Without fail, gardeners hedge when declaring their favorite flowers, changing by the month or by the day, and I am hardly different. But, of all flowers, I most favor the yellow tipped, tube-like blooms of paperbush (Edgeworthia chrysantha, below). I anxiously watch the large buds from early winter until the first glimpse of yellow shows,…

Day One – the snow day While snow in March is not unusual in this Virginia garden, neither is it an every year occurrence. So, I must tour through the garden armed with a leaf rake to dislodge clinging snow from branches that arch over the stone paths, but also to take before photos of…

A narrow growing, columnar purple leafed beech (Fagus sylvatica ‘Red Obelisk’) will help to fill the space vacated by the removal of a redbud that leaned far over this area of the garden. The leaning redbud was tolerated for too long, threatening to topple onto the greenhouse, so the further tilt following the early January…

Today is cold, dreary, and raining. A few degrees colder and this would be wet snow, so just another very typical March morning. In another day or two it’ll be short sleeve weather, then cold, and back and forth, and this is all to be expected. With unsettled weather the norm for March, the one…

Certainly, there are gardens with many more hellebores than this garden’s hundred (maybe two, but who’s counting?), and while I will never admit that there are too many of any plant, the quantity of winter flowers is quite satisfactory, at least for now. No doubt, in the future many more hellebores are likely to be…

On a mild, late February afternoon I couldn’t resist. Much clean up was done earlier in the day, and now an area of evergreen sedge (Carex ‘Evergold’) was cut to the ground to reveal snowdrops that have long been quite tangled and barely visible. Plans were made to dig the largest clumps at the ideal…

This should be the year, the second spring after planting, when two dark leafed crape myrtles (‘Rumblin’ Red and ‘Purple Light’, below) grow to make an impact in the lower, rear garden. This area has been unsatisfactorily bare since a large witch hazel and evergreen holly perished as a bare trickle of a spring orienting…

I am, but should not be surprised that the most shaded of three ‘Arnold Promise’ witch hazels is the first to flower. I figured it would be the last, but until this afternoon I failed to recognize that it is most exposed to the more southernly path of the winter sun, though this shines through…

I recall a time when I lusted after two Japanese maples, the splendid, variegated leaf Floating Cloud (Acer palmatum ‘Ukigumo’, below) and the Golden Full Moon (Acer shirasawanum ‘Aureum’), which as its name indicates is a yellow leafed maple. Other Japanese maples planted earlier in the garden were more common types, and several were gaining…

Again, I’ve failed to order spring flowering snowdrops, winter aconites, and crocus that will be sorely missed in this late winter. At least this year I can’t blame forgetfulness. I wasn’t late with my order, just too late in this year of skyrocketing demand so that all were sold out by the time I got…

Of handfuls of witch hazels in the garden, one flowers in November and again in February. No, this is not a newfound wonder or a novelty of creative grafting such as 3 in 1 apples, but a mistake. Long before this witch hazel was planted in the garden, a small section of a red flowered…

I rejoice following two fifty degree days, with another two to follow. Yes, another spell of cold is in the forecast, and possibly more snow, but this break from cold, snow, and ice brings the first hard evidence that spring is near, or at least getting nearer. While some frost remains in exposed soil in…