Cold Climate Gardening

Variegated bulbous oat grass, sweet white violet, and a bit of ‘White Nancy’ lamium in the lower left cornerBecause 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 when all the experts say I should have lots of tulips blooming, but I don’t. I love tulips, but they prefer better draining soil than what I’ve got, and the plentiful rodents like to eat them. Instead, I seem to have a lot of green and white vignettes, such as the one above, and the one below.

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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 for the labor of digging and replanting her half. The hellebore came from Seneca …

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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 the last of their bells. The crocus bank would look pretty good–if only their blossoms would open, which they won’t do without sunshine. The daffodils have been on the verge of blooming for a week, likewise just waiting for a bit of sunshine:

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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 as helleborus) you will also find some wholesale sources, and maybe one of them would be suitable to recommend to your local grower. I think I will wait until someone on the east coast offers the ‘Lady,’ because even though they sound luscious, shipping cross-country can be prohibitive.

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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 hellebores bred by Gisela Schmiemann in Germany.” Hopefully, I can get the garden center in Creston, BC to bring the series in for sale. The colors are really spectacular. The blue is the deepest and the yellow is sharp and bright. On another note…….night before last we received another six inches of snow. It was bright when I got up at midnight to take care …

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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 cushy heads to let me know all was well. Today we received a foot of new snow that flattened them and all I had to do was brush it aside and they perked right up again. It would be nice if the spring and summer bloomers had such recuperative powers!

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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 snow cover and it’s way below zero (F)? Do they just come up later, or does it kill them? Are yours in a sheltered spot?

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