This rainy afternoon is ideal for observing the garden from the perch of the glass walled sunroom that looks down upon the rear garden. Raindrops fall onto parts of the three ponds visible, though one will soon be obscured as Japanese maples come into leaf and Ostrich ferns unfurl their tall fronds. Two Japanese maples…

Today, flowers of Allegheny spurge (Pachysandra procumbens, below) verify that the native is the superior choice for this garden, where I ask only that it fill small spaces, flower beautifully, and display attractive foliage. Its cousin, the Japanese spurge (P. terminalis) is less showy but considerably more vigorous and better suited to spreading to cover…

The small rear lawn is littered by petals of ‘Merrill’ magnolia that drift on the breezes. Six days of peak flowering were a bonus before a twenty-five degree (Fahrenheit) freeze began a decline that will soon turn today’s limp flowers to brown mush. The gardener disturbed by the nearly annual freeze damage should simply plant…

Weather permitting, Barbara and I get out a few times a week to hike nearby mountains or to roam local forests. When my vote to pick the day’s hike is permitted, my choice is dictated by trails with botanical interest. We’re a few weeks early for trout lilies, trilliums, and mayapples, but many spring ephemerals…

I am thrilled to see two Asian mayapples (Podophyllum pleianthum, below) breaking ground along the stone path in the shaded, side garden. All knowing (or know nothing) gardener that I am, I did no watering over the two month period of drought last summer. In midsummer, one of the two planted mayapples planted earlier in…

Several branches of nandinas stray from their upright habit, probably due to snow or ice sometime in recent years. Today, the arching branches are evident, but soon, the two neighboring Japanese maples will be in leaf, the Ostrich ferns will reappear, and the nandinas are likely to be forgotten until next winter. I’m reminded that…

In this cold-natured garden where everything flowers a week later than just up the street, ‘Merrill’ magnolia flowers on March 15. More or less. Fifty feet down a gentle slope, ‘Royal Star’ flowers three days later. There is never a time when the Star magnolia flowers earlier than ‘Merrill’, but both might come into bloom ten…

Little effort is required to add color to the garden in March. Swelling buds and emerging perennials are glorious, but after a winter with only scattered blooms, flowers now fill the garden (with more every week). Delightful swaths of daffodils (above) are scattered through the garden, just enough that I am not tempted (for the…

At the start of March, there are countless garden tasks to be accomplished. I dislike lists, so the various chores will not be enumerated. Otherwise, the list would be ignored as so many others before it, including ones prepared by others who certainly have learned their lesson after so many decades. Later in the gardening…

A year ago, the ‘Okame’ cherry (Prunus ‘Okame’, below) bordering the koi pond flowered gloriously alongside the massive paperbush (Edgeworthia chrysantha), both in the last week of February. While paperbushes have flowered here as early as late January, this was the earliest bloom I recall for the cherry. While the flowers of ‘Okame’ and the…

Barbara alerts me that she has discovered a marvel, a hellebore with flowers of three colors (below). I am quite pleased she has made the rounds on this mild early March morning, but her discovery is far short of astonishing. Unsurprisingly, carelessness in failing to transplant (or remove) hellebore seedlings has yielded several delightful (for…

The flowers of sweetbox (Sarcococca hookeriana var. humilis) are small but sweetly scented. At least, that’s what I hear, and possibly that’s why it was planted many years ago, but before I realized I can’t smell a thing. Sweetbox is slow to get started, but after a few years, it begins to spread slowly but…