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Snowdrops, Winter Aconites, Crocus: Garden Bloggers Bloom Day March 2010

March 15, 2010

Another March, another mud season in full swing. The snowdrops that had barely opened five days ago are now in full flower:
The snowdrops that were buried under snow on March 7th are now in full bud, as you can see on the left. This is the path in the Secret Garden that I brag [...]

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Choose locations to plant fall bulbs now

March 10, 2010

In January, the snowdrops in the Secret Garden looked like this:
This Sunday just passed–March 7th–those same snowdrops looked like this:
Such are the vagaries of an upstate New York winter. Since then, the temperatures have been mild and the sunshine brilliant, and the snow is receding. This, my fellow cold climate gardeners, is the best time [...]

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First Snowdrops: Status update

March 10, 2010

First snowdrops bloomed today *and* it got up to 61F. Yes, mud season is here!

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Black Plants: Book Review

February 9, 2010

Black Plants: 75 Striking Choices for the Garden by Paul Bonine is the kind of book that drives me wild. Seventy-five gorgeous plants and over half of them are not hardy for me. Wait. Maybe it’s just that half of the ones I want to grow aren’t hardy for me. I actually didn’t go through [...]

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The Great Houseplant Census of 2010

February 2, 2010

Mr. McGregor’s Daughter, in an effort to promote domestic harmony*, has requested gardeners everywhere to tally up the number of plants they currently have growing inside. Here are my results:
Outdoor Plants Wintering Over
1 rosemary
1 ‘Rehoku Sunrise’ carex (an experiment)
1 apple seedling (my middle daughter’s experiment)
1 orange tree grown from seed by my 16 year old [...]

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How Do You Know If A Plant Is Hardy?

January 21, 2010

I was just reading Graham Rice’s musings on plants that grow in the coldest climates. He observed that the resources he consulted did not agree on which plants were tough enough to take USDA zone 2. If you’ve been gardening for any length of time (which of course Graham has), this won’t surprise you.
First, [...]

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Lady-Slipper Seed Pods

October 25, 2009

Remember this?
Now it looks like this:
I discovered these while on my witch hazel walk.
Lady Slipper Seed Germination

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A Good Year for Witch Hazels

October 20, 2009

It is a family tradition to walk up the hill and into the woods this time of year to seek out the witch hazel (Hamamelis virginiana) blossoms. This is a native shrub or small tree that prefers moist, acidic soil–which we have in abundance.

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Colchicums: Garden Bloggers Bloom Day October 2009

October 15, 2009

You might think after a 26F freeze there would be nothing left blooming in the garden, but you would be wrong. The colchicums continue to shoot up new blossoms. Pictured above is Colchicum autumnale ‘Album’.Early on in my colchicum acquisitions, I discovered three different varieties that, to my eye, were indistinguishable. It turns out a [...]

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Colchicum Design Ideas from Montrose Gardens

October 10, 2009

Many gardeners complain that it is difficult to place colchicums in the garden because of their unusual growing cycle, in which their leaves grow in the spring, die down in the summer, and then the flowers emerge in the fall. The colchicum bed at Montrose Gardens in Hillsborough, North Carolina, pictured above, contained many colchicum [...]

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The 2009 GWA Symposium in Raleigh, NC: A Yankee’s Waking Dream

October 2, 2009

I don’t travel much. As a matter of fact, all the flying I’ve done in my adult life has been because of blogging, and all my flights have been to much warmer climates than my own. Every time I’ve left my home turf, I’ve found the experience a little unreal. Unmoored from my usual routine, [...]

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Unidentified Invasive Plant

September 16, 2009

If you know invasive plants could you reply to this comment? A reader has commented on an older post about an invasive plant she can’t identify. I don’t recognize it from her description, but maybe you do.

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First colchicum

September 6, 2009

My first colchicum is up but hasn’t pinked up yet.Most colchicums emerge white and then pink up over the next few days.
Did you know I am a colchicum evangelist, spreading the good news of colchicums wherever I go? For some of my earlier messages, check out the archives.

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