The Drabas

I feel like I say it every year, but I'll take the yellow drabas over yellow forsythia any day.  Above is draba lasiocarpa.

Draba rigida is much tighter, of course.  This one grows across the street at Neighbor Ray's.

This is draba novolympica growing in tufa.  It must be happy; it set seed and had a baby below.

Draba siberica is a little weedy looking, but it sure is bright on a cloudy April day.

True Believers

Walking by one of my troughs the other day I wondered what the hell I saw out of the corner of my eye.  Turns out it was the new buds of pulsatilla pratensis 'Bohemica' covered in fine droplets of mist.  What a bizarre sight.

I'm in love with saxifraga 'Pluto' and I don't care who knows. 

Despite the April (ahem) snowfall, these guys believe that it's spring.

First Day of Spring

A nor'easter on the spring equinox?  The fourth one this month? Another foot of snow? 

...SIGH...

It's spring in my heart, at the very least.

I'm Sorry, Spring Has Been Postponed

I was hoping to get out into the garden this weekend and do a big spring cut-down and clean up, but nor'easter #2 had other ideas.  We got 8+ inches of heavy snow on Wednesday, cracking trees (damn Callery pears) and bringing down many branches.  We counted ourselves lucky not to lose power this time, uunlike nor'easter #1 ten days ago.  It was sobering to be out shoveling at the tail end of the storm and to hear the trees breaking around us in the neighborhood.  

I've been stuck inside doing garden pavilion drawings, reading about plants, and making notes about gardening.  The Tommy crocuses didn't seem to mind the snow as much as I did, blooming their heads off both before and after.

Nor'easter #3 is scheduled for tomorrow, with more snow predicted.

Winter Jasmine

I'd praise anything that blooms in February, but I love how the winter jasmine really lights up a gray, wet winter day.

Best $2 I ever spent at a plant sale.

Pretty, but Fleeting

We got about 6" of wet snow last night.  It was already melting by dawn.  It was quite pretty, but quite heavy.

It's exactly for wet snows like this that I do the turkey truss on some of the soft evergreens, otherwise the snow breaks them and leaves them misshapen.  I can live with the evergreen hostage look if the trees can survive the winter unscathed.

Cold Frame

It wasn't exactly life giving me lemons, but when someone asked us to throw out a piece of 48 x 60" plexi at work, I threw it in my car instead.  It took me a few months, but in December I picked up some pre-treated lumber, hinges and adhesive and made a cold frame.  I installed it under the stairs to the deck, on the concrete slab, where it gets good southern light midday.

Even with few plants in it, I could see that it was moist inside, and a few degrees warmer I hoped.

(Yes, I tend to have a rock pile around to provide materials for planting troughs.)

After the brutal deep freeze around New Years, I was finally able to work outside again last week.  Neighbor Ray and I added a layer of 1/4" hardware cloth to the bottom to keep out varmints, lined the  bottom and part of the sides with landscape fabric and poured in a couple hundred pounds of sand.  The sand should provide some thermal stability and insulation for the pots, while also acting as a moisture reservoir.  Any roots that escape their pots can run freely in the sand.

I cut two 2x4s to hold the lid open while we worked in it.  Into the cold frame went a couple rooted cuttings of my favorite lavender, a pot of cotoneaster franchetii cuttings, and some dormant first year vernonia noveboracensis.  Also into the mix went a few pots of seed like eryngium yuccifolium that need to be stratified.  I'm hoping that we can use the cold frame as a little nursery for germinating seed and growing on precious seedlings. With the lid closed the small pots will be safe from the never-ending squirrel inspections.

The cold frame should also function like an alpine house, keeping cold hardy but moisture averse plants like this delosperma happy throughout our wet winters.