A year ago I noted that the mild winter temperatures were more akin to South Carolina than to northwestern Virginia. I’m not at all certain that this was a result of the warming of the planet (that seems inevitable), or an anomaly, but I was all for it in the short term. If this matter were…
Tag: japanese maples
The noise
Author’s note – I’m sorry, today no photos, just a story about an idiot gardener and the hazards of procrastination. For two days the winds howled, until I could take it no longer. I was off from work for a few days with nothing to do except laze about the house. It was warm a few…
Men are inclined to collect?
A few days ago I was reading a story about Colchicums in the English gardening magazine Gardens Illustrated (my favorite magazine, with superb writing, though the gardens hardly translate to the much warmer and more humid mid Atlantic region of America). The author related that he, like many men, has a tendency to collect. I…
Japanese maples and late season foliage color
By mid November most tree foliage has turned color, faded, and leaves have fallen. If any foliage was hanging by a thread the hurricane winds surely took care to blow it into the next county, so that today most trees are bare. But, a few trees are almost fully in leaf, and now are at their…
In search of Japanese maples
I’ve been visiting tree and shrub growing nurseries across the country to buy plants for nearly thirty-five years. In the early years my traveling partner and I kept a close watch for Japanese maples as we traveled through neighborhoods visiting nurseries just outside Portland, Oregon (the Japanese maple growing capital of the U.S.). Here were…
Japanese maples in bloom
There are dozens of flowering plants in the garden today, but I couldn’t let this week pass without showing off the emerging foliage and flowers of some of the garden’s Japanese maples. Most people don’t think of Japanese maples as flowering, but in fact most trees have flowers of some sort, it’s just that many…
Here comes trouble
My wife took a break from her studies yesterday to take a stroll through the garden. Since she has gone back to school for a mid-life career change she doesn’t spend much time outdoors, which is fine with me since she usually has a few “suggestions” for me. She instructs me to prune this or…
It’s gonna be cold!
No good is accomplished by whining that the dogwoods (Cornus florida, below) are flowering too early, or that the Japanese maples are leafing prematurely and are in danger should an overnight freeze arrive in the next few weeks (or tonight). The gardener has no control over these events, of course, and no amount of talking…
Ramblin' through Dave's Garden 