Blooms Day, February 09

Well! After last month's dreary count of flowers in bloom on the 15th of the month, there has been a big change in the garden, and much much more change to come next month!

Today's offerings from La Dona Primavera include snowdrops, aconites, and violas; the helleborus niger is determinedly sending up its pink buds, but they need a little more warmth in order to open. The other hellebores have their big fat fringed buds down low among their tattered and burned old leaves, with probably a month to go before they actually get the courage to open. The mahonia by the front door (north face) is dawdling in opening also. My photographs leave a lot to be desired, I know, but as a record for me of what's opening today they are just peachy. There is actually one foolish camellia April Dawn flower almost open; this is an example of what happens when one breaks the rules and plants camellias on a south wall! Not possible to get a picture though, unless I wade right into the bed where the hyacinths are coming up. The little violas have survived the winter very well, and are now beginning to fatten -- this year, I fertilized with kelp all winter and they seem to like it. And one final photo -- the h. niger blooms from a neighbour's garden; whywhywhy does her plant bloom weeks before mine?

The buds are getting fat on the corylopsis sinensis, although the edgeworthia still has its silvery parasols closed up tight. Soon it will open and send glorious fragrance around the neighbourhood for a week, but not this week.

Dreams from the Veggie Catalogues

Have just spent a happy two days with the stack of garden catalogues that has accumulated on my desk over the holidays, and have formulated a Grand Plan for a vegetable garden come summertime. This will be my most ambitious attempt at veggies, and I am prepared to sacrifice plants in the large perennial garden -- mostly because I am not happy with that garden, and am willing to ruthlessly move or toss plants. Mostly, I am going to remove the Knockout rose that someone gave me a couple of years ago and which I dislike immensely. It occupies a large space and cuts off sun to other things without giving me much in return. The flowers are pretty but not useful for bouquets for the house, nor particularly decorative in the garden. I think these plants would be great massed along the highway where their flowers would be bright but not subject to close scrutiny. So -- out it goes. Sorry, Cecelia, it died. Don't know whether it was the drought or the cold ... or the gardener's neglect, but it's gone.

Then, lots and lots of lovely practical things. Ichiban eggplant and Totem tomatoes, Red Sails lettuce and Thumbelina carrots and Trionfo Violetto pole beans, and fingerling potatoes (I hope -- never grew potatoes before), and Cippolini onions, and dill and basil and big tomatoes too, like Big Beef and Early Girl and Costoluto Genovese. And probably an in-house revolt at being required to eat vegetables at three meals a day in order to use it all up. I should be so lucky! Pictures later, when things get going.

Warm thoughts

After spending a few minutes outside today looking for something -- anything - in bloom, I came in frozen, so I decided that what I needed was a little reminder of the warmth and beauty of my Jakarta garden, and of the Javanese landscape. The two little girls playing croquet are long ago grown up.

Bloom Day, January 2009

This is the first time I have participated in Bloom Day, and I am not entirely sure how this works but here goes.

There is pathetically little in my garden right now -- the violas and pansies are completely flattened by last night's 8 degrees (above, this is northern Virginia not Minnesota!), and even the mahonia is not opening its buds yet. The snowdrops have shown their noses but with no flowers so far, and the helleborus niger's buds are just showing but not open. So, here is a picture of my big white cymbidium in the sun porch, and one of the mahonia's buds. Maybe by February's Bloom Day there will be something going on.

My dear mother-in-law lived in Chicago all her life, and she had a little oldfashioned poem that she would recite when winter got too much for her:

"I heard a bird sing in the dark of December,
We are nearer to spring than we were in September."

Halloween and Los Dias de los Muertos

This time last year we were in Mexico -- we left here on November 1 and arrived there in time for the Days of the Dead.  In Mexico City, the grand ofrenda was amazing -- giant skulls made of fiberglass, painted with bright flowers and geometric designs.  There were "Aztec" priests in the Zocalo, chanting, burning copal, and selling blessings -- including blessings for the Mexican hairless dogs called "perritos Aztecas" (little Aztec dogs).  

The idea is somewhat similar to that of Halloween -- the time when there is an opening between our world and the world of the dead, and each of us can cross over to visit the other.  Homes, restaurants, hotels, offices all display a table with offerings for the dead of cigarettes, drinks, special foods, photos, perfumes, anything and everything the dead person enjoyed in life.  The whole thing is edged with elaborate paper cutouts in black, red and orange -- very beautiful, but very hard to transport.

We visited a cemetery in a small village near Cuernavaca where the graves and tombs were decorated with the traditional flowers -- marigolds and red amaranthus caudatus, which we call love lies bleeding, and again the offerings of favourite things.  There were candles everywhere, both to light the way for the families who are visiting and also to light the way for the beloved spirits return.   

And, to bring this into the realm of gardening, the first picture is of the wall of the hotel garden in Cuernavaca -- the vine is called cupo de oro

Fall iz come!

Temperature last night got down into the low 40s, and today is only in the fifties.  All the tropicals are tucked up in the garage now with the exception of the brugmannsia, which insists as usual on opening most of its flowers very late in the season.  It is not looking happy though, and I think it had better go inside tomorrow.  

The leaf mulch is all distributed around the various beds although there is still a bit left on the grass.  I need to gather it all so that I can re-seed the lawn there.   There isn't much left in bloom, just the Korean mums, a few stragglers among the Austen roses, and some blue pansies.  The picture on the right shows the Japanese anemones a couple of weeks ago -- they are almost gone now.  The violas are planted in the hanging pot on the back deck, and I am awaiting the arrival of my bulb order from Scheepers.  Once that comes, I can finish with the garden for the year and retreat to make plans for next year.  

New Camellia

I just planted C. April Dawn on the west side of the house, on the patio below the porch.   It is the 18-24" size, and cost me $39.99.   Its tag says:

Erect habit, with vigorous growth rate; shades of pink, shell and white variegation (not viral) on formal flowers.  It has a very heavy bud set (well, this one has only two buds for next spring) and blooms over a long period.  The pink and white variegation among the flowers over the whole plant is very unusual.  Developed for exceptional cold hardiness.  looms mid- to late season and is hardy to -10F without protection.

So, let's see how well it does there -- supposed to be the best aspect for camellias.  The others I have are planted between the houses, facing east/north, and April Dawn is on the south side.  It is now almost 8 feet tall, and is once again covered with buds for the spring.  Hope most of them make it through the winter.