Archive for the 'Signs of Spring' Category

Chaenomeles japonica ‘Toyo-Nishiki’

One of the features of posting regularly on Garden Blogger’s Bloom Day is that you can look back and see what was happening on other years.  I was surprised to see that despite 3 days in the 80′s-90′s a week ago we are still behind most years and way behind last year.  That sounds good to me as I would like Spring to stick around a while.

As usual there are so many things flowering right now that one can afford to be choosy and I’ll ignore the hundreds of daffodils pouring in right now

Daffodil cluster

and the many Hellebores that continue their display both inside and outside.

Hellebores in a bowl

Instead I’ll focus on some of the more unusual gems to be found around the yard and greenhouse.

First up is a Kalmiopsis leachiana.  This is a rarity that I received as a gift this Christmas.  It’s a small relative of the Mountain Laurel that was not discovered until 1930 in a remote part of Oregon.  It’s now the centerpiece for the Kalmiopsis Wilderness in southwestern Oregon.

Kalmiopsis leachiana

We will do our best to keep it happy in Maryland, but I suspect it will not appreciate our hot, humid summers.

Another small delightful evergreen his the Dahphne ‘Lawrence Crocker’.  It flowered last fall but seems quite happy to flower again for springtime.

Daphne ‘Lawrence Crocker’

Another small gem showing the last of its flowers is the dark blue Hepatica.  This was obtain from Seneca Hill Perennials (now closed) and for a time was carried by Plant Delights but I’ve no idea how to find it now.

Hepatica nobilis ‘Lithuanian Blue’

The standard trout lilies (Erythronium americana) are just about finished but the more unusual ones are just coming into bloom.

Erythronium revolutum ‘White Beauty’

Erythronium ‘Pagoda’

The Erythronium Pagodas are mixed with a few Trillium luteum which flower at exactly the same time with their matching yellow petals.

Trillium luteum detail

One of the flowers that I associate with the trout lilies is the bloodroot which always flowers at just about the same time.  Just afterward comes the multiflowered bloodroot which is more spectacular and also lasts longer.

A reliable yellow flower, reflecting the sunshine, is the Tulip tarda.  Those are flowering in the front rock garden at the moment.

Tulipa dasystemon

I was quite taken by the leaves and flowers of the corydalis last year and so we have quite a number of them that are new to us this spring.  One is Corydalis ‘Abant Wine’, another of the solida hybrids.

Corydalis wendelboi ‘Abant Wine’

Our Camellias are mostly flowering now.  Especially nice is Nuccio’s Gem which was added last year.

Camellia ‘Nuccio’s Gem’

The epimedia are all beginning to flower now.  One of our first was gift from the kids and it has masses of flowers at the moment.

Epimedium Grandiflorum ‘Lilac Seedling’ cluster

I need to give some praise to the little Primula kisoana.  Despite the fact that I’ve discovered it’s a bit of a thug in the garden and I had to evict to one of the more diffcult garden areas under the neighbor’s pine tree, when it actually comes into flower it is startlingly colorful.

Primula kisoana

I’ve moved some out to the woods and it’s flowering in a spot where many a previous plant has failed.

I need to share also of couple of shots from the greenhouse where some early forcing of bulbs has been going on.

Dutch Iris ‘Symphony’

Ixia hybrid ‘Buttercup’

The Adonis continues it’s remarkable season of flowering…

Adonis amurensis ‘Sandansaki’

And I will close with the scene that greets me on the way to pick up the paper from the mailbox in the morning.

Magnolia stellata at dawn

Corydalis solida ‘George Baker’ from Odyssey Bulbs

It looks like the weather girl is finally going to cease her romance with old man winter.  Just less than two weeks ago we had snow covering everything and freezing nighttime temperatures.

Helleborus Ivory Prince in the snow

But now all the usual suspects and then some are emerging from hibernation.  And with temperatures going to the 80′s this week we are going to zip through some of the spring ephemerals that I would like to see linger.  I can’t complain about zipping through the Adonis though.  The first blooms appeared in January and now the first offset runner from the original Adonis has put forth three buds that are in the various states of bloom that illustrate the richness of Adonis amurensis ‘Sandansaki’.

Adonis from above

The new offset is in the lower left of the picture above.

New offset of the Adonis

A. ‘Sandansaki’ in bud

Adonis amurensis ‘Sandansaki’ flowering stage

Adonis ‘Sandansaki’ flower in advanced stage with full lion’s mane

Ok, so it will disappear by May but what a nice four months of bloom!

One of the first things I look for in this season is the Hepaticas with their hairy little buds rising above the soil before opening to bloom.

Hepatica acutifolia

Hepatica acutiloba

There are many variations in Hepaticas, some not so easy to find.  Seneca Hills nursery had some beauties when they were in existence.

Hepatica nobilis large form blue shade

And I got a nice pink form from Hillside nursery two years ago.

Hepatica japonica pink

Just at the same time as the Hepaticas we see the Jeffersonia dubia.  I have two plants one a deeper violet than the other.

Jeffersonia dubia

Of course the lighting for the photo also influences how dark the coloring is.

In terms of dark coloring it is hard to beat Scilla siberica ‘Spring Beauty’.  The cobalt blue on the outside is matched by the blue color on the stamens.

Scilla siberica ‘Spring Beauty’

Spring Beauty stamens

Almost in the same blue realm is the Scillia bifolia which is a charmer in its own right.

Scilla bifolia stamens

We also saw the first of the Bloodroot this week.  Even encountered one in the woods where I had planted it a few years ago.

Every day in the Springtime is worth lingering over…

Draba aizoides

Well it’s Garden Blogger’s Bloom Day for one of the best month’s of the year.  In addition to the daffodils that are starting to appear, there are some really choice additions that are making themselves known on our hillside.  The little Draba shown above has to be sought out but it rewards careful inspection.  It’s among other little plants that claim my attention right now.

The Hepaticas are starting to bloom including one that I got from Seneca Hills when that nursery was still active.

Hepatica nobles blue shade (from Seneca Hills)

And one of the Hepatica japonica seedlings is just beginning to open with what looks like double flowers.

Hepatica japonica seedling

The Adonis continue their flowering with the standard Adonis amurensis.

Adonis amurensis

As well as another bud on the Adonis amurensis ‘Sandansaki’ that is actually an underground runner from the original so I’m pleased to see they are propagating.

Adonis amurensis ‘Sandansaki’

The little Scillas are getting into the act too with the Tubergeniana coming into bloom with their lovely blue veins.

Scilla mischtschenkoana ‘Tubergeniana’

Scilla mischtschenkoana ‘Tubergeniana’

The first of the Anemones is also showing color.

Anemone blanda

And of course crocus are everywhere, including these Ruby Giants.

Crocus tommasinianus ‘Ruby Giant’

It’s late so I’m just going to share a few more flowers and then hit the sack…

Daphne odora ‘Aureomarginata’

Pulmonaria officinalis (Liverwort)

Fritillaria raddeana

Helleborus x hybridus Goldfinch

Helleborus x hybridus ‘WD Elegance White’

And then finally an illustration of the daffodils that represent spring for so many people.

Narcissus ‘Little Gem’

What’s blooming in your garden?

Flowering clump of Adonis amurensis ‘Fukujukai’

The weatherman was calling for a last snowstorm as I took these pictures yesterday and indeed it is snowing as I type this post.  Nonetheless what greeted me on my return from spring training games and North Carolina plant shopping was this delightful clump of Adonis on a beautiful sunny day.  The Adonis have been blooming now since mid-January and I doubt that a few snowflakes today will diminish their flower power.  They have shrugged off ten degree temperatures and snow and ice in February.  The bright yellow flowers open in the sunshine and are surrounded by fern-like foliages that is pretty in its own right.

Adonis amurensis ‘Fukujukai’

They don’t appear to be particularly hard to grow and are spreading in a very well-behaved manner.  They aren’t carried by many nurseries so you do have to seek them out if you want to grow them.  I see that they are at Munchkins and Far Reaches, for example, this year.

Elizabeth Lawrence noted their value in her Southern Garden, “Adonis amurensis is a very difficult plant to get into one’s possession. Sought out and ordered at last, it did not come until May, and the weak growth soon died away. I thought I had seen the last of it. But the lovely, lacy leaves began to unfurl the following February, and among them was a flower the color of buttercup and with a buttercup’s sheen.” —Elizabeth Lawrence, A Southern Garden

Last year I invested in a more exotic version of Adonis, the Chichibu Beni cultivar.  Over the past year however, I had forgotten where I had planted it (am I the only one who does this?).  Fortunately when I returned from Florida I found it popping out of the ground and beside it the little white tag confirming that I had at least tried to label it.

Adonis amurensis ‘Chichibu Beni’

Another little gem that I had thought lost is also coming up in the garden.

Helleborus thibetanus

The Tibetan Hellebore dies back each year, unlike the other Hellebores.  I had concluded that it had died — period.  So I bought another one when I was at Plant Delights.  Had I taken the time to read about them I would have realized the unusual nature of this Hellebore means that it is going to disappear every June.  I really like the distinctive foliage on this unusual species which was only introduced to horticulture 20 years ago.  I’m looking forward to actually seeing it flower this year.

Other Hellebores are doing their thing right now.  The old purple one that was our first has a fine cluster of flowers.

Dark purple Hellebore

And next to it is the wonderful Green Corsican with a a very dense cluster of flowers that are bit more upright.

Helleborus x nigercors ‘Green Corsican’

The Winter Aconite at the front of the yard have been flowering in great profusion…

Abundant clump of winter aconite (Eranthis hyemalis)

And there are crocus and snowdrops all around the yard.

Happy crocus on the side of the hill

Galanthus nivalis ‘Flore Pleno’

The only daffodils so far have had the stems made limp by cold weather, the first time I’ve seen this happen.

Early Daffodil lying down on the job

Looking around the yard I can see that a number of the smaller consituents are getting ready for showtime.   The lovely little Draba that I got from my son as a seedling is bursting with little rosettes just coming into bloom.

Draba aizoides

The Jeffersonia dubia, a Korean relative of our twin leaf, is putting up its first buds of the spring.

Jeffersonia dubia emerging

And best of all, I see a lot of little flower buds on one of the Japanese Hepaticas.

Hepatica japonica emerging

I’ve never seen this one flower before so I quite interested in what the color will be.

And then finally the special Witch Hazel hybrid, Diane, is continuing to flower.

Hamamelis x intermedia ‘Diane’

Crocus chrysanthus ‘Ard Shenk’

Well, I’m one day late on celebrating Garden Blogger’s Bloom Day.  But the flowers were there in any case.  Let us begin by celebrating the little white crocus that are splashed about the lawn.  I normally take February 21 as my first crocus date and also when catchers and pitchers report for baseball’s spring training in Florida.  But the baseball is beginning early this year and so are the crocus.  It’s appropriate that this very early crocus is the first of the year.  It’s namesake was one of Holland’s great speed skaters.

I really have to return to one of the standards for this time of year in citing the Witch Hazels.  It seems to me that they are having a great spring.  The long straps seem to be impervious to cold snaps and shine yellow against the blue sky on sunny day.

Witch hazel (Hamamelis mollis) from below

Witch hazel (Hamamelis mollis)

Witch hazel (Hamamelis mollis) close-up

There’s also the spectacular strong red in Diane, a Witch Hazel hybrid.  This is a small shrub at the moment but it’s growing strongly and I think it will qualify as a tree before long…

Hamamelis x intermedia ‘Diane’

Out in the front yard our winter aconite continues to thrive.  Since I’ve observed they have spread to the other side of the yard I think I’m going to grab some seeds this year and see if I can aid the process.  Everyone should grow these little droplets of sunshine.

Winter Aconite (Eranthis hyemalis)

I was pleased to see that even the Primrose is getting into the act.  The first blossom has come forth from our collection of common English Primrose.

First Primrose (Primrose vulgaris)

And of course snowdrops are popping up everywhere.  What’s not to like about a plant that can flower for more than a month at this most unseasonable of times.

Galanthus nivalis ‘Floro Pleno’

Oh, and it multiplies too…

Finally the Adonis continue in bloom.  Think of Buttercups on steroids with much prettier foliage to boot…

Many flower buds on Adonis amurensis ‘Fukujukai’

And then there are the Hellebores, but they are worthy of a post all by themselves.  Now what’s blooming in your garden?

Adonis amurensis ‘Fukujukai’ after the cold spell

We’ve just had a marvelous mid-sixties day as we closed out the cold spell that hit us for the end of January.  Although temperatures down to the very low teens is not unexpected for January we have gotten terribly spoiled by the mild winters that have been our lot of late.  We got jerked back to zone 7 reality with a week of very cold (for us anyway) weather, where temperatures hit a low of 12 degrees last Wednesday and then stayed bitterly cold through a couple of small snowstorms.  The Adonis and Camellias were the main plants that had really jumped the gun with regard to bloom cycle so I wasn’t sure how they would handle the really cold weather.  I ended up putting some leaves over the Adonis but I’m not sure that it was necessary.  Although they were folded up and bent over during the worst of the cold, they seem to have been completely unfazed by the temperatures.

Adonis at about 12 degrees in early morning

Adonis amurensis ‘Fukujukai’ in today’s sunshine

Note that the apparently burned off blossoms were there before the cold wave and were probably animal related damage (I hope that pest got a severe stomach ache as flowers in the ranuculus clan are generally pretty unappetizing).  A heavy snow or ice could probably damage the blossoms but it seems that straight old cold temperatures are not a problem.

I can’t say the same for the double pink Camellia as all those blossoms are now brown instead of pink.

Camellia after the cold spell

Hard to complain though.  We’ve many weeks and many flowers from this Camellia already this year.  The Camellia sasanqua was a little more colorful after the cold, but the blossoms are sort of like paper maché.  They don’t have their normal softness.

Camellia sasanqua after the cold

I used the warm weather to get a load of compost from the local landfill and start on some of the spring chores.

A load of compost from the local landfill

It was literally tee-shirt weather so I began building up the area where a tree fell down during Sandy.  I expect we will want to do more gardening in that area since the light will be improved and there will be fewer pine roots to compete with.

Getting a new garden bed ready for the spring

Last Friday I had gone with a friend down to Behnke’s nursery in Beltsville, Maryland to help with the North American Rock Garden Society seed exchange process.  It was interesting to see how organized one has to be to distribute 3500 different kinds of seeds to 750 people around the world.

Matching the correct seeds to the requests takes time and care

Later I received and planted my own set of seeds received from NARGS and from the Scottish Rock Garden Club.

Seed Exchange Distribution from NARGS

The NARGS seeds all planted up

Many of these seeds are quite challenging to grow but that’s part of what makes it interesting.

Adonis amurensis ‘Fukujukai’

Today the temperature got over 50 degrees with a beautiful sunny sky and I celebrated in the garden.  And a little Adonis amurensis celebrated with me.  The Adonis is always one of the earlier plants for us but it’s more than two weeks ahead of last year.  Who can fail to be charmed by such a bright yellow bloomer that risks the early winter weather?

I first encountered Adonis at a plant sale conducted at a NARGS meeting.  Barry Yinger of the former Asiatica Nursery was selling some of these little gems at $20 a pop.  Unfortunately I did not really appreciate what I was looking at and I failed to take advantage.  Since then I’ve been to Winterthur in the early spring and seen their ‘March Bank’ covered with the golden Adonis.  Subsequently, I did order one from Asiatica and by happenstance got a premium variety, ‘Sandanzaki’, that I have tried to slow down by mulching for this year as it lost parts of the flower to cold weather last year.  It is nonetheless sticking it’s head above the ground now too.  Fukujukai is apparently a sterile hybrid that developed in the wild and may be the most popular cultivar because of it’s semi-double flowers and vigorous growth habit (I see five buds above ground in it’s second year of flowering).

Adonis amurensis ‘Fukujukai’ with more buds to come

We will be fully testing the cold resilience of these flowers over the next few days.  While they do close their flowers when the sun goes down weather predictions call for a wintry mix tomorrow with temperatures dropping to 10 degrees on Tuesday night.  If so, it would be the coldest weather that we’ve had thus far this winter.  In the meantime I’m enjoying these little chunks of sunshine and celebrating the steady march toward springtime…

Adonis amurensis ‘Fukujukai’

The Adonis are not the only flowers celebrating an early spring.  I also saw the little Persian Speedwell (a weed by most standards) out in force today.  They seemed to enjoy the warmth reflected by the greenhouse wall.

Persian Speedwell (Veronica persica)

And there were Dandelions as well.  Even the Peonies were starting to get into the act.  The buds from Molly the Witch were fully exposed today.

Peony buds, Molly the Witch (Paeonia molokosewitschii)

Stay tuned as the cold returns in force this week.

Helleborus multifidus

It’s hard to get beyond the usual suspects as we look around the garden for flowering objects in mid-January for Garden Blogger’s Bloom Day.  Let’s face it — this is just not the time when most plants want to be frolicking.  That being said there are always a few things that surprise and delight if you take the time to go looking on a cold dreary winter day.

The Hellebores are all budding up nicely and the species example above, Helleborus multifidus, is fully in flower.  A green flower is always unusual and like all Hellebores the flowers will change color as they hang on for a long time.

Many of the flowers I’ve shared before, like the Red Fall Camellia and the Double pink Spring Camellia are still flowering strongly.

Red Camellia Sasanqua month after month

Double-Pink Camellia japonica

And the Red Flowering Quince pops into bloom whenever the temperature rises to the fifties, which it did briefly last week.

Red Flowering Quince (Chaenomeles)

The Witch Hazel is ready to take it’s turn on the stage.  The first straps appeared this week.

Witch Hazel (Hamamelis mollie) first straps showing

And besides the snowdrops (which are a little ratty for the early ones, and still tight in bud for the later ones) there are a number of plants which are right on the verge.  The Winter Aconite and Adonis are popping up and a Salvia and Rose that are fully budded ready to burst forth.

Winter Aconite (Eranthis hyemalis) just starting up

Adonis amurensis ‘Fukujukai’ poking through

Knockout Rose bud

Salvia nemerosa ‘Caradonna’ in bud

But I guess my real surprise for the day was a flower on one of the Rosemarys.  Not quite like the brilliant blue they get in California, but not to shabby either if you get up close and look at the flower in detail.

Rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis)

So that was my surprise for the day, What’s yours?