I question if a gardener, and by this I refer to myself, should feel obliged to keep proper records of what he plants. Is it sufficient to state that “hellebores are good”, or is there an obligation to specifically recommend ‘Anna’s Red’ (or any other) if he has found this to be an exceptional hellebore?…
Month: February 2018
No more reading
Not proudly, I admit that I am not much of a reader, at least not of books. Too short an attention span, I suppose. Nevertheless, to fill the winter hours I’ve reread five books long dormant in our small home library, and purchased and read two others. So there. All were garden related, one on…
Relaxed
This period of rest is nearly at its end, for better and worse. While I fret over the multitude of chores that must be accomplished by the start of spring, I greatly appreciate the more relaxed pace of winter. Not that there is nothing to be done, but there is less urgency that tasks must…
Seventy in February
In the last weeks of a very average winter that seems so much worse by comparison to recent mild winters, a seventy degree day in February encourages that the worst has passed. Besides an improvement in the gardener’s disposition, there are also tangible signs of the change of season. For weeks, a scattered few snowdrops…
Winter jasmine
Better judgment, too rarely exercised in this garden, recommends that I not photograph yellow blooms of Winter jasmine that arch over the edge of the koi pond. A wide growing paperbush along side of the pond makes viewing of the Winter jasmine (Jasminum nudiflorum) ever more treacherous, with the route over slick boulders at the…
Which witch hazel?
I’ve told the story before (and will again), always with profound disappointment, that a mature ‘Arnold Promise’ witch hazel (Hamamelis x intermedia ‘Arnold Promise’, below) faded and finally succumbed in an area of the rear garden that gradually became too damp. The loss of dear and long established plants is always tragic, but this witch…
Digging through the freeze
Frozen ground prevents much progress in tidying up the garden before spring. Brief spells of mild temperatures teased that the worst of winter had passed, and while recent cold has not been extreme, there have been few days to encourage the urge to get outdoors. Today, a small fothergilla (Fothergilla ‘Mt. Airy’, below) was moved…
Club and spikemosses
An interesting, low growing evergreen caught my eye on a winter afternoon as I walked along the creek in the forest that borders the garden. There are few evergreens in the forest besides the few native hollies and scattered ferns, and I was intrigued that this could be from the family of club and spikemosses….
Impatient for spring
Over my wife’s incredulous laughter, I claim patience, while fidgeting to get outdoors after the recent spell of mild temperatures. At the start of February, already winter seems overly long, though alternating periods of mildness and cold are typical of the Virginia winter, and five more weeks of varying degrees of cold are expected. In…
A fallen wall
A section of the dry stacked stone wall that retains the edge of the koi pond has collapsed, so this must be added to the list of chores that must be accomplished before spring. There is no hurry to repair the wall, it leaned in recent years, and if it was structurally necessary it would…
Ramblin' through Dave's Garden 