A keen memory is required when planting in winter to avoid injuring dormant bulbs and perennials. It is long established that I possess no such powers of recollection.

On occasion, a bulb is unearthed or sliced, or one thing is planted within inches of another. Usually, these minor conflicts are easily corrected, and again I see that a Downy Rattlesnake plantain (Goodyera pubescens, above), one of several native orchid varieties in the garden, is planted beneath a wide spreading ‘Sum and Substance’ hosta (below). Ten others (by my wife’s count) reside in ground left open for these tiny treasures.

While I am traveling on business, most are beginning to flower. I hope to be home by the end of this cycle, and perhaps in the future flowering will be early or late so that blooming does not coincide with this yearly trip. Unquestionably, the native orchids cannot compare to the beauty of larger, more common terrestrial orchids, but they are worthy of these small spaces left unplanted.