SHARON’S JOURNAL

April 13, 2008

It’s mid-April and still COLD! Everyone is complaining about the winter that won’t end. Cold for the gardener – I’m still wearing long undies, triple smartwool socks and double layers of gloves. But the plants don’t seem to mind. Actually, even though the winter seemed endless, the actual low temperature was probably above normal. Our thermometer registered a low of 27 degrees. Many plants that after a hard winter have scorched leaves and dead stems look pristine this spring. The phormiums are radiant. Carex morrowii looks as though it spent the winter in the greenhouse.

A quick tour of the garden confirms that spring really has arrived. The snowdrops, crocuses and Iris reticulata have come and gone and even some of the early narcissus are fading. Anemone blanda, a small blue composite with a yellow center, looking charmingly like a miniature aster, is one of the first anemone to bloom in my garden. It is readily available in the bulb catalogs and not very expensive. My favorite early anemone is Anemone nemerosa, especially in the form A. nemerosa ‘Robinsoniana’ which is a deeper blue than the type as seen in the picture to the left. This little anemone spreads willingly to make a carpet under trees and shrubs and disappears by mid-summer, not resenting the crowding of nearby expanding foliage. The little grape hyacinths are showing up here and there, highlighting the emerging ruby-red peony foliage with their chubby little blue spikes. Muscari latifolium is especially interesting with foliage wrapped around the two-toned flower spike of pale and light blue as it emerges from the ground. It is pictured below to the right. Another favorite early blue is chionodoxa. This little gem carpets the ground with white-centered, blue stars that spread quickly by seed. There are never too many, as with some muscari or scilla, because the foliage is unobtrusive. A very common and intensely blue little scilla is Scilla ‘Spring Beauty’ which starts blooming soon after chionodoxa and spreads in the same manner.

The evergreen euphorbias are beginning to add new color to the garden. The hard-working E. robbiae carpeting dry shady places is now adding bright chartreuse blossoms and E. amygdaloides ‘Purpurea’, the wood spurge, unfurls ruby-red buds that soon will show the typical chartreuse blossoms, all this added to purple foliage. Quite a show. If only it didn’t have the occasional problem of mildew. A couple of deciduous euphorbia are making a colorful appearance, as well. Euphorbia griffithii ‘Fireglow’ spears through the soil, looking for all the world like orange asparagus. It’s cousin E. sikkeminsis is red.

So many primroses are in bloom now. Some favorites are P. denticulata, the drumstick primrose, whose ball- shaped, purple bloom begins at ground level and is elevated as the stem elongates. The doubles are blooming in lavender, yellow, pink and blue. I have an old-fashioned primrose that is making a comeback as the You and Me series, formerly called hose-in hose. This very pretty plant has a semi-double bloom with frilled edges. Mine is pink.

Corydalis is a delicate looking little woodlander with finely fretted foliage. The electric blue Corydalis flexuosa cultivars are very popular. I grow C. ‘Purple Leaf’ with great success, after losing some of the others. Corydalis solida can be ordered through the bulb catalogues and is a lovely lavender color. Give these corydalis moist, cool, hummus-rich soils.

Some of the hellebores have been in bloom for months now.

Evergreen Helleborus foetidus is the first to bloom with light green bells topping deep green fingered foliage. Next comes

H. argutifolius with apple-green cup-shaped blooms above leathery leaves. This one reaches shrub proportions when well grown. The most popular hellebores are H. x hybridus that offer many different colors from light to dark, white to deep purple, as well as a range of pinks, spotted or plain.

There are many more plants on the scene right now, but they will have to wait until my next entry.

I am still in the process of adding mulch to all the beds, cleaning up old foliage and cutting back dead stems as I go.

Shrubs such as Lonicera ‘Baggeson’s Gold’ and L. pileata that are overgrowing their allotted space need cutting back, and shrubs like lavatera, caryopteris and perovskia need to be cut down to a few buds on each stem.

This all may seem like a lot of work, but it is such a pleasure to see the life returning to the garden with such amazing force.

There is nowhere I’d rather be at this time of the year.