After a long snowy winter, you must be rearing to go out into the garden.
Spring into Spring gardening sounds like a good idea. It’s still winter really. Catch the first signs of garden growth as you survey your slumbering garden also rearing to spring back from dormancy. Notice the little fingers of the first green leaves clawing out of the seemingly frozen dirt.
Snowdrops are one of the first to spring out. Their long, slender leaves differentiate themselves from the grass by their size: bigger and thicker. As the name suggests, snowdrops (Galanthus nivalis) are one of the first to bloom. They even grow and bloom while the ground is covered in snow in February and March depending on where you live. Their nodding white flowers, though small, make you smile as you walk around your late winter garden.
You might already see the signs of tulips and daffodils and crocuses inching out of the soil.
You delight at seeing the deciduous trees and shrubs showing little creamy-greenish bumps.
A green revolution is in the offing. In a couple of weeks, these bumps will unfurl into tiny leaves if caressed by a steady stream of warm air and a daily dose of sunshine. They will be frostbitten and will darken to their untimely death if another one of those freak snowfalls sweeps in next week.
You can turn into a little treasure hunt in your home garden this early in the year. You search for perennial plants that start poking up from the soil.
The little buds of the winter witch hazel (Hamamelis virginiana) are visible, and you wish you can make each open up a tad earlier. You know it’s just the middle of winter, but you can’t wait for spring to hurry up in marching in.
Spring marching in always brings the dormant deciduous perennials to a wakeful presence with new shoots and baby leaves. Tiny fresh blades of the ornamental grasses start stretching up from their winter hibernation.
And in your little treasure hunt in your garden, you notice the oh-so-many surprises of transient plants opening residences in odd places. You see a few tulip leaves poking through the lawn. You didn’t plant the bulbs there. The poor squirrels must have forgotten — again — where they hid part of their autumn harvest.
You might not think of tulips as early bloomers. Yet a few tulips can be forced to bloom as early as the last week of February. The earliest types are miniature tulips. You can start them indoors in pots to really get a head start. Bring them outdoors when the danger of frost is gone.
Or, place the potted tulips where strong direct sunlight can warm the bulbs enough to encourage earlier growth and blooming, like by a south-facing window sill. You can also leave the tulips in pots outdoors in the sun and bring them indoors before the frosty late afternoon temperature starts. This sounds like a lot of work, but early miniature tulips are worth the big effort.
Heathers, the winter heathers specifically (Erica x darleyensis or could be Erica Carnea) can give you a good start in blooms. In our garden, our winter heathers hint at their floral display as early as late December. Soon, clouds of magenta, pink and white cover the winter heathers. They ring in spring.
Then they’ll be followed by the spring and the early summer heathers. The heathers hold the floral show until the daffodils come marching in, waving their sunshiny yellow flowers that eventually overshadow the evergreen heathers by mid-March.
Then promptly thereafter, the various colors of the tulips make your garden really look like a colorful tiny paradise in your part of town.
And the rest of the floral parade marches in to add to the colors and varieties of blooms.
Plant primulas where you want some semblance of floral display. Next to the budding heather, they would look good in a few weeks.
But for now, at the edge of the heath heap, the snowdrops are also emerging. These snowdrops, as mentioned earlier, are the first bulbs in the garden to flower (starting mid-February), heralding the end of winter.
The snowdrops’ white nodding flowers, a week before they open, might remind you of the heads of white swans atop slender necks.
Although snowdrops are tiny at less than a foot tall, they look prominent since not many flowers are around yet to overshadow their diminutive but elegant presence. Plant a sweeping drift of snowdrops for better effect.
Most early bloomers are tiny and short, but they clearly compensate for what they lack in stature with their ability to present an early flower show. They definitely gain attention when there are not many other blooms to compete with or eclipse them.
The hellebores, however, are an exception to the small flowers of early bloomers. Hellebores have large blooms.
And even before their blooms add much welcome to the winter garden, the hellebores’ evergreen leaves break the monotony of an expanse of brown dirt and browned leaves remaining from the previous fall. The crisp, glossy green leaves of the hellebores can be pretty attention-grabbers.
Plant a generous stand of hellebores by your carport so when you step out of your car you get that feel of greenness despite and amidst the sad-looking lawn and even-more-sad-looking garden beds of sleeping deciduous plants.
Plant a sizeable patch of hellebores to perk up the front of your garden or near the driveway so you can see the glossy, serrated leaves and the flowers.
Christmas rose, Helleborus niger, is the first of the hellebores to flower. It blooms usually in January and even occasionally as early as Christmas.
Christmas rose bears large, round, white flat-faced flowers above low-growing mounds of leathery, deep green foliage.
Yes, when winter seems to be holding on too long and you are all growing weary of your gray days and cold rains, your hellebores come into bloom!
Daphnes are another spirit-lifter in winter. These colorful shrubs usually bloom as early as late winter to early spring in warmer areas. As early as mid-February its pale pink flowers start oozing fragrance.
Winter is actually the best time to plan for your home garden.
It is an opportune time to imagine what’s to come and to plan for the reality of what you imagine.
Winter is the time to evaluate your landscape, especially for winter interests. It’s invaluable to see how inspiring (or uninspiring) your landscape is during the winter months. Your insights from your winter garden can be a good starting place to plan the rest of your gardening year; transplanting those that need moving around; creating more berms and garden beds in places lacking visual appeal; or installing some hardscape elements in certain areas in your garden.
It’s easier to plan and visualize your garden as a work of art during winter when there’s an absence or a lack of beauty rather than during spring or summer when there’s already an abundance of blooms and beautiful sights. Much like you plan and visualize your work of art, like a painting, with an empty canvas instead of merely adding little touches here and there to an already completed work of art or painting. Gardening, after all, is an art.
(To view the story at my other website, here's the link: How do you spring into Spring gardening? – Vendiola Miscellaneous Blog (wordpress.com)
Comments