Helleborus

Helleborous aka Lenten Rose
Here's our reliable winter color...The plants here are some version of Helleborus orientalis. There are so many bloom colors and varying leaf shapes in the Helleborus genus. Grow them in shade. They propogate themselves easily by seed. Or you can divide the root crown. Drought hardy and the leaves are tough and stay green into winter. After the bloom gets going, next year's leaves emerge. So you get all year green foliage, unlike many other flowering perennials.

Here are mine on Monday, February 1, 2010. Buried in snow and with quite a bit of winter burn on last year's leaves, I'll go out on a less rainy day, when the blooms are a little taller, and cut back some of the rattier looking leaves to show off the blooms.

Look for the blooms pushing up through the pile of melting snow . . .

On Friday of this same week, with the snow melting.... still a bit messy, but great blooms. Now if I could just spot some Crocus emerging!

Winter Events for Plant Lovers

Upcoming events in January and February

Cheekwood 5oth Anniversary (50 Cent admission to Cheekwood during the month of January!!) CONTACT: http://www.cheekwood.org/Home.aspx

Forest Landowner Workshop (for landowners or prospective landowners with forest cover; sustainable forestry; management) Saturday February 6, 2010 8:30-2:00 $10. CONTACT: Davidson County UT Extension 862-5995

The Antiques and Garden Show of Nashville "20 years of bringing renowned international and national experts in antiques, gardening, the various fields of design, and art to Nashville" March 4-7, 2010 CONTACT : http://www.antiquesandgardenshow.com/

“Photographing our gardens and spaces” with J. Paul Moore, a presentation by the Perennial Plant Society of Middle Tennessee Tuesday February 16th, 2010 7:30PM Free and open to the public CONTACT: http://www.ppsmt.com/Programs_%26_Events/

BRRRRRRRRR Part 2

It was cold...it was colder...it was really cold.... it stayed cold...it snowed...we had a nice day or two...it got rainy..and then.... it was cold.

So is this weather bad for our plants?
Although plants can be sensitive to extremes of weather or disease and physical injury, they operate differently than we do.

Most of our plants will be fine for 3 reasons: The right plant is sited in the right place; because plants go dormant in winter; and because they are wearing insulation.

Site: Grow plants that are well suited for our winters and summers. See the USDA cold hardiness map link for an explanation of Zones. Know what kind of sunlight and shade and soil cultures they prosper in. Most importantly, give them good soil with proper pH.
Dormancy: Most shrubs and perennials go dormant in winter which means they slow their rates of metabolisms and have less water content in their cells. They feed little and transpire much less. Many of them lose their vegetation (trees let go of their leaves) or the vegetation is essentially dead (like cone flowers and sedum stalks and iris leaves).So most of the living part is below ground….
which is well insulated. Even though the top few inches of ground is frozen the temperatures deeper are moderate, protecting the root system. A nice layer of mulch will help most of our plants. (There are exceptions e.g., iris don’t need a lot of mulch but borderline zone plants need extra mulch.)

What about the spring flowers? Some shrubs have set blooms for the coming year. The plant itself is already protecting the inner flower with a tight layer of bud scales. The danger isn’t in this cold weather. The danger is when the temperatures warm, the buds start to open, and start sending fluids to the tips of the plant. The bloom is partly open and then we get a freezing spell after the tender flower is exposed. This is when many folks are attentive to covering azaleas and rhododendron buds with sheets in early spring. The late Easter freeze of 2007 is an extreme incident of this weather cycle.


Pansy (Viola × wittrockiana) is an annual for sun to light shade. They like average to rich soil and can benefit from all purpose fertilizer or a little extra Nitrogen. They tolerate cooler temperatures, so in the Southern region they are often put in flower beds in the Autumn to have color through the winter. Here in Nashville they typically survive the winter, and bloom well into May. They tend to suffer from more heat after that.
I’m focusing on these pansies just because they are the most available model right now in the middle of winter and I have some free time to play with my new camera!

So here’s my journal of Winter Flowers ...
Start by taking a glance at my blog from Dec.26. It SEEMED cold then. And that little flower looked great. Pansies were planted around November 1. They always go in a small spot in front of some perennials and a few in this steel sculpture/planter.

Then came early January with many days and nights of bitter cold.

1/4/10 Really cold for days. Highs in 20s, lows in teens or colder.Yeah they are looking puny.









1/08/2010 at 1:30 in the afternoon, light snow. 18 degrees F. Cloudy.

If I had been outside 24/7 for the last week with only a light jacket I would look a lot worse than this.




1/20/10
Warming up, thunderstorms and high 50s.
These yellow flowering pansies are already forming good looking new blooms.They live in the ground just in front of the planter. The blue/purple pansies in the planter are slow to recover. They are suffering because they are in very tight space and didn't get to spread their roots around and because they have no protection (insulation) from the cold.




















(Bonus: http://www.webexhibits.org/causesofcolor/17C.html While surfing around sites about pansies, I ended up at this very cool page which illustrates patterns on flowers that only certain insects can see. More questions on the science of plants and gardening…but that’s for another day.)

Zone Detour - HAITI

Hey Just a quick post regarding how to help in Haiti with earthquake recovery. Following is a list organizations working in Haiti. It was compiled by John Charping and Betty Larsen. There are phone numbers listed, but many of these organizations facilitate donations via their websites. And naturally if you are so inclined, many of these groups will direct your donation to general help in needy areas of the United States.


Haiti earthquake: How to help
A list of charitable organizations active in Haiti (listed below)

(Directions….just go to this website and click on the organization to which you would like to give. You can give directly on-line with a credit card. Or call the organization to give over the phone.)

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34835478/ns/world_news-haiti_earthquake/


* Action Against Hunger 1-877-777-1420
* American Red Cross 1-800-733-2767
* American Jewish World Service 1-800-889-7146
* AmeriCares 1-800-486-4357
* Beyond Borders 1-866-424-8403
* CARE 1-800-521-2273
* Catholic Relief Services 1-800-736-3467
* Childcare Worldwide 1-800-553-2328
* Direct Relief International 1-805-964-4767
* Doctors Without Borders 1-888-392-0392
* Feed My Starving Children https://www.fmsc.org/
* Food for the Poor 1-954-427-2222
* Friends of WFP 1-202-530-1694
* Haitian Health Foundation 1-860 886-4357
* Hope for Haiti 1-239-434-7183
* International Medical Corps 1-310-826-7800
* International Relief Teams 1-619-284-7979
* Medical Teams International 1-800-959.4325
* Meds and Food for Kids 1-314-420-1634
* Mennonite Central Committee 1-215-535-3624
* Mercy Corps 1-888-256-1900
* Operation USA 1-800-678-7255
* Oxfam 1-800-776-9326
* Partners in Health 1-617-432-5256
* The Salvation Army 1-800-725-2769
* Samaritan's Purse 1-828-262-1980
* Save the Children 1-800-728-3843
* UNICEF 1-800-367-5437
* World Concern 1-800-755-5022
* World Vision 1-888-511-6593
* Yele Haiti http://www.yele.org/
(Yele Haiti is Wyclef Jean's grassroots organization. Give on-line or text Yele to 501 501 to donate $5 via your cellphone.)

Brrrrrrrrrrrr

Right now in Nashville it's around 45 degrees Fahrenheit with a wind chill feeling like 35, but just give these pansies a little sun and they look so good. On some other wet very cold day they will retreat and look like something in your compost bin. But they are so worth it when the sun comes out again. And they give us these colors all winter, often lasting into April or May -they don't like a lot of heat. By then you can replace them with the many many choices of annuals available in Spring.

(These pansies are planted in a steel sculpture in very little soil, facing Southeast. They get a half day winter sun. When there's sun. Because they are in a shallow container I do give them occasional water during the fall and winter. Pansies planted in normal beds typically get enough moisture from winter rains and snow to not need supplemental watering.)

A Winter Day

I love tulip poplar. Liriodendron tulipifera (aka yellow poplar, or tulip tree) has a beautiful light green leaf, a unique green and orange flower and in winter gives us shapely seeds. Here's a tulip poplar seed with silver maple (Acer saccharinum) seeds in background. The winter sky and leafless trees give us the opportunity to look at things a little differently. How eye-catching things are in the winter when so much is just reduced to the structure of a view.


It's a great time to see the basics of a yard/garden/street/ landscape.



Look at your yard now to see what the basic frame is...do you like how the trees create boundaries and vertical movement? Are they blocking a nice view of your house, or draping around a beautiful door drawing attention to it? Do you like the contrast of ornamental grasses against evergreen trees and shrubs. You can look now to be thinking about next summer. Even from the comfort of your kitchen or living room window you can look at the yard and think about how you can add some eye appeal. See a nice bank of green laurels or cedars? ...but if they look kinda plain you can underplant or plant in the sight line with some color.

Of course evergreen shrubs and trees as foundation plantings are all that are desired by some. Their advantages are the simplicity and lower maintenance. And with so many varieties of color to choose from even among evergreens, you can create an interesting palette. But there are many winter options for visual show that are not evergreens.
Structure and color are available from many sources.....the beautiful bark of birches and crape myrtles, the flowing tans and yellows of ornamental grasses, red bark and berries, the green dry eucalyptus stems.

There are several winter bloomers and winter color options. Blooming December to February are various species of Helleborus (aka Christmas rose or Lenten rose) and they have nice tough semi-evergreen foliage that looks great all winter; Witch Hazels (Hamamelis virginiana) bloom a subtle yellow in the mid to late winter. Many hollies are producing bright red berries which are more noticeable. Ilex verticillata (winterberry) is a low growing deciduous shrub that has fantastic bright red berries most of the winter. It will highlight and contrast well against the dark green background of evergreens. Also for color : red twig dogwoods (Cornus sericea) , kinda plain-jane much of the year, but then they drop their leaves in fall and the red stems look great against some hollies or a dark painted house. Ornamental grasses are great for white/cream colors and eye-pleasing movement when the wind blows. Don't cut them until mid-February.

It's nice to lounge around and check out the catalogs full of spring and summer blooming plants. It's also comforting to simply enjoy the clarity of winter.

October Colors and To-Do list

A quick post about What's Blooming This Week:

Asters, native and otherwise look just great. Knockout roses are still blooming. Wild ageratum is mixed in with some of the native asters. Muhly grass is a blast of pink mist. Butterfly bush still going. Japanese anemones look great in mass plantings. Burning bush, hydrangea quercifolia, and dogwoods look really nice, turning some rich reds.
And that's not even the tree color!

What to do, when there is a rare moment without rain?

LAWN: If you dutifully overseeded your Fescue lawn a couple of weeks ago, you might have a nice crop of fine seedlings. OR a lot of your seed may have rotted or been washed away and you can overseed again, maybe at half rate if some of the first crop sprouted.

PERENNIALS: We should be getting some frosts soon, so if this is your only weekend available for awhile, you can cut back your herbaceous perennials, trimming the monarda, hostas, iris, platycodons etc. to within a few inches of the ground. Leave your tall coneflowers and sedums and sages if you like their look; leave all your ornamental grasses for some eye appeal during the winter (cut them back in mid-February to early March).
P.S., you can divide many of these plants now if you need some space or want to give root sections to friends. Note on the bearded iris, you can divide them now, but next year immediatley after blooming is better. Dividing now will work, but they might postpone blooms for a year.

After a few hard frosts, you'll be able to see what softer tissue plants have 'melted' in the cold and you can remove any dead above-ground plant material.

Plant bulbs (tulips, hyacinths, crocuses, etc.).

SHRUBS: Don't do much pruning. Trim very lightly, if you must, the yews or laurels. Don't touch the forsythia, they have set their buds for spring. Of course, have a go at any overgrown Privet hedge. Really, do.

HERBS: Harvest all that basil now! Make pesto!

And you can always plant some pansies or if you dare, ornamental cabbages.

Thanks for reading, and here's to the sun predicted for next week!