We noticed something about our new house this spring: no snowdrops! I set out last week to rectify that omission. My "river" of snowdrops at our old house was fifteen years in the making, but you can grow that!All you need is a dirt-stabbing tool, a clump of snowdrops, and pig-headed determination.Think I'm kidding? Above [...]
Snowdrops
Snowdrop Bouquets
March 10, 2012 – Posted in: New House, New Gardens, SnowdropsOne six ounce glass of snowdrops… yields……eleven small but exquisite snowdrop bouquets. Snowdrops have a fragrance that is similar to sweet alyssum or certain daffodils (not poeticus or jonquils). We picked these at the old garden and the truck was filled with the scent of them on the way home. I will be moving as [...]
Where to plant bulbs? Following my own advice
March 2, 2012 – Posted in: Design, Mud Season, The Earliest FlowersA couple of years ago, I told you to choose your fall-planted bulb locations now, when the snow is just beginning to melt. Of course, it helps to have snow. We finally got some, and I thought you'd like to know I'm following my own advice. I went around the yard, camera in hand, taking [...]
Warm Microclimates For Earlier Blooms: Garden Bloggers Bloom Day February 2012
February 15, 2012 – Posted in: Mud Season, What's up/bloomingCrocuses and snowdrops are blooming in my northern garden. In February! In any other year, it would be preposterous. Yes, it's been an unusually mild winter, but none of my other crocuses, including all of those on the Crocus Bank, have poked up even one pointy leaf. As you probably surmised from the title, these [...]
Snowdrops Extraordinaires from the Temple Nursery Open Garden
April 4, 2011 – Posted in: SnowdropsAs I mentioned earlier in the week, I visited Hitch Lyman's collection of snowdrops courtesy the Garden Conservancy's Open Gardens program. Hitch owns the Temple Nursery, the premier snowdrop nursery in the United States, with over 400 different varieties on site, though only a fraction of them are offered for sale each year. Four hundred [...]
In That Spot: Lilactree Farm Garden Notes, No. 1, 2011
March 30, 2011 – Posted in: Lilactree Farm, What's up/bloomingSurely this starting into growth is the true Spring in plant life, whether it be an awakening due to the melting of a covering of snow as with the true alpines, or the commencement of the rains in the African veldt; and so long as we can see some plant in the garden starting off [...]
Not Your Ordinary Snowdrops
March 28, 2011 – Posted in: SnowdropsThere are snowdrops, and then there are snowdrops. I, for the most part, have been content with the Galanthus nivalis (pictured below) I was given many years ago, which have multiplied greatly from my division and their own efforts at self-propagation. Others become obsessed with differences in pedicels, spathes, and inner and outer petals. We [...]
First blooms of the year: Garden Bloggers Bloom Day March 2011
March 16, 2011 – Posted in: What's up/bloomingAbove is the view from my bathroom window, only reversed, as I took this picture outside and the window is out of sight at the back of the image. Even though it is the north side of the house, water from below thaws the soil and gives these plants an early start. It took me [...]
Garden Bloggers Bloom Day January 2011
January 15, 2011 – Posted in: What's up/bloomingThere is a nice blanket of snow on the ground and none on the roads. That's the way we like it in cold climate country. We know we are not going to see blooms when snow covers the ground so we plan for ways to have blooms in the house. I've got some hyacinths forcing [...]
Snowdrops, Winter Aconites, Crocus: Garden Bloggers Bloom Day March 2010
March 15, 2010 – Posted in: Snowdrops, What's up/bloomingAnother 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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