The 2016 gardening season has arrived in my yard with the first appearance of Adonis amurensis. He looks a little bedraggled, but still a sure sign that the new season is upon us. Even though it's blooming right next to a pile of snow still not melted from last week. This is why you plant winter blooming plants - gives you hope spring will come.
Are you sure about that? Actually, this winter has been quite reasonable, so far, although we have "winter storms" coming next week. I think they say "winter storms" when they are afraid to say "snow." We have our snow shovel located and long underwear and gloves are ready too. (I wear gloves - and long undefwear - in the fall and spring too, but DH is only just realizing that when you spend an hour outside shoveling snow, both are nice to have.
I'd sure welcome your Adonis Wee, those blooms look large. I've got nothing yet, not even a Hellebore.
My hellebores aren't blooming yet either. Which I think is surprising. We've had a pretty mild winter so far, so I'm not sure why. I've got some snowdrop stems pushing up, but none flowering. Cold front coming thru this week, but supposed to be in 50's this weekend, I think. I'll take it, even if it's brief.
Hellebores today:
#1 H. niger 'Jacob'
#2 'Snow Fever'
#3 'Golden Sunrise'
#4 Corsican hellebore they keep changing the name
#5 Spring Promise series 'Elly'
Some other flowers today:
#1 Veronica 'Georgia blue' (flower is TINY but there were a few)
#2 Iberis
#3 Heather, I guess it is really a shrub...
#4 a crocus (it's cloudy today)
#5 a yellow species crocus, tightly closed today.
Some super nice foliage today:
#1 Cyclamen hederifolium spreading nicely
#2 Variegated wallflower Erysimum 'Fragrant Star' aka 'Walfrasta'
This wallflower bloomed spring to frost for me! a year-round plant!
Ohh, very nice Pistil. Love those photography skills...
lWeerobin,
Your posting heralding spring/first blooms makes me more anxious for spring than ever...but we still have Feb to go thru..and March can be as bad, no telling in New England. ENJOY!
Pistil,
I am SOOO jealous...look at all those gorgeous blooms!
My hellebores (first year for me, so never had them before) are setting buds, no opening yet (which I'm glad off). i dont want them to bloom and get killed off fast!
Wow, Pistil you've really got things popping.
After seeing no hellebores yesterday, I found tons of plump buds ready to go today.
And I spent a while searching for another Adonis I was sure I planted, finally found it under a foot of dead leaves. I brushed them off to give him some fresh air. I was pleased to see he now has 4 eyes, so he's on his way to forming a colony, I hope.
Beautiful Wee, keep an eye on them for us. I've got to complement you on your photo skills too. I sure love all that perfection on my screen...
My skills are not great-the blue flower seemed a proper exposure on my screen, I don't know what happened...Come to think of it, most of those seem brighter on my screen than on here.
Anyway-wee has Springtime In The Air. I tried with Adonis, it dies in the winter, I don't know why, maybe clay, maybe slugs.maybe both ;-)
Yes you're right the blue one is underexposed; however, for every one of those that aren't quite right, there are five stunning pics that are very quite right.
My stubborn hellebores are no further along this weekend than last weekend. Just found one ragged soul open. Surely the rest will open soon - buds everywhere.
But a cute little double snowdrop is fully open. It's a frustratingly lousy picture, practically had to lie on all 4's to shoot up into a bloom which is only about 3 inches tall. And shooting into the sun to boot. A lot of suffering without much to show for it.
I took comfort in the Adonis which is still strutting his stuff - a much more cooperative subject to photograph.
Haha, thanks for the effort. Take comfort that your Hellebore is ahead of mine...
I have daffodil tips up! Not sure if that's good or bad in my zone 5b. At least they are well mulched!
Punxsutawney Phil says it's a good thing!
Robin, my hellebores look like they are about to bloom (2 types) anytime now for a month and a half. I am hoping they hold off a while longer. We're getting a snowstorm (again) today, another foot dumped on them.
Pistil, I think your photography skills are fine; and am enjoying your and Wee Robin's photos!
OK, so I had a little better luck taking a picture of my double snowdrop yesterday. It was a beautiful warm day for early February but I couldn't find any other signs of life, much less anything remotely photogenic. I suspect it makes sense, since reality returns this week - supposed to be 12 degrees tomorrow night. Hope my little snowdrop is tougher than he looks!
I think the Hellebores can take a foot of snow Val, it all depends on how long the snow lasts. You can always cover them with row cover cloth (if you feel so inclined). I've had the cloth at the ready for years and have never felt the urgency for some unknown, perhaps lazy reason.
Wee, your Snowdrop was totally worth the effort, thank goodness for the lure of warm days. Thanks for the lift.
My Hellebores are getting snowed on also. Not supposed to get a lot but is really starting to come down,
I hope it doesn't stay either Kathy. Oh look you've got a brand new addition to the family...congrats!
And an ADORABLE addition, too! :)
Yes, she is 10 days old and is very loved by her brother now that he has decided to keep her LOL
We had a couple weeks of normal winter weather (single digits & snow) but today's unbelievably warm (75!). My Adonis is still blooming nearly a month later. An Eranthis (#1) just opened. Snowdrops (#2) are in full gear. And I was pleased to find this beautiful crocus open today (#3). It's either Crocus hadriaticus or C malyi - I have no clue how to tell them apart. At any rate, it's really pretty.
It was so warm today I started a new project, a little mini-crevice garden (#4). I have this cement planter which the animals love to dig in - I had pretty much given up on it. But I like the looks of some crevice gardens, so I'm experimenting with a mini-crevice garden in this planter. I figure the stones will help keep the varmints from digging in it so easily. We'll see. I've got a bunch of rock garden plants which I'll plant in it later this spring. The whole planter is only about 18 x 12 inches, so definitely a crevice garden on a miniature scale. May be a bust, but it was an entertaining way to spend part of a beautiful warm weekend.
It was almost 70° here but still a little windy. I had to go outside and snoop in the garden. I had nothing rivaling your early blooms, thanks for sharing. I'm sure your crevice garden will deter rodents, what a novel idea! Are those propagating peas in there?
No, they're clay pebbles which I have had laying around for a different project fiasco from a few years ago. I used them this time as part of a scree-type mix, one part bark-based growing mix, one part very fine gravel and one part clay pebbles. Who knows if the ratio is remotely close to being right. I'll find out soon enough if anything will grow in it.
I'm looking forward to seeing the progress...
Awesome! I never heard of crevice gardens.This is a form of rock gardening?
Yes. Lots of small plants do well in these cramped quarters. I'm experimenting to see which plants can tolerate our humid summers.
Most rock garden plants are equated with 'alpines', which of course won't survive a minute in my neighborhood.
There's surprisingly little information about what 'rock garden plants' are tolerant of Midwest conditions. So I'm doing a trial-and-error experiment. We'll see.
I have little luck with Alpine plants too. They do OK up to a point but melt once July hits.
I am fiddling around with "Seattle Rock Gardening" My garden has rock walls, but the soil is clay. Classic rock garden plants, like from the Alps, usually seem to be labeled "requires perfect drainage", and "full sun", and usually need it to freeze solid in winter. I have none of that.
But in Seattle, there are plenty of hardy, low growing perennials that survive in crevices and rock/clay walls. I just have to find them!
For example, I read in a book about Shade Gardening by a Seattlite, that some Eucomis do well in a rock wall in the shade here, so I am experimenting with them.
Gold Alyssum (Aurinia saxatilis?) does great, a true perennial, and gently reseeds-at the bottom of the rock wall in the shade! That's not what their label says, but so far they are surviving.
So I bought some A. saxatilis 'Dudley Neville", a variegated form with softer yellow flowers, tending to apricot. This one gets an A+ in my garden, looks great all year. Planted at the edge of rock walls, does fine although again the label says "requires good drainage".
Also Rosemary, which struggles and then dies in clay on level ground, is huge and happy planted at the top of a rock wall, in afternoon shade. Surprise!
I think we need a thread for "Non-Alpine" Rock Garden plants!
Good idea, Pistil. I'll start one. It might be just you & me chatting .. but maybe there are some other folks entertained by alpine gardening in non-alpine climates.
Here's an early blooming corydalis - surprising yellow blooms just emerging.
Corydalis shanginii ssp ainii.
Definitely one of my favorite corydalis.
I've got lots of other corydalis but none of the others have even started to emerge yet.
Posted out of order. deleted
This message was edited Mar 2, 2016 9:51 PM
testing, testing ...
Beautiful Corydalis! Can't say I've been very successful with them. I've gotten some to stay one year but that's it. And now to find Dudley Neville...where???
I don't know about the rest of you guys, but I'm prone to do odd things in the pursuit of gardening eclectica. I'm not sure if that's a word, but it should be. Anyway, there are plant nuts all over the world eager to get you hooked. I ran across 2 website from Lithuania and Latvia respectively who will send bulbs to USA. So over the past few years I have gotten some really great (and unusual bulbs). Odyssey bulbs (in USA) offers some of these same bulbs, so if you have any interest, you should check them out. The international sites are Ruksans Bulbs and Augis Bulbs. Here are a few pictures from this past weekend. Unfortunately some varmint (suspect rabbit, but not sure) ate last week's posting. Dagnabit!
The first one is C shanginii ssp ainii. 2nd one I'm still trying to figure out.
My record keeping is dreadful.
