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.
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.