Archive for February, 2012

Helleborus xnigercors 'Green Corsican'

We are celebrating this month’s Garden Blogger’s Bloom Day for many reasons.  First and foremost because the weather has brought a bounty of flowers this winter, many of which I’ve already shared.  But, hey, what’s a little repeating of stories between friends.  The Hellebores have all been given their spring trimming and are showing off their flowers.  The Green Corsican above is particularly nice about flashing it’s flowers to the sun as opposed to facing downward like many others, e.g., this pretty rose colored hybrid.

Helleborus MG Apricot

The Adonis is showing ever more signs of propagating in place.  I now count at least 5 buds on the fukujukai variety.

Adonis amurensis 'fukujukai' spreading

A particularly nice white crocus is Cream Beauty.  It’s fully in flower in the lawn while some of the others are still considering the appropriate date for flowering.

Crocus chrysanthus 'Cream Beauty'

And the Winter Aconite are adding new flowers all the time as they demonstrate that although they are not naturalizing as fast as the Glory of the Snow, they are none the less spreading around our gardens.

Winter Aconite going wild

However today we are also celebrating the visit of the tree trimmers who work for the power company.

Tree trimmers at work

I had been ready to pay to have the large Cherry and Ash trees next to the power pole taken out but it turns out no one is permitted to work next to the power pole without the power company go ahead.  So when they showed up to take out the trees for free I was overjoyed.

Weed trees next to the power pole

And when they were done, we had only a bunch of fire wood next to the pole.

After trimming next to power pole

That Yew bush was a three foot high shrub next to the porch when we moved in and I dragged it down to the edge of the yard next to the street.  The tall branch in the picture is part of the Japanese Pear tree that I will have to cut back before the season gets much further along.  I never noticed how tall that leader had grown with all the other trees that were previously present.

And the other major reason for celebrating this February 15th is that we completed sealing the deer fence today (well a few small openings left but hopefully the deer won’t find them before I get it completely deer tight).  What a project this has been!

Deer fence west side

We now have a whole new mental image for what we call yard and a lot more sun space to garden in…

Adonis amurensis

The first Adonis showed up well ahead of time.  In fact, this picture is from a week ago.  I’ve been on vacation in Florida for the past week and I had been intending to post these images that were taken before I left.  We’re on the plane for home tonight and a thoroughly wintry forecast implies that all the flowers that were showing before we left are going to have to withstand a very cold night.  But getting back to last week, the Adonis is one of our chief harbingers of spring.  Think giant buttercup that is very well behaved.  I don’t know why these are so hard to find but they are.  This particular plant came from Blanchette Gardens near Boston.  And I’ve order two more for this spring from British Columbia (Fraser’s Thimble Farms).  We have two other Adonis in slightly different locations.  One is barely showing (I think it got nipped by cold weather) and the other shows some damage, again probably cold weather because Adonis are not really animal targets.

Adonis fukujukai with bud coming

Even though I see some damage to the tips of the blossoms and stamens I’m very pleased to see that there is another bud coming up beside the first so THEY ARE SPREADING.  This is very good indeed.  Of course we’re a long way from the huge bank of Adonis that they have at Winterthur.

I’m running out of time before the plane comes but here are a few other plants that were blooming nicely before we left last week.

Lungwort (Pulmonaria)

Algerian Iris (Iris unguicularis)

This is a repeat for this very early iris thus confirming what others have said about this being a repeat bloomer.

Helleborus MG Apricot in bud

I’ve also noticed a lot of hellebore seedlings.  There is apparently no problem with propagation in the hellebore camp.

Helleborus seedlings

Witch hazel (Hamamelis mollis)

Standard Pink Camellia

yellow species crocus

And then finally here’s how the deer fence looked as we finished the garden side.

Deer fence complete next to garden

Next week I hope that the guys are able to enclose the rest…