And The Cycle Starts Anew

The forecast is for Atlanta to get a couple of days of crazy cold weather, so I was at the Big House this morning making sure containers are wet and things that are borderline hardy were pulled into the glass house for the next couple of days.  While I was there, some of the very early blooming plants caught my eye.  These are some of the colorful things that make January in the south so much more bearable that winter in the north.  (Fortunately I am one of the few who delight in the summer heat, as well!)

Prunus mume "Peggy Clark" (flowering apricot) is one of the first trees to bloom in winter, and the blossoms are just incredible!  This particular cultivar has a dark rose flower before it leafs out in the early spring.

A closer shot of the blooms, which look like miniature roses against the winter sky.

Rhodea japonica (Nippon Lily) is really nothing special in summer, but the color just pops in the winter! 

A perfect white camellia blossom was wedged up against the base of  a tree in the shadows. 

Hellebores are rather promiscuous plants, so one never knows what the blooms will look like.  This shade is just beautiful peeking out from under the now-bare hydrangeas! 

Even the naturalized daffodils at the creek are braving the cold, seeming to say, "Bring it on, Mother Nature!  We're ready!" 

As always, click on the photos to make them larger, if you'd like.  I hope you're somewhere warm for these next couple of days.

Mild February Weather

Every year at least one hard-core gardener says, "You can't move hellebores like that....it will kill them!" And every year we lift them out of the ground and use them in containers near the house.  The added bonus is that, since many of them have seeded themselves in the woodlands, we can move them to other areas when we take them out of the containers.

 A wall-hung planter in a little courtyard between the house and the garage is the perfect spot for this great purple specimen!

Behind the pool, the yellow crocus are always the first to burst in the spring! 

Mini daffodils coming up in the wooded garden. 

Prunus mume, "Peggy Clark", just startign to put on her annual show. 

Some Tough Characters

It's been a tough year for containers, but they're hanging in there!  Pansies and violas are especially cold TOLERANT, but not necessarily snow lovers.... (this Euonymus only looks good in the winter when the scale is dormant.....it goes in the trash in spring!)

One of the most pedestrian cultivars of Pansy (Delta True Orange) is also one of the best in this sort of weather! 

The Euphorbias showing off winter color 

Each time there is a snow casualty in this hanging basket, another piece of cut greenery goes in.  By March it will look like an FTD arrangement! 

Aaahhhhh.......in the greenhouse the clerodendron is blooming! 

Lettuces, mesclun and spinach are all showing up for late winter salads! 

I tend to use pretty huge photos, so if you click on them they look a whole lot better usually...

In the Garden on Sunday

The Autumn Cherry never knows what season it is, but it certainly knows that there is warm sunshine today!

One of the few camellias that didn't get zapped by the Christmas snows. 

Crocus & Leucojem are getting restless 

The pansies jump right back to life after a couple of days of sun 

Edgeworthia ready to burst into bloom near the screened porch.  How can such a homely plant have such incredible fragrance?

Rhododendrons absolutely love this cold winter weather! 

It's raining now and getting cooler, but it still beats the snow and ice of New England!

The Greenhouse

                               
Recently I was interviewed by the producers of a public television gardening show, for an upcoming episode about greenhouses.  All in all it was a fun experience, I discovered that it takes as long to film five minutes of finished programming as it does to grow a zinnia from seed to bloom!

In any case, there were several things we discussed that day that the interviewer felt were worth sharing.  I would guess that many readers of this blog have experience with indoor growing, so it's probably repetitive information; if not, however, feel free to use whatever you might find interesting and helpful in your own gardening adventures!

Many people assume that “a greenhouse is a greenhouse is a greenhouse.” In the same way that plants have different requirements during the outdoor growing season, their needs during the winter vary widely. One of the greatest challenges with the greenhouse is maintenance of differences in light, moisture levels and temperature.


With the possible exception of real tropicals, most plants need a winter dormant period. In the greenhouse, we try to duplicate the winter conditions of the particular plant’s native habitat. One of my first projects upon buying a non-hardy plant is researching the conditions of that plant’s native habitat, so that we can duplicate that as closely as possible.

We do our best to water the greenhouse plants with room-temperature water, though that isn’t always easy. We use a well for irrigation at the Big House, so in winter (even in Georgia), what comes out of the tap is icy cold. That can be a “death sentence” for a tropical plant!

Pests are a real issue in any greenhouse, and need to be handled quickly. If there is any one job that takes the most time in the greenhouse, it is the treatment of pests, with the most gentle (but effective) methods we can employ. We generally start with mild dish soap, then will progress to alcohol, fly paper traps, etc.

Whatever the size of the greenhouse, we always need to look at the cost-effectiveness of overwintering plants. Certain jasmines, for example, are (in my experience) “scale magnets” and something that we just don’t overwinter; some of the tropical hibiscus plants are also just not cost effective to overwinter in many cases. For the amount of space that they require (and their inconsistency in staying attractive), it is often less expensive to buy a great new plant in the spring.

A greenhouse of any size is both fun and challenging for a gardener, and one that I would encourage anyone to try if given the opportunity!

The Big House Garden in the Christmas Snow

The Promise of Spring

Even after a week of freezing weather, a walk through the garden reminded me of why I moved to the South in the first place.  It seems as soon as there is an inkling of warmth and sunshine, the spring bloomers are showing signs of life.

In the vegetable garden, the broccoli made it through the freeze just fine, and is continue to grow under the shelter of those big leaves.

The rhododendrons are promising a wonderful spring show, just covered with giant swelling buds.  This particular shrub is well over my head, so I needed to take this shot from underneath the leaves.  That's a rare occurence in the south, where they typically don't handle the summer heat well.

Outside the screened porch, the Edgeworthia buds are about to pop, releasing that incredible fragrance.

Hypericum "Brigadoon" is cautiously sending out new growth, which will go blue later in the season.  There is no better show than this little plant when the "Peacock Blue" selaginella comes out all around it.

I'm feeling warmer already.......

Not the Kind of Weather I Moved South For!

This view out the window of my office is  much more like the view I chose to leave behind in New England several years ago, and definitely not one I would have chosen for my view in suburban Atlanta.  Fortunately this only happens once every few years, so I guess I can handle it. 

Since "The Stepchild Garden" has really not seen snow (at least during my ownership), it was fun to take a few photos this afternoon while the white stuff is still coming down.

The Daphne Odora is definitely not a plant that's liking this weather, but the contrast of the blooms about to open and the heavy snow covering was pretty at the bottom of the front steps when I went outside. It's been here for four years, so it's probably about ready to drop dead soon anyway.  (It's one of my favorite miserable plants).

The Hinoki Cypress shows its form far better with a little "icing," as does the Doublefile Viburnum, below.

At the end of the day, however, Sadie the Dog is definitely a Southern Girl.  She managed to keep her legs crossed for the first few hours of the snow, but finally relented and went  outside in a complete snit!

The Big House Garden in Snow

The Walled Garden mostly put to bed for the winter, with a few things still popping up here and there (aren't Sweetpeas amazing to continue going in this stuff??)

The gate to the walled garden looks better with a little snow on the wreath. I know the holidays are over, but I really love this wreath that Patti made.

The koi are happily hibernating on the bottom of the pond, barely moving their gills.

Even in ridiculous cold, the cardinals are out at the feeders.

The Seasonal Evolution of Limelight Hydrangeas

My friend Laurie, who is the salesperson extraordinaire for Buck Jones Nursery, has taken photos of the Limelight Hydrangeas in front of her business three different times this year, three months apart (July, September, December). The evolution of this plant, combined with the fact that it is virtually maintenance free, makes it a "must have" plant for your full sun areas!

It Seems Winter is Here

It's 48 degrees at the moment, but the forecast is for another cold night. It was in the 30's this morning, but the weather did the classic Atlanta thing and warmed up quickly. My transplanted Bostonian attitude has kicked in as I hear shoppers talking about the "snow coming to Atlanta!" (Translated as perhaps a semi-frozen flake in the midst of the rain tomorrow morning.) Quick! Let's all run out and buy toilet paper and milk! (I've never understood why these are the two things that we MUST have in our homes during a blizzard.....I'd rather have brownies, ice cream and cognac if I'm being snowed in).

In the garden, it's amazing what difference comes in a week. Here are a few shots from this week.

From the top: This camellia was hidden for ten years behind one of the arborvitaes that was cut down a couple of weeks ago. It's amazing what a little sun will do for a flower!

The mustards and chards are taking on incredible color as the weather chills.

The creeping fig looks so beautiful at this time of year when the asparagus is down for the winter.

The fatsia japonica with its "Sputnik"-like blooms

It looks like snow, but it's just a view through the elderly Autumn Cherry.

Bake some brownies and light the fireplace!

Winter Containers

Obviously a major part of what I do at work is containers, both at the big house and in the penthouse garden. Since the penthouse is such a harsh environment to grow almost anything, the containers change very little during the winter. There are some tiny containers that come and go seasonally, but for the most part, the plantings up there are permanent.

In the garden at the big house, we just finished putting together the winter containers (there are 58 of them). Here are some photos, though most of the arrangements haven't "flushed out" yet. I'll post more photos in a few weeks, once they're looking a little more full.

The top container is part of a grouping of three. For the winter, the largest pot is anchored with a cryptomeria "Sekkan sugi", the middle one is a variegated acuba, and the smallest of the three is this arborvitae called "Whipcord." It's a favorite container conifer of mine, great for shade in the summer, but can take full sun in the winter.

The second photo is "Black Dragon" cryptomera, variegated boxwood, flowering kale, two different types of dusty miller, "Miracle" heuchera, and dianthus. The Black Dragon, heuchera, and dianthus will all go out into the landscape in the spring.

The bottom container is pretty simple this year; just the variegated boxwood with pansies (Delta "Apple Cider Mix"). These containers are right next to beds filled with more of the same pansies, so we try to pull that same color into the other container for continuity.