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Featured, Garden Musings

What Survived the Winter

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A survivor…..Stachyurus chinensis 'Celina' cared little for being under 4' of snow.

A survivor…..Stachyurus chinensis ‘Celina’ cared little for being under 4′ of snow.

The agony and the ecstasy, or is it the other way around?
After this marathon winter, crocus, daffodils and hellebores have gushed forth with a grand ta-dah! Emerging growth from so many herbaceous perennials reassures us that a heavy snow blanket was good for some plants.

HOWEVER…. trees and shrubs exposed to the onslaught of 3 months of cold and frigid white stuff fared unevenly. Some came through unscathed, while others lost limbs and suffered dieback. The most serious casualties in our garden were the broadleaf evergreens, especially boxwood and Japanese holly, and the evergreen bamboos. The question, what does hardiness mean, is provoking a lot of discussion.

This variegated boxwood is toast!

This variegated boxwood is toast!

A variegated boxwood, which grew from a rooted cutting 15 years ago to 7′ tall, is now the color of straw and shows no green in the cut wood, except for the lowest branches. The fastigiate Japanese Holly, Ilex ‘Sky Pencil’ has more than its share of crispy foliage, but the wood has life and we’re confident it will put on fresh growth. Amazingly, once again the Trochodendron araliodes which horticultural friends cautioned would be iffy, came through looking fine, despite broken branches, (it was buried under snow for weeks). Planted right next to it was a so called hardy gardenia, a loss, or at least total die back to the roots.

A few smashed branches reduced the size of this Trochodendron, but it's going to be fine.

A few smashed branches reduced the size of this Trochodendron, but it’s going to be fine.

The bamboo grove of Phyllostachys aureosulcata is a sorry sight. What once was a wall of green is now stationary beige. Yes, discoloring of leaves happens in cold winters,  which drop when the new leaves emerge in May, (most years)…but this year many of the 30′ culms are brown or oddly discolored. I’m confident that new shoots will break from the ground, but thousands of dead stalks will need to cut down before this happens. Know any artists who may need bamboo for a big project?

Note the brown culms, and even some of the green have threatening discoloring.

Note the brown culms, and even some of the green have threatening discoloring.

I usually advise patience before yanking out plants that have suffered winter damage. April is often too early to tell if a plant is a goner or will convalesce and recover.  In the meantime, where there is hope, prune damaged branches, fertlize gently and let nature heal. Miracles happen while you are busy watching everything else grow.

the rare little Helleborus torquatus, returning again after more than 20 years

the rare little Helleborus torquatus, returning again after more than 20 years

Garden Design, Garden Musings, Winter Interest

Snow-laden Recovery

Lucky for us, we didnt have anywhere to go, so we could take it easy and appreciate the wintry scenes provided by our day after Christmas snowstorm. It was a heavy wet snow which coated and caused most tree and shrub branches to bow with excess weight. And, no, despite adding it to our list of winter preparations, we never did get around to truss up the fastigiate plants like Ilex ‘Sky Pencil’.

snowyrhus72

Sturdy guys like Rhus ‘Tiger Eye’, looking even more like reindeer antlers, were unfazed, but the Limelight Hydrangea, whose blossoms still clung to its bowing tips, curtsied and created cover for the darting chickadees. The wind was gusting to 30-35 mph. We crossed our fingers.

Hydran 'Limelight'gea paniculata

The next day we walked about the garden to see what damage there was, and to our relief, there wasn?t much. The hardy clumping Bamboo, Fargesia rufa ”Green Panda’, which had been standing 6? tall, was laying flat on the ground under an 8? heavy white cover, but that wasn’t cause for alarm.

Snowladenbamboo72

A day or so later, sure enough, the branches began to boing back one by one. As the snow melted over the next three days, the Fargesia had completely returned to it’s orignal height, and there was no evidence of it flattened state. This brings to mind a special usefulness for ‘Green Panda’ as a foundation planting subject. Here we have an evergreen that will not be damaged by heavy snow falling from rooftop eaves. Fargesia ‘Green Panda’ may temporarily concede to snow loads, but will not suffer severe damage as some Boxwood and Japanese Holly might.

Fargesia risen

Upright and unharmed Fargesia rufa

Garden Musings, Winter Preparations

Not quite ready for bed

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Hoop Frames for Extending the Season

Thanksgiving is a bit early this year, which is good and bad. Good, because we can enjoy this autumnal feast among family and friends without paying heed to retailers’ nagging “there’s only 4 weeks left before Christmas.”  Bad, because, if you’re like us, there are still more tasks and cleanup to do outside, and we gave ourselves a tentative deadline for wrapping up the “putting the garden to bed” chores –Thanksgiving.

Fact is I don’t think there’s ever been a year when we’ve completely “finished” this end of the season chore. There’s always so much to do. A prioritizing list helps us focus on the most important tasks, but we always have so many good intentions. If the weather holds out longer, we’ll take advantage of whatever reasonable days we get to plant the rest of the bulbs or to tackle dividing and transplanting the Siberian Iris that haven’t bloomed well for 3 years.

And what if the garden itself doesn’t want to be “finished”? Our raised vegetable beds are still producing lettuce, kale, carrots, parsnips and beets. We’ve mulched our beds with rinsed and dried seaweed, which protects and insulates the soil for easy digging. To extend the season as long as possible, this spring Chris purchased a hoop bender from Johnny’s Selected Seeds which enables us to make inexpensive supports from galvanized electrical conduit for covering planting beds. The installed hoop frames can be covered with Remay or clear plastic to rebuke the hard frosts. These hoops just might enable us to harvest lettuce into the New Year!

Garden Musings and Tips

The Right Time to Plant Tender…

Here in the northeast, mid spring teases us with periods of warm sunny days, tempting us to go out and buy the colorful annuals and tropical perennials stocked in local greenhouses. We forget that we may well get several more chilly nights. Perhaps frost is unlikely, but the soil temperature is going to remain too cold for the heat lovers until nights stay above 55 degrees F. If you plant these warm weather gems too soon, you will most assuredly stunt their growth.

The old timers always said to wait until Memorial Day to plant tomatoes and annuals, and for good reason. Only last year, many of us experienced a cool wet June, and many a northern gardener lamented how poorly Coleus, Colocasia and Cannas performed.