SOME WINTER SUNSHINE

27 Monday Feb 2012

Posted by backyardnotes in Cameras, Desert, Flowers, Travel, Winter

Tags

clematis, crocus, Death Valley, hamamelis, hellebores, railroad locomotive, sunshine, Travel, winter cyclamen, winter flowers

Hiking above Texas Spring campground, Death Valley

WE TOOK A BREAK IN JANUARY IN SEARCH OF SUNSHINE and warmth. It’s hard to believe it has been more than two months since the last post! And now I’ve gotten out of the blogging habit. So time to do some catching up. We spent a total of eleven days in Death Valley over two visits, and explored some old and new territory in Arizona and California. We took ten great hikes in 30 days and plenty of short walks too. So much to see and explore…

Los Banos Reservoir walk

I’m not used to thinking of my phone as a camera, but on this trip I tried to use it as well as the point and shoot. Mixed results with the phone camera; this photo was taken at Los Banos Creek Reservoir St. Park (California) turned out pretty well. This was our first time here and we were the first visitors of the year!

Front of Death Valley railroad locomotive

I had forgotten to bring the regular camera when we walked through the Death Valley museum so used the opportunity to take some ‘arty’ photos with the phone.

Big logging wagon wheels

I managed to take more than 700! photos in 32 days and still have a lot of culling to do. Will post more later.

WHILE WE WERE AWAY the winter blooming clematis that we planted in 2010 began blooming in earnest. Masses of blooms and still blooming!

Clematis cirrohsa

Everywhere around the garden the drive to spring is in full swing.

Hamamelis x intermedia 'Diane"

A yellow variety of hamamelis x intermedia

WINTER’S SENTINELS. I like to think of crocus this way. A bridge between winter and spring. Some are sunny and cheerful, others taller and stately and in a range of colors.

Giant crocus–purple 'Pickwick' with white 'Peter Pan'.

These giant crocus are quite tall at four-five inches tall. Good multipliers, not too vigorous.

HELLEBORES! These cheerful, nodding flowers also show up in many color variations. White, pink, pale yellow, maroon, green, and nearly black. They tend to be free hybridizers so offspring can be a surprise.

An unnamed, lovely pale yellow specimen

Pink ones from Grandma T's garden

Another dark pink/red variation.

We have lots of sun over the last few days, so I’ve tried to take advantage of the naturally backlit petals.

Dried seedheads of eryngium giganteum 'Miss Wilmot's Ghost".

Even the dried seedheads of long ago bloomed perennials have interest through the winter garden season.

Lichens on ribes sanguineum.

Even the bare branches and trunks of shrubs and trees can be beautiful with the icy, glaucous color of these fluffy lichens and spots of mustard colored ones too with counterpoints of swelling buds of this native flowering red currant.

And to end this sunny day post parade are winter blooming cyclamen. I never tire of their dainty disposition.

winter blooming cyclamen

FEBRUARY’S FABULOUS PARADE

28 Sunday Feb 2010

Posted by backyardnotes in Spring bulbs, tulips, West Seattle garden, Winter flowers

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compost, crocus, February, hellebores, tulips

BACK IN NOVEMBER my neighbor had some trees trimmed and pruned. The tree trimming company shreds/chops all of the trimmings and offers the chipped wood gratis, so I asked for some and ended up with about four yards of wood chips to spread around the garden. The chips are good mulch material, don’t pack down, conserve on water, and attract worms and other creatures that break down organic material slowly, thereby improving overall soil health. The chips are not especially attractive to everyone (my husband), but I kind of like the bright green of emerging plants atop the earth colored chips. It won’t be long before the chips are barely noticeable. I spread some of the material throughout December and most of the remainder after we returned home last month. Some of the chips went on the paths between the raised beds in the vegetable garden.

Before covering each garden bed with the chips I spread compost and broadcast a mixture of alfalfa, bone, and kelp meals, all slow release fertilizers. So, everything in the garden should grow happily throughout the coming year.

The compost bins

Since our January weather has been so mild and warm, many bulbs are showing more than a month early like these Early Harvest tulips. Planted in the fall of 2008 they bloomed in mid-March of last year. This year they were beginning to bloom the first week of February.

The camelia ‘Freedom Bell’ began blooming in mid-January, also about a month early. This is a small camelia, a slow grower up to 6-7 feet in 10 years. We planted this one about 12 years ago and so far about 6 feet tall.

There are some things that I just look forward to seeing every year. Each little thing is a herald of its season and what will unfold as the season rolls along. I love the little catkins that dangle from the twisted, curly limbs of Corylus avellana ‘Contorta’ also known as Harry Lauder’s walking stick or corkscrew hazel. The actual flowers are the tiniest red petals at the end of what appear to be green leaf buds. The catkins just look cheerful as they sway in the breeze.

OH, the mid-winter blooming hellebores! Most of the hellebores here came from Grandma T’s garden and have multiplied. Like columbine, hellebores seem to freely hybridize so there are color variations in the flowers of new plants.

helleborus orientalis

A yellow hybrid purchase in 2008

The rain returned last Tuesday and continued off and on through Friday. The crocus had about two weeks of glory before succumbing to the rain and falling over. These are giant crocus, ‘Pickwick” inter-planted with white ‘Peter Pan’ and white arabis. They are about 4-5 inches tall and have mulitplied nicely since planting in 1997. They run about 15′ along the edge of the driveway. Tulips are planted behind and will bloom over the next w months. So many plants resuming growth and blooming it is hard to keep up!