Cold Climate Gardening

Variegated bulbous oat grass, sweet white violet, and a bit of ‘White Nancy’ lamium in the lower left corner

Because of the warm April, a lot of the daffodils that were still blooming last year are done for this year. This is the “gap” time between the early blooming spring flowers and the big June extravaganza […]

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This looked spectacular earlier in May, but the narcissus were already done by the time Gardeners Bloom Day came around.
Those orange-cup daffodils were blooming at my neighbor’s, between her house and the brook, but too far away from the house to be noticed. I marked them and dug them up and got half for myself […]

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In contrast to what gardeners in many other parts of the country have endured, where Spring arrived in full force, only to be slapped down by Winter’s last stand, Spring has not really made its grand entrance. It’s only been peeking through the window, wondering if it really wants to come in.
The snowdrops are dangling […]

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Lynda, Fraser’s Thimble Farms was offering ‘Lady’ hellebores at their 2002 website. While you are there, make sure you check out their Japanese hepaticas. Oo la la! Collecting them could be an expensive hobby! If you search at Google using the keywords helleborus +lady (the plus sign means lady must be on the same page […]

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One is H. niger and the other is H. orientalis. It’s the niger that is blooming now. The O blooms closer to Easter. The ‘Lady’ series is H x hybridus Lady. To paraphrase an article in BBC Gardener’s World, “Exciting colour options are now available to gardeners with the introduction of a new series of […]

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Mine aren’t in a sheltered spot and they are subject to wind almost every day that comes from the south. After a very mild late summer and early fall, the temps plunged without benefit of snow cover. The Hellebores fell over and looked quite forlorn and as soon as the weather moderated, they lifted their […]

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So, Lynda, they really do bloom in the snow, unlike snowdrops or crocus, which wait until March for me? How important is snow cover? If you have good snow cover, the soil doesn’t freeze and I guess I can see how they might bloom. But what about if the ground freezes solid and there’s no […]

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