A few days ago I was wandering about the garden, and noticed that the flower buds on ‘Jane’ magnolia (Magnolia x ‘Jane’, on Monday and further below, Wednesday) were beginning to break, but that the buds on ‘Dr. Merrill’ and ‘Royal Star’ were still closed. ‘Jane’ usually flowers later than the others, but it is…
Category: landscaping
Lots of catching up to do
Oh well, it’s been fun! For two of the past three weeks I’ve worked at garden shows, so I’ve spent the weekdays building and planting, and the weekend days talking gardening rather than doing gardening. I’m not much of a people person, but I enjoy plants and I can (and often do) go on talking…
Winter daphne
My wife is perpetually busy with this and that so that she rarely reads my writings, unless something sparks her fears that I’ve written something about her. She is currently immersed in studies for a midlife career that will hold her over after I keel over dead at my desk one evening, so I’m quite…
More early March blooms
In this unusually warm winter leatherleaf mahonia (Mahonia bealei, below) started to flower early in January. In early March it has reached its peak bloom (or perhaps slightly past), at the time when it usually is just beginning to show color. I expect the flowers will fade a bit sooner, but the winter blooms were…
Blooming at the start of March
In recent days I’ve seen magnolias blooming in the area, with most of the flowers damaged by frost so that the edges are brown. It’s not particularly unusual for these to be flowering in early March, just as the damage is typical. By good fortune rather than good planning, I planted ‘Royal Star’, ‘Jane’, and…
The scent of the late winter garden
I have a terrible sniffer. I can barely discern all but the strongest scents, but this afternoon the garden was filled with sweet fragrances. The blooms of the vernal witch hazel (Hamamelis vernalis, below) are beginning to fade after six weeks, but its scent was evident from halfway across the rear garden. Perhaps it would…
No daffodils in bloom
I believe that my garden is the only one within a hundred miles without a daffodil in bloom. My neighbors’ are flowering. Down the road, and across town I’m seeing a few here, and many more over there. My property is rather cold by nature, straddling a small creek that runs along the bottom land between hills that…
Pussy willow
Through February the local grocery store does brisk business selling bundles of pussy willow stems that have been forced into bloom. I have a rather large pussy willow growing at the rear of my garden, so it’s no surprise to me that few homeowners have a pussy willow of their own from which to cut…
Which witch hazel is which
I find myself dumbfounded on occasion, maybe even frequently. Last year I purchased a large witch hazel (seven feet tall and nearly as wide) that was labelled by the grower as Hamamelis virginiana, the native witch hazel of the mid Atlantic. My confusion began when the leaves dropped in early November. The leaves are not…
Native weeds … No, I mean perennials
“Weeds from the side of the road, that’s what they are”. Well, that’s partially true, but take those weeds into a cultivated garden, and many turn into valuable, sturdy, and beautiful perennials (Ironweed, Vernonia noveboracensis, above). But not all. There are thistles and brambles that we discourage from growing in our gardens, but most of…
Hellebore blooms and seedlings
In this unusually warm winter the hellebores in the garden began to flower early in January. By late in the month, and now early in February most are in full bloom. In most years hellebores flower late in February in my garden with the blooms lasting for a month or longer, fading as temperatures turn…
So disappointing
I can’t recall the last time that ‘Winter’s Interlude’ camellia flowered in my garden. It’s supposed to flower in November, or as late as December, but doesn’t, at least not regularly. I have an old photo of it flowering, but it was at least four or five years ago. Why doesn’t it bloom? I’ve no…
Ramblin' through Dave's Garden 