Wee,
What fun you must have. It's like buried treasure, but you don't have to dig it up!
My crocus and chionodoxa have peeked above the ground and my tulip turkestanica have unfurled their leaves, but it's nothing like your glorious display. The turks are actually several years old - they are a species tulip that can handle some watering and actually multiplies.
Cindy, what you say about the glads and callas makes me go hum... I've always taken them to the basement and forced them into dormancy. I used to put them in the ground at my old house and certain of the them would produce bulblets on the north side of my house.
I am restraining myself from going into the yard because the ground is so wet. We had two feet of snow and almost all of it melted in two days.
2013
It's so strange to read posts talking about frozen ground and snow. I did a new bed this year that I actually started in January (putting in shrubs) because the ground wasn't frozen. Still hasn't frozen, I've continued putting different things in that bed for the last two months. Kind of pathetic, really. We just didn't have much of a winter this year, no snow to speak of really except one short couple of inch burst that was gone in a day or so. My kids haven't had a real snow in 3 years, according to them :) I guess there are good things and bad about a mild winter. Let's us continue to "garden", but the insects will carry us away come summer time. Can't wait for that.
We were waaaay below on snowfall until Feb and winter's been making up for lost time. Lake effect snow yesterday gave us another inch but nighttime temps will be right under the freeze temp so ground won't be thawing this week at least. Last year on St. Pat's Day, we were around 80 degrees but sadly won't see that this year.
We've been in 40's most of the week, but shot up to 70 yest, but back down to 40's today.
Supposed to be nasty tomorrow, drizzly, cold, windy. But spring is coming regardless...
My cardamine heptaphylla is beginning to bloom. Woodland groundcover which is spreading nicely for me.
Each flower is little, but purplish haze from a distance.
Snowdrops are still hanging around.
And my daphne odora is just starting to open. It has wonderful fragrance.
And of course my hellebores are in full throttle.
Great pictures "Weerobin".
Where did you find the cardamine heptaphylla, weerobin? I don't recall hearing about it before, and when I looked it up, I couldn't find a source for it anywhere! It is an ephemeral?
I'm not sure where I got it - I just flipped through a number of the nurseries I often order from & I don't see it listed.
I think it was Arrowhead Alpines, but not sure.
In fact, I didn't see very many other cardamine species either.
Cardamine heptaphylla has been the best grower for me (first 2 pics).
Others are cardamine trifolia, c. concatenata (reputation of being a little weedy), c. pratense.
All are spring blooming woodland perennials which go dormant in summer.
I swear Wee has the most gorgeous plants I've never heard of. It's probably because they may just be out of my zone, and possibly because they go dormant. In my old sun baled yard I found a place for common things like bloodroot (north side of the house) and mertensia (under ornamental trees) and of course oakleaf hydrangeas. I got the deutzia Codsall Pinks because of you.
I just got my new Connoisseur Plants from Raulston Arboretum. They are generally hybrids of native plants. I realize that these are really small shrubs but I wanted to tell you about them.The first is Abelia 'Lynn' Pinky Bells large flowered dwarf abelia that won't be available to commerce for a bit. It's a hybrid between the large, pink flowered A. schumannii 'Bumblebee' and the N.C. found 'Little Richard'. They describe it as a new selection. I will have to place it carefully once I plant it.
The I got a Deutzia gracilis 'Nikko Dawn', which is a variegated slender deutzia form of the Nikko deutzia forming a low mound to 3feet and slightly wider. It's said to be best in light shade, but will take full sun with adequate moisture. I have several places to put it. It has creamy edged foliage and bright white spring flowers, and it's in my zone.
The last is a mountain hydrangea (a serrata) from Japan that was once used to make tea. I am nuts for serratas because of their delicacy. They are usually zone 6 so I have to keep them in pots to facilitate overwintering.
They lean toward plants that aren't in commerce yet and they use them to gain financial support so they tend to have an "edge". The good part is that they introduce me to plant groups I never would have had (I now have four deutzias!) Right now variegated and yellow plants are popular, and I generally don't care for those, but the japanese variegated kerria they sent me a while back knocked my socks off.
I have been going to Munchkin Nurseries to look around. I bought some natives from them years ago. They are a bit pricey but their plants are huge. I remember buying ferns, bloodroot and a red baneberry that I botched. I love to go on his website. All of those plants had to be in one are of my old house but now I can put them in more places. I am working on creating privacy in my yard so that I feel comfortable going up to small plants and admiring them.
I had a creepy experience at Platt Hill Nursery. I went for a seminar and was told that they couldn't sell the epimediums and thalictrums because no one was interested. They want KO roses and the kind of sun loving supposedly low maintanance prairie plants that are everywhere. So she said that they are having trouble stocking the lesser known plants that I like. There are a lot of places that used to have old garden roses that don't have them anymore. The catalogs are full of hideous new hydrangeas in weird colors with "eye popping" blooms. It makes me long for the restfulness of Wee's garden. I never see gardens like that here. The last one I saw in a similar setting was loaded with mayapples gone nuts.
Mentioning KO roses - I sometimes listen to a podcast out of D/FW area and, because of the current preferences for KO roses, they're experiencing quite an abundance of rosette disease. At least, that's the correlation mentioned. And the preferred method of control is to pull out the roses. It's more fun experimenting with more uncommon plants.
Oh yes. On other forums here they mention the prevalence of rose rosette disease. I think that PART of the problem is that they are sold in masses to garden centers, and show up by the dozens on corporate sites, so the mites can hop from one to another and party like drunken sailors. I despair because I grow mostly old garden roses, some as old as 1832. Some of them are becoming unavailable, or are sold by one vendor. I used to be able to find the old roses in garden centers. Now they have mostly hybrid teas (aka blackspot on a stick). I have roses I have never seen in anyone's yard. Why grow KO's when you can grow a rose hybridized in 1832 and named for the hybridizers beloved wife (Madame Hardy, pictured below?) It even takes some shade. It's completely disease resistant. OK, it only blooms once, but for almost two months. Did I mention the intoxicating scent?
I love to have some of everything. Why not? Roses, grasses, peonies, ornamental trees, bulbs, some native, some from around the world. Suitability of soil and climate is important.
My additions now tend to be shade loving or tolerant plants, and it opens another world.
This message was edited Mar 18, 2013 4:01 PM
"black spot on a stick" - funny. I bought some roses once from a place in Maine (mail order) and they were on their own roots rather than grafted. Thought at the time that they might be more forgiving of my ineptitude. The Roseraie. Not sure if they're still around since I don't have the sun and space for more.
They went out of business 10 years ago it looks like. http://davesgarden.com/products/gwd/c/628/
Those Cardamine flowers are beautiful.
Donna, I have deutzia gracilis variegata which is one of my favorite variegated plants.
It's variegation looks like it's sprinkled on the leaf (see below).
The blooms almost are a distraction, since the foliage alone is so pretty.
But you have to watch out for occasional reverting branches, which have to be pruned away.
The 2nd picture is a non-variegated reversion on the same shrub.
And I recall mine was only supposed to be a couple feet tall and it's probably at least 4ft now.
Might be even taller if it weren't having to duke it out for space in a too crowded border.
The other 3 pix are some of my hydrangea serrata's.
You must have excellent taste, since they are one of my favorite plants also.
The delicacy & variety of blooms is really unbeatable - much better than the blaring blue pom poms of Nikko Blue!
Here are 3 of my favorites: first is miyama mae murasaki, 2nd is shirafugi, 3rd is beni gaku.
But unfortunately, the deer are also too fond of all my hydrangeas.
I haven't had a single hydrangea bloom in the past several summers.
The shrubs are chewed to the stems. It's really disheartening. The deer don't bother my deutzias.
Wee, how wonderful. And how funny! I must ave excellent taste - made me laugh. I absolutely agree with you about some of the horrible screaming macrophyllas crowing onto the market. Nikko Blue - no. Have you seen Wayside's catalogue? They send it to me every year even though my first and last order was in 1998.The monstrosities coming out - all by the big companies, all patented, all expensive, are unbelievable. I was given a large Endless Summer by the contractor who finished my hardscaping three weeks lat, and I do like it.
My hydrangea serrata shishiva was one of my favorite plants. I received it when it was quite small. In my zone, serratas must be kept in pots. And I had to acidify its soil. Ah, worth it! I rolled it into the garage every year until I botch it one year, pulling it out too soon and leaving for work. But the gentleman at Raulston has offered to propagate another one for me. Yes!
You'd enjoy visiting Raulston arboretum. I've been there a dozen or more times, most recently just a couple weeks ago. For a plant nerd, it's fascinating even though hardly anything was leafed out or blooming yet. Fortunately, my wife indulges me and at least pretended to be as fascinated as I was. We spent about 4 hrs there with nothing in bloom! They have some beautiful and weird plant material there - an opportunity to see 'full size' samples of things I had previously just seen in pots. A funny example is ulmus parviflora Frosty, which is advertised in catalogs as a cute dwarf elm with white-outlined leaves. At the arboretum, I ran headlong into a monstrously big Frosty (trunk diameter at least 6ft, 50ft tall or so - truly enormous). It was hilarious, since my Frosty is about 6in tall in a pot.
We lived in the Triangle area a long, long time ago, so we occasionally are in the area for various reasons and always make a point of stopping by the arboretum. Always interesting. You'd love it.
I'm a sponsor member, and have been since 2004. You are right - I do love it. I attended the Gala in the Garden two years ago, and am probably going this year. I was on a business trip and had an hour to get to the airport, so I popped into a place I had only seen on the web. They were great! They are a little puzzled by me since I live so far away and can't get some of the goodies, but last year I was entitled to 2 plants and got five. It's wonderful that it's free.
I also pop into the Sarah Duke Gardens, another marvelous place, and not far away.
When I was there two years ago I took a bunch of pictures. They don't have the funding they need to take a ton of photos, so they used some of mine. I created an entry for Raulston and uploaded some photos. I can't find the botanical gardens informational section, but here are some of the pics.
