Each Little World

Early birds

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. 

Is winter over yet"

The temperature yesterday hit 39°F. That is the first time our temps have been above freezing since Jan. 21st. The photo below was taken on Dec.30th after a big storm.

This is the view after Sunday's snowfall (2/21/2021). Compare the hoops marking the edge of the path and the wooden bridge to see how much more snow has fallen in the last two months. Interesting that is still not enough to completely disguise the two big piles of broken concrete leftover from underneath the old deck. I doubt that this week's warmer temperatures will be enough to make in dent in the snow cover. I certainly don't expect to see snowdrops on February 29th as I did last year. 

Despite being tire of snow, I love how it just keeps building up on the arms of the bench without falling off.  With this much snow on the ground our garden is a booby-trapped landscape with shrubs, rocks, water, steps, walls and all sorts of buried surprises.

I snapped all of these through the window with my phone which explains the weird colors. The snow was already at the top of my highest boots at the end of January, so I am not even trying to get out into the garden with a camera. 

Looking back at the garden year

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. 

Snow again

A number of months ago, I saw a headline saying the Old Farmer's Almanac was predicting a long, snowy winter. That was an article and a subject I did not want to pursue. But another big storm this month has me worried that perhaps that weather report was correct. 

I took these two photos out the library window this morning. Luckily this snow was not as heavy and wet as the last storm. I am just guessing at the amount of snow that came down, but it appears that it could easily be five inches if you look at the depth of it on the bridge in the image below. 

Waiting for rain

Our last significant rain was July 26. We keep having rainy days in the forecast but they never materialize. Or if they do, it is not enough moisture to even dampen the soil. So I am spending more time than I prefer schlepping hoses around the garden.

On the other hand, I can't really complain since the folks all around us who got rain this week, received it as part of the devastating derecho storm system that swept though the Upper Midwest. Tornadoes are our typical scary storm system; we don't need any hurricanes to liven things up.

More than a little wet

We got .96" of rain overnight Tuesday. The garden needed it and looked better for it in the morning, despite some downed branches landing on plants in bloom. After it stopped raining again yesterday afternoon, I checked the rain gauge to discover 1.18" had come down in about half an hour. Our gutters were overflowing as they were stuffed with Maple tree seedlings and debris. Then it started to rain again. This morning we had another inch in the gauge. So we got a little over 3 inches of rain in not much more than 24 hours. This seems to be one of the aspects of climate change that we've been experiencing for the last few years. Not a change for the better. 

 

 

May in the Midwest

A week ago our overnight low temperatures were bordering on freezing. As a result I was hauling my new plants in and out of the garage every night. Then the weather turned beautiful and I spent two glorious days planting.

Now we are back to days where the high temp is barely making it to the mid-50s. Two inches in the last two days and four inches total rainfall since Thursday. The garden is on steroids with all that moisture, but it is too wet to do anything — even weed. 

I would not really care except that I have a lot of plants that need to get put into the ground. Even in their pots, they are putting on a lot of new growth. Last Friday morning two flats (64 plants) of Carex pennsylvanica from the UW-Madison Arboretum were delivered to my front door. 

I am one of the lucky ones, as the Arboretum sale was cancelled due to COVID-19. Those of us who preordered received our plants directly from the grower. The Carexes that I planted last autumn are looking gorgeous. Can't wait to add these to the mix.

IVOM: Rescued from the weather

Our dangerously low overnight temperatures mean that all my special plants are being protected with bins and boxes. Tonight looks like our last day with a freezing overnight low temp, 32°F.

I have been holding all the plants that have arrived by mail or curbside pickup at local nurseries in a wheelbarrow and boxes so they can be quickly brought indoors at night and returned outside during the day time hours. But yesterday, I gave up and brought everyone inside mid-afternoon when it started to snow. It came down heavily enough that it began to stick to the deck and covered the roof of the fence across the back garden.

The living room is the holding spot for herbs and a few perennials.

The wheelbarrow in the garage has Epimediums, Tricyrtis and Veronicastrums.

The front hall is packed with everything else . . .

including this Rhodie atlanticum that has started to bloom.

Luckily I took advantage of more pleasant weather Saturday afternoon and clipped enough flowers to put together an assortment of vases. 

This Tulip and the Muscari grow in full sun in gravelly soil in the traffic island bed in the street. I plant and maintain this little bed which is directly in front of my house.

I have a trio of white pitchers that Ipurchased because I loved their shapes and thought they would be perfect as vases. But photographing them as a group is always difficult, between finding the room to pose all three together and enough light to show their contents in their true colors.

They are filled with Daffodils, Tulip sylvestnis, Epimedium, Fritillaria, Lamium and a Peony.

I opened the window shutters to increase the light! 

A pair of Tulip 'Schoonoord' circle Paeonia japonica with Hyacinth 'City of Haarlem' in the rear. 

To see what other gardeners have put in a vase today, visit Cathy at Rambling in the Garden who hosts this lively and lovely Monday meme. 

Spring ephemerals

I'm using the word "ephemeral" rather loosely here since the foliage on a number of these plants remains after the flowers disappear. But it always seems to me that it is the blooms that draw our attention. No flowers, no second glance. 

Pachysandra procumbens, the native version with attractive tortoiseshell foliage.

Bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis)

Hepatica acutiloba 'Silver Leaf'

Dutchman's breeches (Dicentra cucullaria)

False rue anemone (Isopyrum biternatum) comes back in the autumn when the weather cools down. 

With a frost predicted Friday night and overnight lows in the 30s for the next six days, it is hard to know what the garden will look like next week. I can haul my new plants into the garage each night, but the rest of the garden will have to survive on its own. 

Snow stripes

You don't have to check the weather forecast when snow is on the way. The fact a storm was coming was obvious to me the minute I pulled out of my driveway yesterday. I took this shot of our street through my car window.

Those white stripes you see are a salt brine — a saltwater solution of 23.3 percent salt, according to Madison Streets Division spokesman Bryan Johnson in a local news story. It is put on major streets before a snowstorm if temperatures are high enough to make it effective.

When it is sprayed on before the snow hits, it keeps the snow from bonding with the pavement, so it's easier to scrape off when the plows come through. Our street looks rather rural with the tree canopy, but it is an emergency vehicle route which I assume is one reason why they spray it.

It started snowing some time during the early morning hours and has been pretty steady all morning. I love the pair of snow stripes the weather has created on the bridge that crosses our dry stream.