Welcome Winter

In the early morning hours of December 4, the mild autumn conceded the season to winter’s chill and a killing frost settled over the garden, scorching the still blooming Salvia elegans and guarnica, and officially calling a close to the 2006 garden season in my mid-Atlantic garden.

To further drive home the fact that winter was upon us, light snow flurries fell from the clouds on the afternoon of the 6th, and right now a snow shower is dusting the night.
Even as most plants hunker down for the winter rest, some are already poised to explode open in bloom. The leaf-bare branches of quince, Cydonia japonica, are decorated with plump red bud and beneath the brown leaves of the witchhazel, Hamamelis mollis, hints of yellow petals are beginning to show. The 2007 season is quick upon us – I usually consider the season to start with the blooming of the witchhazel, but the quince may fire the opening shot.
But let’s not rush past the beauty of the winter. I’ve been enjoying much of the calm evergreen garden. Outside our livingroom window the Magnolia grandiflora “Edith Bogue” is in full glory or shiny green leaves and ripe red seeed pods.

And last week I meandered around the grounds of Cylburn Arboretum, where there are several beautiful winter displays, the most impressive of which is the fenced-in shade garden directly in back of the mansion where Mahonias, Geranium macrorrhizum, and the beautiful but underused native Allegheny Spurge, Pachysandra procumbens, create a lush, calm oasis even in sparse December. All in all I’ve been enjoy this subtle season – the way the sharp clear light illuminates bare branches and enlivens evergreens, but of course, winter has not yet officially begun.

Hanging On

Well, it's November 12 and the garden has all but wound down for the season. There have been a few light frosts, but not yet the killing freeze, so a few salvias continue to bloom without worry for the cold months ahead. Still in its prime with a beautiful display of sharply contrasting red and green is one of my old favorites, Salvia elegans, the pineapple sage.

I consider my gardening to have "officially" started about six years ago, with the purchase of our first home, but I had always tried to tend a small plot or pot since I was a kid, and one of the first plants I fell in love with was pineapple sage -- it always brings such a spectacular finale to the garden. It is more common now than it was when I first started growing it 15 years ago, but I think it's odd that it doesn't grace more beds around town. Nothing still goes as strong in these final days, and its colors actually give me a tinge of Christmas spirit. Even Mexican sage, Salvia leucantha, while still unaffected by northern cold blasts, seems to be putzing out with flowering. But the elegans still looks in its prime.

Another salvia that is hanging right in there with the elegans is some sort of Salvia guaranitica-- a larger plant than the up and coming "Black and Blue" with a green caylex and blooms of an incredibly deep blue-purple on a large spike. I acquired this plant from sage enthusiast Richard Dufresne at this past year's Baltimore Herb Festival. He was quite excited about it, but was unsure of its performance this far north. While I have no false hope of a pineapple sage surviving our winters, I do hope this plant comes back, as it is quite spectacular.

Friends who live just north of me have already had their entire gardens put to rest by sub-freezing temps; luckily, situated inside the beltway and on the city line, I've only had a few tender items at the bottom of a hill get blasted, although the banana tree, Musa basjoo, is so tattered and ragged that it looks like it is begging for a mercy kill. And while yesterday's temp climbed to 74, today cold winds and drizzle made it feel more like November. But I didn't mind -- I enjoyed listening to the rush of wind in the dried leaves as I cleaned up hostas that had gone from brilliant yellow to mush brown overnight. And there was the salvia elegans, its bright red lanterns burning in the dismal November gloom. When its leaves finally get blackened by a scorching frost, I will call the season of '06 done. But for now it is trying to carry me as close as possible to the start of the new season, which hopefully will begin in late January when the electric yellow flowers of the witch hazel, Hamamelis mollis, scent the frozen air with hope.