hellebores

I blame it on the sunshine. If the sun hadn't been shining, I wouldn't have had the overwhelming urge to get outside and DO something. Because, really? February is too early for garden cleanup. But of course, this hasn't been a normal February. A normal February looks like this: So, in a normal February, I [...]

According to the National Weather Service, it's the least snowy beginning to winter that we've had since 1998. We've set also some record highs in the last few weeks. Snow can be hit or miss in December but usually the ground is frozen. It was frozen earlier in the month, but right now it's not, [...]

In other years, I've had the first blooms in March. Once, I managed snowdrops in February. But this year, I almost wondered if I'd have crocuses blooming for Bloom Day. Thankfully, this past week Spring finally arrived and I have a respectable showing. I've seen pictures of large patches of spring snowflakes, so I hope [...]

My efforts to develop a cabin fever bed are starting to bear fruit. The winter aconites have come and gone, but I have plenty else starting to bloom. I purchased Bulbocodium vernum from Odyssey Bulbs last year. It is colored like a colchicum and used to be called a colchicum, but is now a separate [...]

In case you are just joining in: About two-and-a-half years ago our family moved from our long-time rural home to a different 19th-century farm house about twenty-five minutes from our previous one. I have been renovating the landscape around the house in a non-systematic frenzy and writing about it as time permits. (Previous posts are [...]

There's nothing extraordinary about buying a houseplant, except I just got done whining about how I'm sick of caring for houseplants. Go ahead, call me a hypocrite; I'll wait. Now that we've got that over with, let me tell you about this holiday plant. 'HGC Jacob' hellebore is a perennial. This is not really a [...]

After a mild start to November, we have recently had snow and bitter cold*--down to 15F(-9C) one night and in the low 20s for several others. You would think there would not be any plant worth looking at after that, and you would be mostly right. However, if one looks carefully, there are still some [...]

In my previous post, I described my idea of a cabin fever bed as a way to enjoy at least a part of the garden from indoors, when the weather is too miserable to be outside. One of the goals of such a bed is to grow plants that provide interest as far into winter [...]

Cabin fever is a colloquial expression that means different things to different people. Wikipedia defines it as a claustrophobic reaction that takes place when a person or group is isolated and/or shut in a small space, with nothing to do for an extended period. Cabin fever describes the extreme irritability and restlessness a person may [...]