"High Summer Holds the Earth"

Above, the hardy little Begonia sinensis (considered a subspecies of B. grandis, but differing greatly in stature and bloom season), flowering against the foliage of B. masonorum, potted and sunk into the bed under a giant Magnolia grandiflora for the summer. A similar circumstance produced a hybrid grex (B. masonorum x grandis) a few years back, of which I still have two plants in the greenhouse. It's totally worthless - not as attractive as the tropical parent, nor as hardy as the temperate one. Still, I can't seem to purge it from the collection. Below is Hymenocallis 'Tropical Giant' - gotta have it in the summer garden.

The last of the azaleas to bloom, prunifolium waits until mid-July to put in an appearance. Next year I want to save some pollen from R. austrinum and canescens in order to do some hybridizing for later blooming deciduous plants - this whole side of the family is beautiful and underused in modern landscaping.

Above- Begonia sutherlandii, a beautiful little species from South Africa (lots of great orange flowers from that part of the world - wonder what S.A. pollinators are attracted specifically to that color?) which is hardy and spreads via bulbils that form in the leaf axils, just as do B. grandis and sinensis in all of their color forms. As this overexposed, unfocused photo illustrates, July is a time of complete and utter excess in our garden, and, for the most part, I really enjoy it. It's also the time of year when I'm able to spend the most time outside, so I suppose there's been a bit of unconscious planning over the years so the garden peaks in summer. Because I'm out of town, visiting family, and thus not plagued by guilt for not actually being out IN my garden (it's raining here, or most likely I'd be out in theirs right now...), I thought I'd throw together this scattered post to show a smattering of views around the landscape - and that term applies about as much to my garden as does the label "opera" to the performance we're going to see tonight at the Pittsburgh Civic Light (as air, apparently) Opera, Barry Manilow's seminal work "Copacabana." However, as my pastor and friend is wont to say, "Walk that bad sermon proudly, just as you would an ugly dog!" Above is Galtonia candicans, one of many South African bulbs blooming around the place. Many of these, this one included, are growing in black nursery pots which are submerged in a bed of rampant groundcovers during their summer growth period, then stored dry in my parents' storage shed for the winter, enabling me to move containerized hellebores into those positions for the winter.

Foliage is even more prominent in summer than flowers, and certainly less fleeting. This is a fortuitous combination of Tetrapanax, Miscanthus, and the ruby foliage of Canna "Australia"; better contrast in texture and color would be hard to plan purposely.

Below is another South African bulb, Eucomis Pole-Evansiae, its bloom scapes not having opened or achieved their ultimate height.

More interplay of color, light, and texture, with the sculptural leaves of Tetrapanax (admittedly a thug, but spectacular) along with rugosa foliage, among other things.

This is a common aroid -either Dracunculus vulgaris or Sauromatum venustum; either way, the leaves are cool.

One of the many Hostas in bloom and leaf - "Lewis and Clark." I'm moving all of my hostas into very large containers; those in the ground seem to decline steadily over the years as root competition and shade increases. Potting them allows them to follow the light as necessary (with a little help, as long as my back holds out), as well as to have access to a steadier supply of moisture.

More concealed containers in the modular bog garden; these are just a couple of the several dozen Sarracenia species and hybrids that provide interest over at least three seasons of the year.

Another view of the front bed, dominated by the first Trachycarpus I ever planted (T. fortuneii). I have about a dozen species in various locations around the tiny property, and so far there's been no winter damage at all. This one is blooming for the first time this year, a mere 15 years after being planted. Cyclamen purpurascens seedlings are blooming for the second year, having been sown four years back. You have to hunt for the blooms at this time of year, but it's always a neat surprise.

Below, more foliar combinations - Coleus "Inky Fingers", Amorphophallus konjac, and one of several pots of Caladiums I've stored dry in the attic for at least ten years. Can't imagine buying new ones every year.

If I had to choose a favorite among the Hydrangeas, it would probably be the above, H. mariesii 'variegata'. I finally gave it a decent prune last year (having been shamed into it by a visiting friend,) and it's looking much better this year.

Below is a windowbox combo that I love - Begonia boliviensis, Kohleria 'Dark Velvet', and Achimenes 'Purple King'. Beneath the windowbox I placed some used dresser drawers, rescued from the curb one day ahead of the trash truck; I have no pride. I've found that these make great little raised bed planters, and in this one I've got some bamboo ferns that I raised from spores, more achimenes, Gloxinia nematanthodes, and Lysionotus sangzhiensis. More and more gesneriads are finding their way into the summer landscape here; I hope to expound on that at a later date; maybe during my next vacation...

My grandmother's "Touch-Me-Nots", Impatiens balsamina, seed themselves through the back island bed with abandon. They make a great "good weed", filling up blank spaces, allowing for easy removal where they're not wanted, and bringing back happy childhood memories by providing fat, expoding pods to pick as I pass by with the pruners or watering can. Eupatorium coelestinum is another "escapee" which I edit out of the beds as need be.













I feel obligated to grow a few pots of this old variety of Caladium, "Postman Joyner", although, to my knowledge, no family member has ever worked as a mail carrier. I did have a great aunt who served as postmistress in her small Virginia town, but she was on my mother's side. A new Eucomis I picked up at a Whole Foods in North Carolina, of all places - it's a hybrid called "Twinkle Stars", and it looks great with a new Sinningia hybrid called "Bananas Foster". They're potted together, and should store through the winter in a cool, dry state just fine. Okay, it's not technically "growing" in the landscape, but then, a lot of my plants aren't; this is Phragmipedium "Sargeant Eric", cohabiting with Hedychium coronarium foliage for the summer. As much as I love the "hardy" Cypripediums, I have to admit that they really do require more "life support" in our temperate climate than do their subtropical cousins.

More eucomis, in this case a couple of dozen "Sparkling Burgundy" plants interplanted with Sinningia selloviae; if the gesneriad bloomed a couple of weeks later, the display would be spectacular. It's one of the indeterminate species, so if I can remember to cut back the bloom stems, maybe we'll get another flush of blooms before the Eucomis inflorescenses fade completely. The Eucomis were all grown from leaf cuttings, and the Sinningias sprang from one pinch of dust-like seed received from a society seed exchange.

Back to the front bed for a closer look at Agapanthus "Ellamae", supposedly one of the best varieties for our area, and bearing that out after three years in this location. It descends from the species A. inapertus, which means that something about it doesn't open completely. I assume that refers to the individual blooms, which hang like blue bells from the head, but it could also refer to the rubbery, green bract that subtends the buds - I finally had to assist the buds of every umbel in escaping from its grasp.

My neighbor is building this arbor beyond the fence that separates our properties, and it really improves our yard, too. Borrowed views are great, when they happen like that. These are but a few of the beautiful clumps whose names are lost in the recesses of my memory, but which we enjoy anyway. Wish there was room for many more; some are still in pots, which is not something they enjoy for extended periods of time.

Keringeshoma coreana, a very cool perennial related to the Hydrangeas which I'm growing for the first time this year. K. palmata is similar, but the blooms don't open as widely (inapertus?) Another view of the variegated lacecap Hydrangea that I love... And a dark blue lacecap, originally a gift florist plant. It seems too dark to be "Blue Wave" - any ideas?

It's just a Monarda (probably 'Adam'), but it looks like fireworks during July, and I like it.

These cobalt berries form on the bloom scape of Dianella tasmanica, an Australian native that spends the winter in the unheated greenhouse. I may divide it next year and try part of it in the ground, if I can find a sunny, well-drained spot (always at a premium).

The tropical Nymphaea "Panama Pacific" - it winters in the garage in an old aquarium and produces new plants in the leaf axils late in the season. These go in the inside aquaria, but not in the one housing the Herichthys severum, which find them delectable morsels for snacking.

Another Hemerocallis (possibly "Femme de Joi"- every time Ron picks one out, it looks like this, so we have lots of short, apricot tetraploids) blooming with Salvia guaranitica 'Black and Blue', another gorgeous plant which is incredibly invasive if left to its own devices.

Another great foliage combo - Arundo donax, the varigated form of the giant reed; Colocasia antiquorum 'illustris', with its toes in a temporary pond; and Arisaema consanguineum, my favorite species in terms of foliar impact.

More Sarracenias, this time S. leucantha, filtering the sunlight through the white fenestrations that decorate each tube and exist to confuse insects which are unliucky enough to find themselves marooned on the inside.

Back to the rear island bed, with foliage colors and textures repeating and contrasing in beautiful patterns. Wish I could say that I planned all of this.

Finally, a little (very little) garden "art" - a fake boat headed into one of the ponds with a cargo of Lysimachia, surrounded by more Tetrapanax, Cannas, Hydrangea "Endless Summer", and Colocasias. In the foreground is Crinum eboracea, a hybrid of C. bulbispermum and C. asiaticum. I know this "tropicalismo" style of garden is a big, fat, fake, but I have to admit that I really enjoy the look of the garden at this time of year. It would probably be more politically correct to have given over all of this space to vegetables this year, and we do have our big pots of grape tomatoes, basil, etc., just as always. I have to admit to being somewhat amused by all of the professional garden writers who are just now learning to grow food, since I grew up in the vegetable garden with my parents and grandparents, and have always just assumed that everyone genetically knew how. However, until I'm unable to afford my visits to the local farmers' market, our quarter acre of land in its midsummer glory is too precious to be turned into a truck farm.

One question unrelated to gardening: can anyone offer advice concerning placing and moving pictures within these posts? One reason I don't post more often is that this is such an unwieldy process. For instance, the first two pictures in this post were afterthoughts, but are stuck on at the beginning because I was unable to move them to other locations. Also, every time I add a picture, spaces appear throughout the post, each of which has to be manually eliminated before the post can be published. There must be a trick here that I don't know about, and I'd be grateful for any assistance! Happy summer, everyone!

Just a quick note to let anyone who might be interested know that I've decided to take a break from blogging for a while. It's come down to making a simple choice between having time to write about gardening or to actually work in the garden; for me, that's a no brainer!

"What (We Do) For Love"

This is a flawed reference, since "A Chorus Line" is not among my favorite musicals; this could stem from my having spent several months chained to a piano beneath a stage on which a dozen or so dancers whose singing was marginal, at best, (it was a local dinner theater production) whined about not being able to find work...as dancers on Broadway. Never mind that most of us work in more mundane jobs all the time to support our families, our homes, and, yes, our hobbies. All the same, I've been thinking a lot lately about how to arrive at a balance between making a living and "following my bliss". This is further complicated by the fact that some of us have too damned many "blisses", and only 24 hours in a day; still, in my life (another musical theater reference - wait for it...) I've recently been impressed by some excellent role models who manage to find just that balance.

My friend Rob., for instance, has always wanted to be a writer, and has always been one - he's made lots of sacrifices along the way in order to do so, but, all in all, I think he's happy with the choices he's made, and he produces some amazing work. Rob. was in that same, fateful production of "ACL" over 20 years ago; ironically, he was the best singer in the cast, but played "Zack", and therefore never got to sing a single note. I think he'd call that an example of something he did in order to finance the things he did for love, rather than something he loved doing.

I cogitated on this difficult dichotomy yesterday as I took a day for myself (Ron was occupied, much to his relief, with judging a high school forensics meet) and made a 3.5 hour road trip to what is Mecca for all mid-Atlantic winter gardening enthusiasts - Pine Knot Farms in Clarksville, VA. It was just as well that Ron couldn't go, because I used the drive time to work on getting the score to "Les Mis" embedded in my ear; as I mentioned to Cosmo, I've recently been cast as Jean Valjean in a local, semi-staged concert version, and wanted to start learning the 80% of the show that I've never sung or taught (I've done "Bring Him Home" for years as an audition song and party request). I'm trying not to get too excited, because this particular production involves not one, but many barricades, more figurative than literal, and may never actually happen. However, I do seriously love the show and its message (probably its having been based on great source material is mostly responsible), and I have to admit to tearing up a couple of times as I listened to three different recordings over the course of my journey. Because of the choices I've made, including things like enjoying eating regularly (not to mention allowing said eating to take control of my life and physique for many years), wanting to live in one location with one person, needing to be near my parents to assist with their care, and concentrating on education as a vocation rather than developing my performance skills, I'll never have the opportunity to sing roles like this in a professional venue. Community productions offer the rare chance for people like myself to do so, and I'll be very excited if the whole thing works out. At any rate, I derived great pleasure from barreling down I-85 and bellowing "2-4-6-0-1" to my heart's content with no one to reach over and smack me.

Beyond the plants I bought at Pine Knot, all of which are beautiful and totally homeless at this point (hence the garage location for these photos - I didn't take the camera with me yesterday, since I knew I couldn't juggle that along with flats of heavy pots), I had a chance to spend some time with some shining examples of folks who are doing what they're doing "for love", and making a living to boot. Dick and Judith Tyler have spent years building their business and developing a massive following throughout the world as experts on the genus Helleborus (Judith is the co-author, along with C. Colston Burrell, of what has become the "bible" for hellebore growers and breeders), and I hope they're able to continue doing so for many years to come. What's impressive is that they steadfastly concentrate on breeding and producing gorgeous, exceptional plants in a day and age where most garden retailers (bless you, Les!) have to be all things to all people in order to stay in business. Not that the Tylers haven't made trade-offs to achieve this; their home and garden, though beautiful, are in an extremely remote location; they do most of their business via mail order; and I'm sure they've made many other sacrifices over the years in order to pursue doing what they love.

The highlight of my day was the fact that Judith, while swamped with visitors, spent a long time with me, showing me plants I've never seen "in person" before. H. vesicarius, which virtually defies cultivation, was in full bloom, as was the extremely rare hybrid between H. niger and H. thibetanus, "Pink Ice". Judith is as delightful, kind and open in person as she is in print and email, and I thoroughly enjoyed being with her and her family.

Jamie, Dick and Judith's son-in-law, is another example of someone whose career and life choices I admire greatly; we talked about his decision to switch from a public school teaching job (similar to the one I've had for 21 years) to teaching cello privately and performing in North Carolina. He mentioned that when he stopped enjoying music, he knew it was time to get out of the classroom and return to the reason for his initially having become a musician - I can't agree more, and although I sometimes wish I'd done something similar, had I done so I would miss many of the things and people in my life now. It's all about finding a balance.

Another friend who has "followed her bliss" for many years and become a brilliant gardener, writer, and speaker in the process is Pamela Harper. I was telling Pam about a discussion my mom and I have every winter about her hydrangeas - she wants "those ugly sticks" cut down , and I have to explain that doing so will keep them from blooming. Pam says, and I agree, that this sort of thing is the reason she never wanted to be a garden designer, although she probably could have made a lot more money had she done so. Interestingly, I heard Penelope Hobhouse say almost the same thing in a recent lecture that was podcast by BBC Gardens Illustrated.

So I'm still working on finding the right proportion of work, time with family and friends, singing, gardening, writing, arranging music, and, oh yeah...sleep. It's a never ending process for all of us, and that's as it should be. For now, I've decided to let Victor Hugo guide me in establishing priorities, because when it's all said and done, I truly believe that "To love another person is [about as close as one will ever get] to see[ing] the face of God."

Bloom Day, February 2009

I've been doing this for over a year now, and since gardening is cyclical, is stands to reason that there would be numerous repeat appearances in a blog post such as this. I'll try to avoid some of the more obvious suspects that are blooming right now, although they are incredibly welcome. Narcissus 'Peeping Tom' (a cyclamineus hybrid) and 'Rijnveld's Early Sensation' are fully open in clumps all over the yard, and I'll try to restrain myself from posting too many Helleborus x hybridus, although I counted nearly 100 plants in full bloom yesterday with lots more in bud. Above is Camellia 'Debutante', which, along with Magnolia soulangeana, stands as one of the very finest of the brown-flowering woody plants in our area! We had bathroom wallpaper festooned with very similar flowers in the early 70's, so there's something oddly attractive to me about these blooms, even after they've been trashed by a freeze.
Chaenomeles japonica, another remnant of my grandparents' garden, and badly in need of thinning and pruning.

Aucuba 'Gold Dust' has produced its first berries ever, which surprised me, since it's a female clone and there are no males that I know of in the neighborhood. Les has promised to hook my single girls up with "stud service" via a male known as 'Mr. Goldstrike' later on this spring.

Arisaema urashima started breaking dormancy in the garage, so had to be brought inside to flower way ahead of schedule. I hate taking pictures (and growing plants, too, for that matter) inside!

I think this is Crocus tomasianus, which is ubiquitous, but with good reason. I like the way it pushes up through this clump of Christmas fern every February.
After years of trying, I'm finally having some success with Cyclamen coum, but only in very large, well-drained containers. I've partnered them with tree peonies, to which excessive summer watering is also anathema. While hederifolium does fine in the ground, this one, with its very desireable flowering season, rots away with the least bit too much moisture here. It's encouraging that these tubers have begun to reseed themselves. This one is almost unphotographable, but it's the more common crimson color variant of C. coum.

Daphne odora is another great plant which makes one wish for a "scratch and sniff" computer screen, but responds to poor drainage by kicking the bucket (watering can?) immediately.

Speaking of scents, that of Euphorbia characias 'wulfenii' is an acquired taste - pretty similar to skunk in an enclosed area. It's another plant that requires better drainage than I can provide in the ground, so its huge clay pot gets hauled into the garage on nights when the temps go into the teens. I have to admit to sort of enjoying the smell, but then, according to scientific studies, there are those who become stimulated by the aroma of sweaty male baseball players, so who knows which olfactory receptors this Euphorbia is causing to fire off in my increasingly befuddled brain? Probably best not to go there.

If I could bring myself to shell out $145 for Snowdrops: a Monograph (not that I haven't seriously considered it...), I might be able to do a better job of sorting out my Galanthus species and varieties. This one came to me as elwesii, so I guess that'll have to do for now.

The snowdrops below are distinct from the others I grow in having shiny, green leaves. I've had them forever, and don't remember the source. Perhaps ikarae or plicata? Any ideas appreciated!

Just a couple of Hellebore pictures - these really are my favorite plants, hands down, and I did an extensive post on them last year about this time or a little later. This one is close to something I've been working on - a chartreuse base color with picotee edging. If it were a Cattleya hybrid, it would be classified as an "art shade."

I'm not as crazy about the doubles as some are, but this is a nice, pure pink, probably from Pine Knot stock originally.In recent years I've gotten more and more excited about H. niger and its hybrids. Container or raised bed culture seems to eliminate problems with drainage and humidity tolerance. The first below is "Winter Moonlight", a tissue culture of a form developed by the Tylers at Pine Knot Farms (which is where I'm hoping to be for a while in about two weeks.) Judith says it originated from a failed hybrid between H. niger and argutifolius, which normally produces H. x. nigercors, another very garden-worthy grex for this area - those are spent blooms from a clone of it in the background of this photo, as a matter of fact.

This is a plant I've had for about ten years, supposedly descending from the famous

'Potter's Wheel'. The size of the blossoms supports this connection, and the best thing is that it tends to rebloom in May, when the flowers are less likely to become spotted due to the interaction of cold temperatures and moisture.
The first bloom of a plant originating in New Zealand, I think, called 'Winter Magic'.

Here's a "color echo" for you - Paphiopedilum 'Mem. Larry Heuer' blooming in front of a Mahonia in full bloom. Okay - it's a cheat - I just couldn't get a decent photo of it in the kitchen window. It's a primary parvisepalum hybrid, combining emersonii and malipoense.

Not yet in bloom, but grown mainly for foliar effect anyway, is Trillium underwoodii. It amazes me how early these break dormancy every year, yet seem to revive completely after every hard freeze they endure. In the greenhouse are lots of begonias, orchids, and gesneriads in bloom right now, but that's probably not the point of this exercise. Not much to report right now, so I'm headed out to tackle some serious pruning chores; I've done one rose ("Graham Thomas"), one Hydrangea, and one Arbutus so far - only a few dozen more to go. It beats working on taxes, which is really what I should be doing right now. All I can say is that I sure am glad it's February; it's amazing how much a couple of hours of sunlight (even if it's chilly out yet) can do to ameliorate the symptoms of my seasonal affective disorder, aka "cabin fever"!

"Only for Now"

Ok, so obviously you've got to break a few eggs to make an omelette. But, just for Phillip, here are before and after pics of the great terrarium adventure which I undertook yesterday. It had to happen, and it was a Saturday which was too cold for outside work and during which no housecleaning, shopping, or cooking (for ourselves or anyone else!) was necessary, so I took the plunge. I should have taken pictures of the entire process, but my hands were too dirty, and I was trying (unsuccessfully) to keep the kitchen somewhat clean, so I didn't add photography to the mix. Why the kitchen, you may ask (as did my partner)? It was too cold and dark in the garage, and our obnoxious kitchen lighting is so glaring that one could perform a tonsillectomy on the kitchen table, if necessary. I posted a pic of the seriously overgrown bottle garden before, but here it is again:

I used a tool called a wire puller, a flexible wire coil which opens its "arms" when pressure is applied on the handle, and a tool I made from a teaspoon, some electrical tape, and a bamboo stake (which had to be reinforced along its length by three heavy-guage wire insulation holders after breaking in the middle of the procedure). I started out very carefully, trying hard to lock the pincers of the wire puller around the crowns of each plant, reverse its polarity, shake off the soil, and pull it gently through the neck of the Florence flask. After about 10 minutes of cursing which would have made Tony Soprano blush, I gave up and started getting Medieval on the mass of vegetation. When everything was extracted, I ended up with the following:
9 pots of Begonia 'Buttercup' rhizomes in various stages of growth, but which I feel will produce beautiful plants in a few months. This is a hybrid involving B. prismatocarpa, an African species which requires lots of warmth and humidity to do well, but produces occasional bright yellow blooms. From the enormous pile of severed leaves I prepared about a dozen leaf cuttings as well (why? - there's no place to grow them here at all, and they're not hardy, which is the kiss of death at a plant sale around here...). These are under a humidity dome on a heat mat below a bank of fluorescent lights in the garage right now (how many prepositions can you use in a sentence?)

Along with the wreckage of the begonia, I extracted a jewel orchid (Ludisia or Haemaria, depending on the source of info, discolor) which broke into several viable pieces; several tubers of mini Sinningias; three nice Autumn ferns; and a very healthy Holly fern. Interestingly, I never planted the Sinningias or ferns in the terrarium - they were volunteers. Anyway, they'll all recover, I think, and the only damage was to the kitchen (cleaning that is next on my list of projects.) I took advantage of the mess to bring in and separate about 50 Bletilla seedlings (a cross I made of two B. striata varieties - the pure white one and the more uncommon blue cultivar, 'Murasaki Shikibu'), so that's another tedious indoor task to take off the list.

What to plant in the terrarium next? It's a tough call - whatever I use has to enjoy constant humidity, thrive in low light (the terrarium would overheat and cook the plants in a sunny spot), and maintain less than a 12" diameter and 8" height. I have some seedlings of Gesneria cuneifolia which might fill the bill, but they're miniscule, and it'll be some time before they put on much of a show. There's also the actual species form of Begonia prismatocarpa, which seems to remain smaller than its hybrid; who knows what it might do, though, given unlimited warmth and humidity? Pearcea hypocyrtiflora is another candidate, but it's a touchy critter and I'm still learning to grow it. For now, the bottle is in the garage drying out - I won't be able to get the old potting medium out until that happens.

Remember the dirt in the kitchen? I might have landed in hot water over that, except for a couple of very fortuitous accidents. Last week I finally managed to break my trusty elliptical trainer - 75-90 minutes of hard labor daily over a period of four years would cause any of us to crash, and it did so spectacularly at 4 AM last Monday morning, sending me tumbling sideways into the thirty gallon aquarium next to it. Somehow the tank survived to break my fall, although the angel fish, who've known me for years, still seem to view me with trepidation. Anyway, while the part for the elliptical is on order, I've been forced to rig up the contraption below in order to ride my ancient 10-speed in the living room for 2.5 hours every morning (it takes a lot longer to get the same cardio effect on the bike as one does on an elliptical, and skipping the workout is NOT an option) while working on the computer (I'm pedaling my butt off, literally, right now). I've discovered that I love rigging things up in order to make them work - now if I only looked like MacGyver!

As I was dismantling my terrarium, Ron decided to try out the bike, and did fine until he tried to dismount, at which point he managed to knock over the banana plant I had just potted up and moved in from the garage (you can see it directly behind the bike.) He felt so bad, and was so busy cleaning up his own mess, that nothing was ever said about the perlite and vermiculite on the kitchen table. We went with friends to see "Avenue Q" in Norfolk and had dinner out, so the kitchen was never a prioity.

Sometimes things just work out, and even though the show seemed superficial and silly at first, it did emphasize some deeper themes, with applications even in the gardening world. Like the period of time during which any planting, including a terrarium, looks really good, everything that happens is "only for now." Gardening, like life, is performance art. And that can be a good, or a bad, thing...

PS - this is Sinningia 'Orange Zinger', which looks good, but "only for now". It'll collapse into a well-deserved rest period after another few weeks.

"Don't Look, Ethel!"

As I write this, the thermometer outside the kitchen door (which usually registers a few degrees warmer than the one at "the bottom of the garden") is reading 15 degrees F; we usually have one or two nights like this every winter, and a couple of days like yesterday, when the temps never made it out of the 20's. My policy at times like this is to try not to look at things and trust that I've done my best to prepare the garden for these inevitable cold spells. Actually I feel better about this one than many in past years, since it's not following several weeks of warm weather during which plants are fooled into breaking dormancy, thus rendering themselves more vulnerable to freezes than in a progressively colder winter such as this. These pics were all taken before we entered the deep freeze, but I'm fairly confident that most things will survive, no worse for the wear, in the long run.


My grandmother's camellia, most likely 'Debutante', will sport brown flowers rather than pink once things thaw out; it's not the best choice for this area, since it blooms at this most hazardous time of year, but it's a sentimental favorite and one I would not be without. The huge mother plant (since removed by the new owners of the property) froze to the ground at least 3 times over the first 40 years of my life, always rebounding over time to at least 15 feet high, and looking better for the rejuvenation. I would never wish that for my camellia collection, but I have been reading lately in the journal of the Southeastern Camellia Society that the only sure way to eliminate tea scale, with which many of my shrubs are naggingly infested, is to cut the plants to the ground and allow them to regrow. I don't have the nerve to do this on my own, but a night or two in the low single digits might make that decision for me.

This primula, one of three I purchased last spring which were bred for heat tolerance by Dr. Clifford Parks of Camellia Forest Nursery in NC, managed one bloom before the cold snap hit. More importantly, all three plants look great, even after a long, hot, coastal VA summer.

These pansies were an impulse buy last fall, but they do make this planter look useful in the winter. I hate spending money on annual plants, but summers here are just too hot to germinate viola seeds in a timely manner.

A nice little bonus- these leftover paperwhite bulbs were in the compost that I dumped on this bed in August, and produced a few spikes of bloom before the freeze occurred. I would never pay money for these to plant outside (and Ron won't let me grow them in the house because of the smell), but these bulbs came out of some big nursery pots full of perfectly good potting soil left on the curb by someone in the neighborhood last summer. I never let useful organic matter go to the landfill!

Everybody's posting Mahonia blooms this week, and for good reason. The best thing about these shrubs, aside from these blooms in January, is the flock of cedar waxwings that pass through every summer and strips them of their grape-ish berries. I've been lucky enough to be looking out the kitchen window once or twice over the past few years when that's happened.

There are hundreds of Hellebore buds in the garden right now, but not many in full bloom, which is probably a good thing given the weather. This is H. x ericsmithii 'Pink Beauty'.

H. niger 'Nell Lewis' strain is just coming into bloom now.

A chance seedling of H. foetidus with a few buds already open. This species never lasts long here in any given position, but usually seeds itself around so that at least one is in bloom every winter. I believe it's a drainage issue, into which category most of my gardening problems fall.

A new (to me) Galanthus cultivar, one of three single bulbs which constituted my only non-clearance sale bulb purchases this fall. This is 'Lady Beatrix Stanley' and it's double, although one has to wonder why that matters in a flower that's so close to the ground.

A Cyclamen coum plant raised from a batch of seeds purchased from Seneca Hill a few years back. I'm glad I got them then, since Ellen has since stopped selling cyclamen seed as part of her retail operation. Although C. hederifolium does pretty well in the open garden here, my only success with coum has been in raised beds or large outdoor planters, where this one resides. I covered it with a sheet of spun-bonded row cover last weekend, although that probably isn't necessary, even with these temperatures.

I'm just turning a blind eye to things right now, being thankful (?) for the forced inside time. I'm actually reading a few great books, something I've done less and less as the computer has taken over my indoor time. Garden Open Today and Garden Open Tomorrow by Beverley Nichols are as entertaining as they've always been reputed to be, and Planthropology, by Ken Druse, is spectacular eye candy, even for the non-gardener. By far my favorite, which was purchased as a consolation prize when Snowdrops: a Monograph became too rich for my blood (I just couldn't justify paying over $100 for it), is Buried Treasures: Finding and Growing the World's Choicest Bulbs by Janis Ruksans. It's not a picture book; rather, it contains tons of first-hand growing information gleaned from years of raising bulbs under nursery conditions in Latvia, of all places. Strangely, Ruksans's climate and growing conditions correspond to mine in many ways, so I'm finding it extremely informative and enjoyable.

So who knows? Maybe the Christmas tree will come down today, that back bedroom will be cleaned out, or the freezer will get defrosted. Those are noble aspirations, but I wouldn't bank on any of them actually happening - there are still flats containing hundreds of Bletilla and Sinningia seedlings under lights in the garage needing attention, not to mention a cramped Begonia prismatocarpa hybrid ('Buttercup') screaming to be liberated from the gigantic boiling flask terrarium in which it's been imprisoned for two years now...