Cold Climate Gardening

According to John Bryan in Bulbs, “the plant usually grown under this name is a form of C. speciosum with yellow anthers.” Elsewhere he also says it has a white throat. I’ve looked at the photo of the “true” C. bornmuelleri, and I definitely have the impostor. It has yellow anthers and a white throat, […]

[Read more →]

Colchicum autumnale ‘Nancy Lindsay’ bloomed quite a while ago. She only threw forth two exquisite blossoms, and I somehow didn’t get out there with a camera in time. It would have been worth it, for Russell Stafford rightly describes her as having “abundant, bright-pink, purple-stemmed blooms . . . in September and October. Vigorous.” Yes, […]

[Read more →]

I think of these colchicums as triplets because, even thought they are supposed to be three distinct plants, I can’t tell them apart. In the photos they appear to have more difference in color than they do in real life. The supposed ‘Album’ is in shade when the other two are in sunlight, so I […]

[Read more →]

. . . so I went for a walk. We went for a walk, I should say. The six youngest children plus my dear husband, to be precise. I wanted to see if the witch hazels were blooming. The first time Ivan took me up the hill to see them, he brought me in front […]

[Read more →]

Well, after that killing freeze we’ve had some nice warm days (and nights). I brought my rosemary in anyway because I don’t trust myself to remember to bring it in for next spell of cold nights. And I dug the Bishop of Llandoff dahlia bulbs my sister had given me, mostly because Talitha really enjoyed […]

[Read more →]

If you are looking for the Gardening Quote of the Month for February 2006, it’s actually here.
It would be so nice if frost were one of those predictable things. Garden planning would make great advancements if the effective beginning and end of the growing season were known with the certainty of the yearly appearance of […]

[Read more →]

These are the plants that started my fascination with colchicums. They were growing all around some peonies when we moved here. The foliage came up in the spring, very wide, about a foot tall, and bright green. I kept waiting for them to bloom so I could figure out what they were . . . […]

[Read more →]