Spring's Promise & Winter's Victims

Such an odd spring. Just when you think you are high and safe on a wave of warmth, another northern front rolls in that plunges nights into the forties with some days barely climbing out of the fifties. Everything got off to such a slow start, but at last some lushness is starting to fill the yard.
And amid the lushness of late spring, a final tally of the casualties of winter. Now barren spots in the greenery make it clear which plants did not survive this past winter, which, ironically enough, was for the most part a warmer than normal one. But that warmth, which caused hellebores, witch hazels, quince and camellias to bloom in early January, must have also fooled other less stout garden members into breaking dormancy early in the year. And then came the bitter, colder than average late February that cut them down to death. Particularly affected were many fleshy bulbs of tropical descent that previously had no trouble surviving the past seven years in my garden – the Hedychium ginger, Sauromatum venosum voodoo lilies, and Eucomis pineapple lilies are all gone. Even the Musa basjoo banana tree, which previously had been growing and spreading like a weed and would have been a four feet high by four feet wide shrub by now, seems like it barley pulled through; it is just now sending some thin sickly shoots up from the earth.
All of these fatalities correspond with a report from Sherwood Gardens, an expanse of azaleas and spring bulbs in the otherwise sterile north Baltimore Gucci neighborhood of Guilford, that about 30% of the planted tulip bulbs did not flower. When the failed beds were dug up, mushy rotted bulbs were found – victims of a warm winter with a freezing finale.
I even had to say farewell to some work horse salvias that for many years had been staples of the garden, particularly Greggii “Watermelon” and “Royal Raspberry,” which revealed green signs of life when their bare branches were scraped with a finger nail, but failed to sprout any new growing points from the old wood.
But there was virtually no damage with the larger shrubs and trees. The pomegranate, Punica granatum “State Fair,” had insignificant die back and has jumped to vigorous life and is larger than ever this year. The brown turkey fig, which usually needs its tips pruned back to green wood in the spring, had no die back this year.
But at last the warmth is here and on we go. Just too bad that we’re ultimately headed back to winter in a mere five months…

Glorious

It has broken – the cold, the ice, the snow, the dreadful winter. Sure, it’ll try one or two final attacks, but it is defeated with nowhere to go but retreat. I stepped out onto a black asphalt parking lot this morning and felt the heat rising from the macadam, the warmth enhancing the scents of diesel exhaust, gas stains, and dumped coffee – stifling in mid-summer but now oh-so preferable to the odorless dead cold of winter.
Even though winter didn’t truly begin until February, it was still more than I could bear. The short days were enjoyable up until that point – hellebores, quince, camellias, and witch hazels in full vibrant bloom. But then the evil freeze came and cut down all of the brave blooms, leaving the bright red quince flowers an unrevivable brown mush on the stems, scorching new leaves and blooms of hellebores, making it very difficult to prune around the damage for a salvageable display. The only thing that has been able to start from where it left off is the witch hazel.
But now joining the first wave of blooms come crocus, pulmonaias, and the unbelievably intoxicating Daphne odora, whose scent lies heavy along the front and side of the house. I could just pull up a chair and sit and smell that sucker for hours on end – it transports me to heaven. And so far it has proven to be contrary to its reputation and is a most easy-going shrub, stuck on the west side of the house on a thin strip of ground under an over-flowing rain gutter, delivering seven years of glorious spring perfume.
I would mark this past Saturday, March 10th, as the official start of the 2007 garden season. I started to clean up all that was left to stand through winter and to take inventory of what has survived and what has perished. So far it looks as though most of my “mid-Atlantic tropicals” have survived.
The needle palm, Rhapidophyllum hystrix, has gone through its 5th or 6th winter, unprotected on the south side of our house with no apparent damage and evidence of strong new palms about to unfurl. This is a simple and beautiful native of our south that seems to have no problem adapting to northern Baltimore when sited well.
And the desert plants seem to have all pulled through – Dasylirion texanum is another easy care native of our west that doesn’t seem to mind a mid-Atlantic relocation. After three years it has yet to show any sign of winter damage. It is sited on a well-draining hill enhanced with course sand and pebbles, but otherwise no protection. It becomes more beautiful and full each year against a backdrop of mixed salvia greggii.
The agaves – neomexicana and lophantha – have showed small signs of scorching but nothing serious. Even the lophantha baby side shoot seems to have pulled through and is ready for separation and transplanting to another sharp drainage hill.
And how did other zone defiant specimens fair? Gardenia “Chuck Hayes” sustained a few burned leaves, but it hasn’t been cut to the ground. I’m hoping it will do a repeat of last year’s display of delicious blooms.
I coppiced the Eucalyptus neglecta to the ground – it stood untouched until the mid-February deep freeze, after which its leaves became scorched and brittle, but the braches remained green. I wish I had left it untouched to see if it would generate new leaves straight from old, green wood, but I also fear that if left unchecked it would become a monster.
Also showing good green wood is the Punica granatum “State Fair,” a nice dwarf pomegranate. And the Camellia japonica “Greensborough” is lush and unblemished, heavily laden with buds waiting to burst open. I’ll have to wait to see about the Musa basjoo banana tree and Hedychium gingers, but they’ve been around for more than 5 years now and are almost invasive in their plot against our southern wall. So the endless digging, cutting, pruning, weeding, mulching – it begins. Gloriously. At last.

Frozen

January was a time of relative warmth and greenery – frequently days climbed into the sixties and the grass was verdant as early spring. After the blooms of last season faded, a procession of new blooms had begun without a pause. But all of that sits frozen now, the new blooms robbed of color and the green fields drained of color by northern winds and buried under inches of ice. Everything has shriveled – the hellebores, quince, witch hazels and even winter jasmine – and retreated into deep winter. The only solace is in the fact that at this point there can only be weeks of winter to endure and not months.
At year’s end the gardening spark remained strong and I was appreciating the winter’s gardens as much as the summer’s; now I’ve retreated indoors and buried myself beneath blankets and books, such as Beth Chatto’s Gardening Notebook, written in a style incorporating horticultural facts with joyful gardening anecdotes and personal reflections. A very good read.
And although we are preparing for an onslaught of this area’s winter staple – the “wintry mix” of sleet, freezing rain, and, if we’re lucky, snow – in three weeks’ time the family and I will be making our right of spring passage to the conservatories of Longwood Gardens.
A great winter escape, the United States Botanical Gardens and Conservatory in D.C., has grown with the installation of the outdoor National Garden. On a recent visit I marveled at how the Mall at the foot of the Capitol has been transformed from a barren expanse of uninspired lots to a diverse and welcoming landscape. Though newly planted and sparse in its infancy, the Botanic Gardens beautifully frame the Capital and make the graceful architecture of the Capitol’s dome and columns shine – previously I thought the building was blah.. The mall is now a top horticultural destination – from Bartholdi Park, the Botanic Gardens, the wild woodland ponds in front of the Museum of the American Indian, and down to the the Mary Livingston Ripley Garden and those surrounding the Smithsonian Castle. Finally, the Capitol is improved on the inside and out.

Bloomin' Hope

It’s not cold. It’s not winter. It’s not anything. Disjointed days of 70 degree warmth and sunshine book-ended by cool, damp nondescript days of rain with the threat of a very real and tangible winter descending from the north. In winter warmth and sun you can rise on dreamlike waves of irrelevant happiness. On the rainy, dark days every debt, empty work hour or other tokens of loneliness weigh down like a hundred wet, woolen blankets.
But there is green in the fields instead of the usual mid-winter grey and optimistic blooms of hellebores, mahonias, witch hazels, quince, and winter honeysuckle explode in anticipation and unshakable belief in genuine spring.

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.