This garden is situated between foothills that soon rise to become the eastern edge of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Long ago I witnessed the effect of frost and freeze settling into this low point when snow lingered for days or weeks after it had disappeared from neighboring properties. Melting snow is further delayed by a…
Tag: snowdrops
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…
Not bad for a quarter
I’ve little doubt that ‘February Gold’ daffodils (Narcissus ‘February Gold’, below) flower in February, somewhere, but rarely does this occur in my northwestern Virginia garden. Typically, this event is delayed until the first week of March, occasionally the second, and this year the first hint of the yellow flowers was the first day of spring. Peak…
Sneaking into spring
After several warm days, a few blooms of hellebores (Helleborus spp., above and below) have opened, just in time to be buried again by eight inches of snow. Of course, in March it is assured that snow will not last long, so I expect that many of the hellebores will reach peak bloom by the…
Better late than never
There are occasions when snowdrops (Galanthus spp., below) push through snow to flower in winter’s most inhospitable conditions. Though much of the snow has melted, the deeply shaded front garden remains covered, and today a few snowdrops have managed to poke through along the treacherously icy front walk. I’ve been waiting. I’m certain that area…
Where are the snowdrops?
At the start of February I fear that nothing will flower in the garden again until April. There is no sign of the snowdrops (Galanthus nivalis, above), which remain under several inches of snow along the front walk. I don’t recall a time when these did not flower by mid February, but even when the…
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…
Ramblin' through Dave's Garden 