Another, slightly more robust Iris Reticulata. Located across the yard from the blue variety–they bloom at least a week earlier. For more information about these little charmers you can google away or simply go here .
My favorite of all the lovely hellabores is the very common, easy to grow Corsican–evergreen, long blooming, and a generous seeder. Plus, it’s in shades of green that go with everything. It gets a bit sprawly, since it’s top heavy with blossoms, but I don’t regard this as a serious flaw.
Scilia Siberica Spring Beauty–I think. I have two varies of this miniature member of the vast scilia family. One is bright blue and single the other is the almost white doubles pictured above. Both are one to two inches high appearing for a few weeks in February and then fading inconspicuously from sight until the following year. My kind of bulbs.
A deep rose hellabore. Since these are all seedlings that have cross-bred and planted themselves as they please in the garden–there are no cultivator names to go along with them. All hellabores are lovely and not pushy, seeding themselves only in convenient locations, at least so far.
The white hellabores are shyer and less enthusiastic about seeding, hence they tend to have most clumps with only a few blooms. Naturally, they are my favorites.
There is something perverse about most gardeners we yearn for the elusive, or worse the impossible, specimens.
Are you sensible and happy with what is readily available? Or are you strivings for mythical perfection?
Just when you think winter is going to last forever, the fat little snouts of various and sundry surprises poke out of the icy ground and Hellabores begin to open their buds. They’re shy flowers keeping their flowers aimed at the earth, but I crawled along on my belly to capture an a pretty apple blossom pink bloom just for you…
Stellata Magnolia enchants me twice a year, considering its pussy willow bud stage happens in Winter when nearly everything else is shivering in miserable little heaps, its well worth its space. The frothy white blossoms have a light lemony fragrance and arrive in Spring while my eye is still starved for flowers.
This isn’t a very good photo. When I thought about what I wanted to share with all of you–another lovely winter beauty–how to accomplish that got trickier and trickier. This photography business is not for whimps. In this case I think a ladder was called for. But, I’m not crazy about climbing to begin with–given the snow–forget about it.
Just use your excellent imaginations and picture a small complicated branch structure with those fuzzy silvery buds on the tips of every twig.
In the midst of December’s snow storm, I wandered out to survey the frozen garden and miraculously remembered the camera. White Himalayan Birch (Betula jacquemontii) looked quite majestic despite being stripped of foilige.
Makes me cold just to look at this picture. And yet, it’s lovely. I think birches are at their best when viewed from below. The camera never completely captures what my eye sees, but this one is close.
Fragrant winter delight, another viburnum bodnantense–either Dawn or Charles Lamont. Sadly, it arrived mislabeled and has never been properly identified. The medium-sized deciduous shrub has the delightful habit of blooming from late fall through winter opening its small, intensely fragrant blossoms in every mild spell. Yet, cleverly hoarding them in tight bud during bad weather.
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