Missing The Garden

Even the most committed gardener occasionally has to leave the garden.  It is always a struggle to leave a bud about to open. Flowers will open, fade, and disappear while she is away.  She will miss the thrill of an emerging shoot of the first narcissus, crocus, snowdrop. A year will pass before a similar moment returns and even then, it won’t be the same.  If this seems a little personal, it is. I had to leave Montrose for two weeks shortly before Thanksgiving. The big display of Galanthus elwesii var. monostictus was just around the corner and the quantity and quality seemed greater than ever. I left without looking back and returned to find the display just past it’s peak but still thrilling.  A large hackberry in the snowdrop woods came down in a wind storm while I was away and, as if by magic, fell on a large branch which saved the snowdrops beneath. The morning I returned home, I went to see this garden and was comforted to realize I hadn’t missed everything.  In fact, there were even more clumps of bulbs with flowers than I had remembered as well as young seedlings, which had settled into new spaces where they grew well and produced their first flowers. An unexpected seedling is an affirmation that the soil, light, and neighbors are appropriate.  My goal was to be able to do the Christmas walk, when I list flowers and berries in the garden. To make the list a flower has to be open wide enough to show its stigma and stamens; the berry just has to be visible and worth mentioning.

Christmas Day 2019

Flowers

Helleborus niger

Helleborus x hybridus

Jasminum nudiflorum

Loropetalum chinensis

Mahonia x media ‘Lionel Fortescue’

Mahonia x media ‘Arthur Menzies’

Mahonia japonica seedlings

Mahonia x media ‘Charity’

Narcissus albidus

Narcissus papyraceus

Prunus subhirtella ‘Autumnalis

Spiraea prunifolia ‘Plena’

Verbena canadensis, white, pink

Viburnum farreri, pink

Viburnum plicatum f. tomentosum ‘Summer Snowflake’

Viola cornuta

Camellia japonica

Chaenomeles x superba ‘Crimson and Gold’

Chimonanthus fragrans

Crocus species

Crocus laevigatus

Crocus sieberi

Crocus tournefortii

Cyclamen cilicium

Cyclamen coum

Cyclamen hederifolium

Enemion biternatum

Erica carnea, pink or white flowers

Erica x darleyensis ‘Arthur Johnson’

Erica x darleyensis ‘Schneewittchen’

Euphorbia species

Galanthus elwesii

Galanthus elwesii var. monostictus

Galanthus e. ‘Potter’s Prelude’

Galanthus elwesii “Sandra Lutz”

Berries

Ilex vomitoria

Osmanthus heterophyllus

Nandina domestica, red and yellow berries

Rohdea japonica

Ruscus aculeata

Sarcoccoca ruscifolia

Symphoricarpos orbiculatus

Viburnum farreri, pink

Viburnum tomentosum

Belamcanda chinensis

Danae racemosa

Hedera helix f. poetarum ‘Poetica Arborea’

Ilex x ‘Nellie R. Stevens’

Ilex cornuta

Ilex decidua seedlings

Ilex decidua ‘Finch’s Yellow’

Ilex decidua ‘Pocahontas’

Ilex opaca