Waiting for the snow to melt

With snow covering the garden for two weeks, I’m becoming increasingly anxious to get out to do something. Shoveling the driveway gets me outside, but this deepens mounds of snow covering hellebores along the drive that could begin flowering in the next few weeks. I refuse to expend additional effort to toss the snow further from the driveway’s edge, so I hope for rain or extended mild temperatures to quicken the melting. Since Barbara and I come and go through the garage, I will not shovel the front walk. Perhaps I’ll see a few snowdrops along the walk in the next week as the snow slowly melts.

Several mild days might be enough to push the leatherleaf mahonia into bloom. The hybrid Asian mahonias have few flowers remaining after nighttime temperatures near ten degrees.

Hellebores that began flowering early in December remain covered, and unfortunately, I find that open flowers deteriorate the longer the snow persists. Of course, even without snow, the winter months drag on. Flowers of witch hazels, hellebores (below), snowdrops, and others help to ease my restlessness, but I need to get out into the dirt.

Blooms of December flowering Helleborus niger are likely to deteriorate under the snow.

Several hellebores with buds that were swelling before the snow are likely to burst into flower soon after the snow melts.

In mid-January, I have yet to place a single plant mailorder. By now, I’ve usually placed several, with plans for many purchases once the garden centers are restocked, so I wonder if I’m exercising unusual restraint or if this is the result of a deeper winter depression. I expect my disposition will improve with a few days warming into the forties, and I’ll be joyful to get back to hiking a few of the lower elevation mountain trails that aren’t iced over.

I’m quite pleased that the winter seems to be moving along. I’m keeping busy enough that each day and week does not seem an eternity, and as January progresses, I know that signs of spring will multiply by the week.

Soon, I’ll begin making plans for the garden for spring. A few sets of seeds might be sown before the first of March, but I’ve pledged to hold off sowing castor beans and popcorn cassia (Senna didymobotrya, below) until a month later so I don’t kill so many tender seedlings while I’m distracted by other spring chores.

I saw cassia while visiting a garden in early November. I sat on a bench and ordered seed.

Today, specifics for spring planting are still fuzzy, typical for my “I’ll know it when I see it” approach. As always, there will be Solomon Seal relatives and additions to cram into the rock gardens, but often, the joy of winter ordering is the surprise of a new and exotic inspiration. I look forward to it.