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Sternbergia lutea, which some claim are the biblical lilies of the field, appear in old area gardens about this time each year. They often appear with British soldiers, and both are welcome. |
O NE WONDERS why any plant
To choose to subject one's self to such a season, which might come this year in spite of what the almanacs say, reveals a streak of masochism that I never think of plants as having. Surely they have more sense than to want to be hurt, so there must be other reasons why they chance exposing themselves to nature's cruelty.
Perhaps as they developed they met such competition in the spring-summer growing season that they had to adjust to survive. During the winter, moisture is generally available in one form or another, and leafless trees and perennials block no sun.
If, in winter, there is sufficient water and light to support growth, why not grow then? Most winter-growing plants, and many that leaf out or blossom in early spring, evidently have sap liberally supplied with natural antifreeze, often coupled with an ability to draw their lifeblood back into their roots when threatened by freezing.
Pliable stems, leaves and blossoms collapse into the safety of whatever mulch or ground cover is available. The collapse removes them from the path of freezing winds, and there they lie, ready to revert to normal growth as soon as conditions permit.
Good examples are found among the hellebores. Christmas rose, one of them, is often in blossom here by Christmas Day, though in most years it is a week or two later. Still, January and February weather is not the kindest of the year, and one might expect the Christmas rose to suffer and die from cold. It does no such thing, but throws blossoms that last for weeks on end.
Occasionally, when the weather is really bad, one will find it frozen and seemingly defeated by the weather, but no matter. Later, when the weather clears and the sun warms them, hellebores recover, with blossoms as fresh and fragile as they were before the freeze.
Those who have never grown hellebores often look at me with disbelief when I tell them about the habits of hellebores. Perhaps they think I exaggerate. Perhaps they simply find it hard to believe in plant magic.
Just now Arum italicum is sprouting throughout one entire border in my garden, and, I am happy to report, at many other spots. Italicum sends up handsome, arrow-shaped, tropical-looking leaves that are in some varieties an intense green, in other varieties a fine green spotted with white. The leaves usually reach full growth prior to the first frost, and stand tall most of the winter. A good freeze will cause them to collapse, but they recover as do the hellebores, and act as if nothing had happened.
Next spring they will send up greenish arum blossoms among the still-standing leaves. The blossoms are not particularly handsome, but the juicy red berries that follow them are most desirable. Birds, squirrels and other animals of the garden--I don't know which ones, for I have never seen anything actually eating or playing with the berries--often dispose of them.
The red berries are so handsome with the green and white leaves that I would prefer that the berries be left alone, but whatever removes them often deposits them at some other point in the garden, starting a new stand of italicum, which is not at all unwelcome. One prizes their vigor and freshness in the winter garden.
Other plants also are sending up foliage that will last over winter. Grape hyacinths, Muscari, are one such. Their short and narrow strap leaves are showing themselves through mulch at many places in the garden. There will be no blossoms until spring, but the foliage will survive. Only a few inches high, it will support hyacinthlike blossoms scarcely as high as the foliage.
Grape hyacinths are a quick spreader, however, and make up for their lack of height by producing blue blossoms in quantity. They spread both by seeds, which germinate readily, and by bulbs, which reproduce themselves with such rapidity that a clump will often push itself out of the ground, and need help in repositioning itself for growth.
These are not plants you should introduce to your garden unless you want them, for they have a desire to survive that keeps them coming once they are there.
I have written recently about British soldiers, Lycoris radiata, which produces a clump of leaves scarcely taller than that of the grape hyacinths, though each strap leaf is a bit broader. It has no difficulty surviving over the winter, and will disappear in early spring. When it produces blossoms in late September and early October, it will produce them from bare ground on stems a foot or two high. To produce such abundance, that tiny clump of foliage must work long hours throughout the winter, for such handsome blossoms are not produced without effort and energy.
Then there are the plants that produce their blossom buds in late summer or early fall. They let one know what next spring's blossoming season will be like, but must survive any weather that winter may provide before they burst forth.
The native dogwood is perhaps the area's best example of this type of plant. Even while red berries from this season are still on the tree, the buds for next spring's blossoms have appeared. It will be a fine spring.
TONY P. WRENN of Fredericksburg is a lifelong gardener. He welcomes questions from readers and will try to answer them in his column. Contact him by mail at The Free Lance-Star, 616 Amelia St., Fredericksburg, Va. 22401; by fax at 373-8455; or by e-mail to his attention at
Email: gwoolf@freelancestar.com.
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As garden cleanup continues, clean birdhouses, birdbaths and |
