Not once in January was I tempted to begin working on chores that must be accomplished sometime before spring growth commences. Several times each week I’ve scurried through the garden to catch up on the few blooms and swelling buds, but I’ve hardly stopped for a moment to pull a weed or to pick up…
Category: gardens
Buds
After a flush of growth in autumn, the hellebores (Helleborus) are plump and now heavily budded. I have not yet removed the foliage so that the nodding flowers will be more evident when these begin to bloom in several weeks. Certainly, I’ll get around to this, at least by the time the first color begins…
Contemplating the garden
Without question, winter is time for contemplating the garden, though I readily admit I’m not much on planning. With cold temperatures and less labor there is opportunity to consider what went wrong, and no doubt countless minor tragedies befall the best of gardens. Also to consider, what worked, no matter how small the successes might…
Flowers and foliage in January
Following days of cold and a bit of snow and ice (though hardly enough to be disturbed about), the yellow, winter flowering mahonias (‘Winter Sun’ and ‘Charity’) have finally faded from bloom. Vernal witch hazel (Hamamelis vernalis) and a few early snowdrops (Galanthus, above) continue to flower, and these will continue through until the now…
Winter flowering camellias
Two camellias reside in shade beneath the canopy formed by the combined planting of Golden Rain tree (Koelreuteria paniculata) and ‘Jane’ magnolia (Magnolia x ‘Jane’). The shading is not so dense that the camellias do not set buds, but the effect is that flowering is delayed by a month or longer as identical varieties with…
January flowers
A single stem of the Vernal witch hazel (Hamamelis vernalis, below) has begun to flower at the start of January, and though the blooms are small and not brightly colored, there is a satisfaction that the gardener has done something right to be rewarded with winter flowers. In fact, there is no particular skill in…
Flowers in the snow
This is a gentle snow. Temperatures are cold and getting colder, so this is not the sort of snow that threatens to bend and break branches. It accumulates on branches of evergreens, trapped by dense needles, but even the tall stems of nandinas (Nandina domestica, below) do not arch under the slight weight. Reports are…
Dead magnolias
The dead magnolia (Magnolia grandiflora ‘Alta’) at the rear of the garden must finally be chopped out. The tree died in last winter’s cold, and for a few months into the spring I hesitated, hoping that this was only damaged foliage from the cold and nothing more serious. The bark on a tree that has…
Low maintenance, or is it?
On second thought, after sleeping on it, and with considerable deliberation, I must fess up that more maintenance is accomplished in this garden than I might imply. After all, the property is an acre and a quarter, so after subtracting for the house, driveway, and small amount of lawn, what remains that is garden is…
Late December in the garden
I am pleased to report that recent weeks have been mild, not warm, but not cold after a period in November that alarmed many gardeners with temperatures far below normal. Rainfall has been plentiful, at least the number of days if not the total accumulation, so that the garden is damp enough to help to…
Low maintenance
Though it’s no secret that I find garden maintenance loathsome, I take for granted that some labor is necessary to maintain a minimum of order so that the garden is not given over completely to briars and brambles. In recent years, parts of the garden without an adequate cover of shredded leaves grow prodigious crops…
For the birds?
Gardeners, I suppose, are an optimistic lot, sometimes ignoring the obvious for years, or even a lifetime. There is ample evidence that I am a slow learner, with lessons too often requiring a decade or two, if they are ever to be learned. And, so it is with winter berries, or at least many berries…
Ramblin' through Dave's Garden 