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…

The garden has frozen again overnight with a thin crust of frost over the deep muck resulting from an inch or more of rain and a quick defrost from a nearly month long freeze. Tonight, temperatures will again drop into the teens (Fahrenheit), but a gradual warmup to the average will follow. I must avoid…

Sit and wait. The garden remains under a cover of snow, and worse, ice along packed down, well traveled paths. Temperatures have only occasionally risen above freezing for several weeks, and I am ever more anxious to get outdoors, to do something. As soon as it’s safe to walk around without slipping and sliding, I…

Just as the last patches of snow were melting in this shaded, slow to thaw garden, here comes another few inches. With typical for February, mild temperatures forecast for midweek, this snow should melt quickly, and there seems a possibility that suitable weather to get started on winter chores might be around the corner. No…

One side of a tall, yellow tipped Hinoki cypress grows green. Until a year ago, only a small fraction was yellow, with two variegated ‘Silver Cloud’ redbuds leaning far over to limit its sunlight. I am uncertain why the redbuds leaned quite so, but suppose this began as a reach for sunlight, with the angle…

Even while hellebores and snowdrops remain buried beneath an icy blanket of snow, flowers of mahonias and witch hazels offer a daily dose of comfort to soothe the gardener, anxious in a continuing freeze that spring seems so far off. While I occasionally join others who scour nursery and seed catalogs, my relief is found…

Thoughts of spring have begun in earnest, though the seemingly interminable second half of winter remains. I will be at least slightly encouraged once the still inches thick blanket of snow and ice melts and average temperatures for the season return, but neither appears imminent. While several dogwoods were added to the garden in the…