Only 23 Days 'til Spring!

Currently, there are several blooming plants in the garden: Witchhazel, Hellebore, Forsythia, and Daffodil! What’s interesting is that three of these four bloomers are yellow. I happen to like yellow, think it’s a fresh and exciting color. But you may be surprised that in talking to clients, it’s one of the least favored flower colors.

Some of the Witchhazel (Hamamelis) varieties are still blooming and the fragrance is quickly becoming one of my favorite. It’s a sweetness tinged with citrus that makes you literally stop in your tracks to take in the aroma, delightful!

The Hellebores started blooming this week, and that show will go on for months. One of my favorite perennials, this plant is a real trooper. I went through and clipped out any tired-looking foliage, which made the flowers stand out even more. My hellebores are lavender blooming, but I love the white and speckled varieties just as much.

Forsythia is a great shrub to use en masse, if you have a large area to devote to them. But more often then not, they are (over) planted in small areas and pruned incorrectly. What results is a boxy-looking shrub with sparse flowers. This plant will grow 10’ tall and needs delicate pruning immediately after flowering to ensure a good show next year.

Rijnveld’s Early Sensation Daffodil (Narcissus) is the earliest hardy daffodil to bloom. It is classified as a trumpet daffodil, which means it has one of the larger blooms of the species. The two-toned yellow blooms stand about 12” tall, and will keep blooming despite any future blankets of snow.

There’s only 23 more days until spring, let the count down begin!

first blooms of 2011!

As big snowflakes flurried around Nashville this morning, I saw the first signs that spring is in fact right around the corner…daffodils peeking through the soil! It will still be several weeks before they bloom, but it is exciting nonetheless. Today I was also greeted by the first bloom of 2011, Witchhazel (Hamamelis vernalis).

Witchhazel is a beautiful large shrub of which there are several native varieties. Landscape features include gorgeous yellow fall color and pungently fragrant yellow/orange flowers in late winter. This is a great shrub for massing in the back of a naturalized border planting. “A tough plant with an alley-cat tenacity” says woody plant expert, Dr. Dirr.

Another plant on my bloom watch list is the Lenten Rose (Helleborus). Speaking of Lenten Rose, the person who introduced me to that amazing perennial, Dr. Allan Armitage has revised Armitage’s Garden Perennials. The new version will be out this summer and is a must-have book for any perennial gardener.

Last weekend I took advantage of extraordinarily mild temperatures to finish cutting back all remaining perennials and mulching a few of the planting beds. Working in the garden, I noticed how graceless my large butterfly bush has become. I’m going to have to cut it back and remove a lot of water sprouts before it leafs out.

[Water sprouts are vigorous growths along a branch that grow almost vertically and are aesthetically displeasing.]

This time of year can be down-right depressing with grey days and freezing temperatures. Knowing that spring will soon be here provides some relief from winter doldrums. Until then, I will keep thumbing through garden catalogues and dreaming of warmer days and the beautiful blooms to come!

Ants and things

Things are growing great in the garden. I spent some time last weekend weeding several beds and trying to ‘thin the heard’ of mint, creeping jenny, and sedum. Would anyone like to come over and take home a sampling of these voracious ground covers?! I also mulched a little and amended the soil for the Hollyhocks which I will be planting this week!

The Hellebores are still blooming. The Rosemary is blooming now, pretty little blue flowers. The Peonies, Baptisia, and Iris will all be blooming soon. My Epimediums are now blooming in my side shade garden (picture). That’s a really neat perennial for the shade garden. They are also commonly referred to as Barrenwort and Bishop’s hat.

Epimediums are grown as much for their flowers as they are for their heart-shaped foliage which can take on beautiful fall coloring. Their tiny flowers are suspended ever so gracefully on their arching flower stalks. Epimediums make great accent plants and groundcovers, although they die back almost completely in our zone. I like to pair my yellow blooming Epimediums with purple-leaved plants like Ajuga and Heuchera.

I recently discovered ants on some of my Rose of Sharon. I fear the ants are ‘milking’ aphids which in turn are feasting on the new foliage. This morning I sprayed the bugs off with water, let’s hope that keeps them away. My next approach may be to use a soap spray. I generally try to avoid using any chemicals in the garden, but especially now that I’m growing edible plants, that would be my last resort.

There are ants on my Peonies as well, which are across the driveway. I have come to expect this every year on the Peonies. [Although at first it was alarming and I admit I sprayed my Peonies with ant killer chemicals that first year] A very knowledgeable gardener explained to me that ants help the Peony buds ‘open up’. So now I ignore the ants, and my peonies have never suffered because of them.

the Greek word for Rainbow

This past weekend brought us beautiful spring weather and I was able to spend about an hour working in the yard on Saturday. The area I focused on is the small perennial bed next to my mailbox at the street. This planting bed sits at the start of a swale that runs along the front of my property parallel to the street. It’s an odd sort of depression that’s difficult to mow; from day one I envisioned a sinuous planting bed of perennials and shrubs to replace the grass in the swale and provide a colorful front border for the house.

Several years ago I was renovating my grandfather’s Iris bed in Knoxville and the process of dividing his Iris yielded several mulch bags filled with rhizomes. The flower takes its name from the Greek word rainbow, referring to the wide variety of flower colors available in the genus. Now I know that the Iris I planted bloom yellow and white. But at the time I planted my rhizomes, I had no idea what I might end up with.

Iris prefer full sun to bloom well, and they can grow very tall. I have seen some flower spikes reach 3-4’ in height. At the time I didn’t have a spot that I thought would work well for the Iris, so I decided to start my ‘swale’ planting bed. Turning a patch of grass into a planting bed is HARD work; when your lawn is comprised of Bermuda grass, it’s even harder.

I added a few daylilies to the front of the bed as well, given to me by my day-lily breeding uncle. The effect is quite nice with blooms from spring through summer. They actually bloomed well the first year, which was surprising. They had a good year last year, but I didn’t keep up with weeding very well. That’s why I pulled out two garbage bags of weeds (for the composter). Then I cut each Iris fan back to three or four inches from the ground. That is a maintenance task best performed in the fall, but I suppose it’s better late than never.

Next I’m going to mulch the bed with soil conditioner. Most Iris growers do not recommend mulching, because the rhizomes can rot so easily (especially in our humid climate). But I think a light top-dressing of soil conditioner improves the soil and looks really good. I’m still debating whether or not to fertilize this area since I don’t want to give the grass (weeds) a head start. Regardless, I’m looking forward to better maintaining the area and lots of blooms this year.

The attached picture was taken in 2008, and I sent my grandfather a copy of it. After my grandfather passed away last summer, I found this picture framed in his bedroom. Every time I see the Iris blooming, I think of him and his love of gardening.

to everything, there is a season

At work yesterday, I was elated when I caught a glimpse of the first signs of spring…daffodils coming up! It’s easy to think after 3 weeks of snow on the ground that we will forever be stuck in winter. But with those spikes of perennial daffodil foliage, we are reminded once again that even winter comes to an end. And with that end comes the promise of spring blooms!

This particular outcropping of white and pale yellow daffodils lies under a small grouping of reddish-pink blooming redbud trees, with the mulch path to the greenhouse running right through them. It’s an incredible combination of spring blooms.