Category Archives: Gardening

Speckled with a slight spattering of mud from a spring shower, these early daffodils, likely a relative of ‘February Gold‘, are the first little blooms in my parents’ yard. We just have the smallest start of color in our Scilla bulbs, but no buds on the Narcissus here yet. Micro-climates are a real thing, and it’s interesting to note that in downtown Albany and downtown Amsterdam all the daffodils are in bloom, while a mile or two up on Albany-Shaker or Market Street, the show hasn’t even come close to starting. What a difference some elevation makes.

As for the mud marring the beauties seen here, it’s a marker of the courage and bravery that these little blooms have against the harsh and unpredictable world of mid-April. We should all be so bold.

My memory is officially shot, and I can better answer questions on what went down in 1997 (it was probably me) than what happened just ten minutes ago. Case in point: I recently took my daily regimen of pills at night, then promptly took another bunch just half an hour later because I couldn’t remember if I’d taken them before (luckily I’m only on baby doses of blood pressure medication and the rest are just allergy and Vitamin D and other nonsense). Yes, I would probably do well with a weekly/daily pill box for more than vacations now. But I digress, another sign of aging and forgetfulness, and the real purpose of this post was to examine the crocus you see so beautifully in bloom here.

It’s a bit of a surprise because I didn’t remember planting this corm – and in all fairness to me, it was a package of about 50 crocus corms, only one of which actually survived the hungry animals burrowing in the topsoil of our backyard a number of years ago. Yes, one out of fifty, which is why I don’t bother much with bulbs anymore. 

As seen above, it is almost completely hidden in the brown debris of winter’s end, even with its striking purple coloring. I actually missed it the first time I walked by, only catching it on my return trip, and the reward was handsome. A few days later, the bloom was gone, eaten by the usual culprits, and another heartbreaking reason not to bother with certain plants at certain times of the year. 

Thankfully, I captured it when it had just opened, and the fleeting nature of such beauty adds to its allure ad appreciation. A welcome sign of spring.

The glories of spring blooming bulbs are striking and many, but there are drawbacks too which keep me wary. Even the hardiest and most stalwart among them – the Narcissus and pictured Muscari for example – last for a bit, but eventually die out instead of multiplying as they are supposed to do. I’m not sure why, as they are allowed to go brown and fortify the bulbs until the foliage dies away, and I feed them during the growing season and allow them rest in their dormancy. Whether it’s the critters (lots of underground work by chipmunks and squirrels and rabbits) or the soil, bulbs simply don’t do well in the long run in our yard, so I’ve tended not to grow them. 

That doesn’t mean I don’t love seeing them in bloom everywhere else, especially in the first flush of potted and pampered specimens as seen here. The local markets and greenhouses are filled with spring bulbs now, taking pride of place and leading the Easter bunny brigade. It’s a happy end to winter, a promising start to the new season, and I am here for all of it. 

Behold, the pussywillow! These furry little harbingers of spring harken to some happy childhood memories. When I see them on offer in the market, I know spring is at hand. As their common name suggests, these are a member of the willow family, with all the magical properties that tree carries. 

How the pussy willow got its name is the subject of differing stories, most of which put kittens in peril, so read about them here (there are all happy endings). 

A simple vase of them is enough, though they make wonderful vertical accents in bouquets. I like to keep them to themselves, where the interesting features can be inspected without competition with more colorful scene-stealers. There will be time enough for them in the coming months – let’s begin slowly, and softly… 

Our yard is not that big or extensive, but even its small expanses make for a daily walk that recharges the soul as needed. Such a luxury is not available year round, and winter makes it less than hospitable for the most part. This particular winter hasn’t been as vicious as others, but I still hadn’t made it out until this week.

I wasn’t expecting to find much, but once again the garden finds ways to surprise and delight. A few small patches of moss rested on the bare ground, little irregular circles of green, while the only major splash of green was the evergreen of the Lenten rose – a stalwart performer when winters are mild, as this one has been.

Much of the yard is still covered in snow and the brown layer of leaves and debris from fall and winter. That monotonous backdrop is a benefit when looking for things that are out of place structurally, or, in the case below, of an evergreen that had sprouted and established a decent start over the last year, but had gone hidden beneath a grove of ostrich ferns.

A juniper provides its silvery, blue-green beauty as a refreshing foil against the brown of the ground and the weathered gray of the fence behind it. This and the row of Thuja are reminders of the importance of using evergreens when an entire season is spent in dormant winter doldrums. Too many of us, myself most decidedly included, go for the brighter and more dramatic growth and color of the deciduous varieties, but the slower-growing and year-round foliage of evergreens will end up forming the backbone of a garden and landscape.

As I finished up a brief stroll around the backyard, I was surprised to see the early emergence of a couple of daffodils. They don’t typically show up this early, but here they were, bravely poking forth through the layer of leaves that once laid hidden beneath the snow. As happy a sight as this was, it did give me a bit of consternation. There will be more snowstorms to weather before any bit of spring is in serious sight. The risk of rising too early is great in these parts, when a long freeze could stunt or outright stop a bloom in its tentative tracks. But new life rarely listens or heeds the wisdom of older life, so we will hang on and hope for the best. Besides, it’s hard to stay mad at the hopeful.

Even before the first shift in birdsong that I noticed this weekend, the houseplants were telling us the road to spring was just ahead. The mirrored re-flowering of the Christmas/Thanksgiving/Easter cactus happened a couple of weeks ago, meaning that there was similar light to the late fall when it last bloomed. Then there was a burst of flowers from an orchid (which is too spectacular to share outside of its own featured post to come) and a new batch of leaves on the Audrey ficus.

A new crop of bright chartreuse leaves on the traditional weeping fig also signaled that spring was on the way. Their young forms are thin and delicate, with a dewy shine that stiffens and ripens into the deeper mottled form that the rest of the leaves eventually grow to carry. I love this contrast now, and I love that we are almost halfway through the last full month of winter. Hang on like these little leaves – the journey is just beginning…

The Lenten Rose is usually either the latest or earliest bloomer in the garden – and sometimes it is both. The last few times I’ve been in Boston, they have been holding onto their blooms, even during the wintry conditions that recent snowstorms have brought. I distinctly remember seeing their nodding heads on a dark night in an Uber ride with Andy. They were ghostly then, and oddly reassuring in their seasonal defiance.

During our recent gathering with the kids, I found this stand of them on Braddock Park, blooming away as if it were spring again. Such resilience is admirable, especially when so much of winter is yet to come.

Our own Lenten rose has never done an end-of-the-season show. Our winters are much too harsh, often much too early, for the plant to be tricked into such a quirk. They will slumber under the last of the snow melts away in March or April, then gently rise, somewhat torn and tattered until I clean them up and make some judicious pruning decisions. They are the first sign that spring is returning, and so seeing them at any time of the year reminds me of hope.

Here we are in mid-November, and this little patch of succulent ground cover is still showing off a freshness of bright green that is positively spring-like in hue and attitude. How admirable to keep going at this late stage of the game, and what a lovely reminder that we should always see things through to the very end. The Virgo in me generally tends to complete any and all assignments, and I’m always impressed by those sports players who, despite the inevitability of a loss or second place finish, still see it through to the end instead of giving up. There is something powerful and profoundly poignant about finishing the course even when all is already lost. It speaks to honor and integrity, and it speaks volumes. 

Mornings are cool and wet now, often hazy with fog and dew. Any day now there will be a frost on the blades of grass. If it’s hard enough they will buckle and crumple. Fall gives its glory and takes it away overnight. Until that happens, though, the garden will throw out a few morning glory flowers, even if it’s overcast, and on those days they may last a little longer. 

This morning’s post is not about the flowers however, it’s about the unheralded leaves. These heart-shaped beauties go unnoticed or unremarked upon because the glory has always honored the blooms. Yet look at what we’ve been missing – leaves that are perfectly-shaped hearts – little valentines in mottled green, delicately lining the vines like some love-festooned garland. Seeing the garden in a new way, and discovering unnoticed bits of magic now that the bombast of summer has gone away, is a practice of the garden that never grows old or tiresome. It elicits a child-like wonder in me, and when you still have the capacity to be astounded all over again at the ripe age of 47, then there’s still hope for you, in a literal sense. Hope is there… for you… in the cool foggy mist of a morning when love appears tangled in a pretty vine. 

Recalling the early exuberance of summer, the garden has deigned to throw us a throwback in the form of these pretty blooms. One is a shasta daisy (if they still go by that moniker) and the other is a new Coreopsis that I thought died but came back to enchant. They are a reminder that there are still surprises left in the garden if you take the time to look. Usually by mid-September I pause in my daily walkabouts – either because of weather or general disappointment with the way the garden falls to shambles as it prepares for the winter slumber.

I need to get out there again, so I don’t miss these late-season blooms. For the shasta daisy, this is an unexpected second act, a smaller (in this case just a single blossom) cycle of blooming that comes with cooler nights and a better supply of rain. Not only is the amount of blooming less, the flowers themselves are smaller, and somehow more precious because of it. 

They also imbue the spent garden with a freshness and vibrancy that is hard to come by at such a late date. While the grasses have gone to seed and flopped over, and the cup plants have turned their stalks into curly walking sticks, and the ostrich ferns have long since browned and withered, these blooms appear and suddenly the garden is new again. A brief and welcome respite before the first hard frost comes to take it all away. 

Summer saves some of its sunniest surprises for the very end, such as these coreopsis blooms. Earlier in the season I’d planted a coreopsis – a tall variety native to this country – hoping it would be an easy fill for a tricky spot that wasn’t easily-accessible by hose. Then this summer hit – a summer with heat and sun and unrelenting rain-free glory – and even this hardy coreopsis saw fit to droop and wilt and, I assumed, expire. Its leaves fell off, and the spindly stems soon disappeared behind the ever-robust and pushy Northern sea oats. I forgot all about its promised yellow blooms. 

A few days ago, after a few storms had taken the killer heat away, I saw this pair of bright yellow blooms from across the yard. The coreopsis had survived after all, and was giving us this final show before the clock ticked to fall. Best of all, there were a few more buds – a promise that there was more beauty yet to unfold. 

On one of my weekly pilgrimages to Faddegon’s (it’s my happy, peaceful place at all times of the year, and is the only space I can visit some beloved Australian tree ferns, as I cannot for the life of me keep them alive in my home) I came upon these little coneflowers, bursting forth with cheery blooms and mirroring a sun-filled sky. They are still going strong even at this late summer date, and if I had any more room in the garden, I’d be planting them, but that sort of space-planning will have to take place next year. We are getting ready to put the gardens to sleep for another winter, and save for a few spring bulbs, our planting cycle is pretty much complete. 

Hybridizers have been working wonders with the Echinacea species, and these varieties are a pretty example of that. There are some that even come with a sweet fragrance – something I never thought I’d sniff when all we had was the fragrance-free ‘Magnus’ variety of my youth. The world has come a long way, and once in a while it’s for the better.

Despite its exquisite beauty and elegant grace, the appearance of the Japanese anemone blooms is always a sad sign that the end of summer is near. These blooms show up just as the garden is winding down for the season finale. While the cup plants are still going strong, their branches have been bent and twisted from storms and rain. Most of the ferns have turned the corner to their desiccation and browning. The hydrangeas are still making a fine show of it, as is our lone Rose of Sharon plant. Mostly, though, the garden has begun its preparations for the long slumber ahead. 

These Japanese anemones lend a last bit of freshness to the garden at a time when it’s badly needed. It gives a little extra jolt of inspiration and energy for all the tasks about to come into play – planting bulbs, protecting plants for winter, and the general upkeep that fills the last few weeks of summer.