at noon — they are valiantly trying to open their flowers. Alas, they are not quite up enough to cut for a vase. With unseasonably warm weather forecast for this week, it is possible I will be able to have a vase next Monday.

If you look closely you can see all the branches bitten off with the tell-tale rabbit sign— an angled cut. And there's that pile of rabbit pellets in case anyone was unsure of the cause of the damage. 

Having watched Carol Klein tour Bressingham Gardens on the BBC recently, I noted how many of their conifers are pruned up to reveal bark and allow underplanting of bulbs and perennials. I guess my pruning has been done for me. I just need to do a little neatening up and spread out my snowdrops a la Bressingham and this bed is good to go! To see what other gardeners have put in a vase today, visit Cathy at Rambling in the Garden who hosts this marvelous Monday meme!

Trapped in a white world

We are finally seeing sunshine but it has been cold enough that not much melting has occurred — except for icicles on the north side of the house for the first time in ten years!

i have not been out into the garden since I don't remember when. It is still buried under snow. I guess the good news is that it is slowly disappearing as I can now see the support posts for the bridge over the dry stream. The snow has been so deep that it is too dangerous to try to walk around out there with shrubs, rocks, stepping stones, water features and all manner of buried booby traps.

Much warmer temperatures are forecast for the next few days — along with rain and flooding. So we shall see what things look like later this week. I would love to see a little bare ground.

Snowdrops make an appearance

Ha! Don't be silly. We still have deep snow cover though the temperatures are finally rising up to normal for this time of year, so perhaps Spring will make an appearance. Despite the weather I do have snowdrops, courtesy of Carolyn's Shade Garden in Bryn Mawr, PA.

I have ordered snowdrops "in the green" from Carolyn Walker a few times over the years. Buying them this way — in growth — is the best way to guarantee snowdrop success according to the experts. Though it will be a while before they can go outdoors, they should manage quite well potted up by a sunny, cool window. 

I've found ordering snowdrops "in the green" has advantages that I had not realized when I first ordered some:

1. First, I get something green and growing at the moment when I am most desperate to get out into the garden, but can't yet do so.
2. Unlike a bouquet of Tulips from the grocery store, these plants will go into my garden and not onto the compost heap.
3. And most important, when I plant them out, all the spring bulbs — including other snowdrops — will be emerging. I will be able to easily add these newly-arrived snowdrops to groups of the same already in place in the garden. And I can see where there are holes at this season where I can easily slip in a few new snowdrops. Something that is very hard to do in the autumn when I could plant them as dry bulbs. By that time of the year I can't remember the spring garden at all, nor can I work well from photographs. So snowdrops "in the green" are a win-win purchase for me. 

Carolyn mailed them last Monday and they were at  my door Wednesday morning. You can see how they were packed in shredded paper that cushioned them from the slightest bump or jarring. I slowly let the shredded paper slide into a plastic bin until I could see the ziplock bag holding the plants. 

I double-checked Carolyn's receipt against my original email order to her and then got to work potting the snowdrops up. I'd brought a bag of potting soil and a group of pots from the cold garage into the house a few days earlier in preparation. I knew I would not want to work with such cold material, nor would I want to subject the plants to yet another shock.

I bought some very typical varieties like G. elwesii ex Carolyn’s Shade Gardens (a species snowdrop from Carolyn's own naturalized plantings) and G. nivalis ex Carolyn’s Shade Gardens (another species snowdrop which Carolyn described as the "progeny of the vigorous strain that has thrived on her property for over 100 years".) The pots are on a shelf under my big Boston fern. 

I also opted for two snowdrop varieties that are new to me: G. 'White Dream' (syn. G. nivalis ‘White Dream’) which have a pronounced white stripe on the leaves and according to Carolyn are a vigorous strain and should multiply rapidly. The stripe is visible on the few larger leaves but not from the angle I took the photo.

The other new variety for me is G. ‘Jonathan’ (unique single snowdrop, G. elwesii) with extra large, globular flowers and broad blue leaves. It was found in 2000 in a North Yorkshire garden by snowdrop author Michael Myers. The picture below is from Carolyn's website, but you can easily pick this one out in the photo of my group of potted snowdrops. It reminds me somewhat of G. 'Diggory,' which has large flowers but is much more expensive. 

My two G. 'Jonathan' bulbs!

Everyone is potted up with their id tags, ready and waiting for the snow to melt and the ground to thaw so they can be planted in the garden. Exactly how long a wait that proves to be is anyone's guess!

In like a lion

March arrived on Friday with temps almost normal — meaning a high in the mid 30s — with sunny skies. I ran around doing a lot of errands knowing it was just a tease. The temps dropped again overnight and we got more snow. Not a lot but enough for Mark to haul out the snowblower. It's Polar Vortex cold still today with a high of a mere 8°!

By the end of the week the temps look like they will take a turn toward our normal highs and lows for this time of year. But those warmer temperatures also look like they will bring chances of a "frozen mix." The garden looks more like the beginning of January than March. Nothing but snow, shadows and animal tracks. 

The lame duck made me do it!

Last week's lame duck debacle in Wisconsin had me in need of serious distraction! Luckily, it arrived in the form of an e-mail from Carolyn's Shade Gardens in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. Her message stood out like a beacon in a sea of breaking news updates that were too depressing to keep reading. Carolyn, on the other hand, was announcing the arrival of her 2019 Snowdrop Catalog.

 

Of course, I immediately clicked on it and placed an order! I would not call myself a "galanthophile," the name given to those who obsess and obsessively collect different varieties of snowdrops aka Galantus. But I am willing to admit that I love the lore and lure around plants like snowdrops and species Peonies that have a long history replete with fascinating stories.

 

You can buy easily buy the most common varieties of snowdrops out of season as bulbs like Tulips or Daffs. But they are one plant whose success is touted to buying them "in the green," meaning right after they've finished flowering. To do that, you need to live in the UK where this is a common practice or live near a grower in the States. OR find someone like Carolyn's Shade Gardens who sells snowdrops in the green at her nursery in the spring as well as on-line.

 

The plants I just ordered will come next spring after they've flowered in her nursery. Hopefully, it will be only a brief span between their arrival in the mail and when I can plant them out in my own garden. The timing is always a bit of a hit-or-miss proposition but so far it's worked for me, having placed my first order with Carolyn in 2014.

 

 

I have had good luck with the more reasonably-priced snowdrops like G. nivalis 'Viridapice,' G. woronoii and G. 'Magnet' (both photos above are my clumps of 'Magnet') but not much luck with any of the expensive yellow ones. This time I splurged on only one variety that should make a statement ('Johnathan' below), along with some guaranteed performers from Carolyn's stock (G. elwesii and G. nivalis).

 

I will plant them in my main flower bed that gets lots of early sun and has good soil and drainage. The only drawback is that it is the farthest from the house so I will definitely have to walk up to watch for them blooming. But they will be growing near my species Peonies which are equally early and always draw me out multiple times per day.

 

CAROLYN'S SHADE GARDENS PHOTO

 

"The Plant Lover's Guide to Snowdrops" by Naomi Slade is one of the plant-specific titles in the excellent Kew guide series. It is a good place to get information on these bulbs and how easy or difficult specific varieties are to grow, along with any quirky cultivation information. Carolyn Walker is one of the snowdrop lovers profiled in the book. 

End of the month views

I used to publish end of the month views of specific areas of the garden as I was designing and planting them. They were an effective record of what I had done and how well it was working. I've gotten out of the habit of taking garden photos with these kind of broad views and they are really important documentation. They help me remember in the dead of winter if I need to add or subtract anything when I am making plans and ordering plants.  

Obviously I missed the end of the month, so perhaps I will start an "almost mid-month" posting. This post includes photos taken from May 22 to June 6. They are all of the Tea House garden which has had a lot of attention in the last few years. I am standing on the west edge of our deck looking at the bottom edges of the Tea House garden.

Essentially the same view as above just closer in and taken two weeks later. The empty spot at the edge of the little stone border is where one of the dwarf Ginkgoes is growing. Its branches touch the ground so I don't let anything grow under it to obscure it.

I've just moved a few feet and am standing against the back of the house with the Tsukubai in front of me. I am standing behind the ferns and Hostas on the right side of the path in the first photo. The Hellebores in this area performed very poorly, leaving a number of holes that I expected to be filled with luscious big clumps of deep green Hellebore leaves. 

The big brown area below is where our bamboo died back. We are digging that out since it takes about 3 years to completely recover. In a spot that visible we need something more reliable which is why I'm replacing it with an evergreen ground cover: Juniperus 'Blueberry Delight'. There's a non-performing Hellebore in front of the blue Hosta which will fill that space eventually.

The area in front of the mica rock and the Cornus alternifolia 'Golden Shadows' is where the ivy I brought from my grandmother's garden died. I'm going to dig this out one of these days. I'm still deciding what to put in there. Maybe a Hosta with some yellow patterning. And I'd like a few Geums at the right front and side of the rock. More thinking needed here before plants are purchased or moved.

Even though I feel like some serious attention needs to be paid to this area where the ivy died and the dwarf Solomon's Seal is encroaching, I must admit this area has come a long way from this view of the same location in May, 2015 when the dominant plants were Sweet Woodruff, the dwarf Solomon's Seal and ivy.

What I think of as the back edge of this garden is the area that runs along the fence path. But as one walks there and looks back down at the Tea House slope it is a lovely view — if I do say so myself. This photo was taken on May 25th this year.

Here's what it looks like this week. 

And here's the view from 2015.

The Lilium martagon 'Mrs. R. O. Backhouse' will be opening any day now. They are a peachy pink that echoes the color of the Tea House's stucco walls. 

I'm standing on the steps that go up to the Tea House and looking back toward our house with the dead bamboo making that nice brown spot on the right. Hostas and Hellebores should fill the other open areas if they ever recover from the winter. 

This is a view toward the Tea House across the length of the pond. This is the area where we moved the bench that used to be on the deck. Now we can sit here and enjoy a different view of the pond than the one we see from the house and the deck. 

In a vase on Monday and everyday

Spring is the season when there are more flowers than I can enjoy if I don't bring them inside. Especially this year with the crazy hot weather we had in May, blooms were opening and dying in a matter of a few days. So the house has seen vases coming and going as quickly as something new came into bloom. Here's a sampling of what I've brought indoors from mid-to-late May. 

These little jester's caps are the first stage of the seedheads from Paeonia japonica. 

Love this image where you can see all the details on the ceramics as well as the polychromed Thai "cave monk" figure in the corner and the dark silhouette of the metal advertising figure leaning against the fireplace.

I almost always let my bouquets keep going well after they've lost their good looks. It's Mark's favorite stage!

Now that it's June, one of these days there should be lilies to put in a vase. To see what other gardeners have created in a vase today, visit Cathy at Rambling in the Garden who hosts this magical Monday meme.