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Hollyhocks have not died back to the ground as usual |
THE FIRST forsythia blossom opened Jan. 3. Surprise was a first reaction, for it is 45 days or more before the shrub should be in bloom. After a few minutes' inspection to prove to myself that it really was happening, I began a slow walk through the garden to spot other early risers. The balmy weather being what it has been, there should be a good many of them, and there are, but it is the forsythia that surprises most. It is covered with buds and, given weather to awaken it, should be spectacular.
Forsythia is one of those shrubs that needs to be pruned, if it is pruned, immediately after blossoming, for it blooms on year-old growth. Should it complete blossoming now, the decision must be made to prune or wait until late April or early May, the time when I would normally prune, and do so then. It is entirely possible that it will make no difference to the plant, but I think that I will wait until the later date, no matter what the forsythia does now.
Obviously sap is flowing, and, if winter decides to reassert itself, the shrub could conceivably be harmed by pruning when it is in no condition to handle abrupt weather changes.
Daffodil foliage appears above ground throughout the garden, and some buds are showing. One that shows buds is the green-and-yellow double that was naturalized and grew so widely in the area of my North Carolina childhood.
I grew up in a rural area where there were few church or community cemeteries, but many family cemeteries maintained by the people who occupied adjacent houses and lands. Evidently the big double daffodil, planted in these for a century or more, had escaped from them to naturalize itself in fields and along roadsides.
It is not a formal flower, but one with more than a hint of the wild thing, created by nature. The buds are plump and, though still only a few inches high, give every evidence of opening to the fat, tightly packed clusters of yellow and green petals I remember with such fondness.
I know that the ones now speeding toward blossom are the ones I remember from my childhood, for the reader who shared them with me two seasons ago left a few clumps on my porch that were in full bloom. I received others, as well, so that several variations of the hoped-for memory should blossom this year, each of them a new memory honoring those who donated the bulbs to my garden.
Plants can distill memories in a most satisfying way, helping make advancing years, changing gardens and friends a continuum and not just a series of isolated events, making the garden a living scrapbook.
One other plant in full blossom just now is a mahonia, one of two varieties that grow in the garden. This one is a volunteer that appeared in a boxwood border, evidently a gift from a bird. It is one of a very large number of chance seedlings in the garden that have become permanent residents.
If I recognize the seedling, and it will be fine growing where it is, I leave it there even if it is not something I would likely have planted there. If it is something that I want, but do not want growing where it started, I say thank you to the giver should he or she be nearby, and move it to a site that will, I always hope, satisfy both the volunteer plant and me.
I think the plant is probably M. bealei, leatherleaf mahonia, but am not certain enough to swear to that. It produces bluish berries that birds do not allow to remain long on the shrub, and the boxwood border would have been a convenient place for them to deposit the enriched seed once they had finished with it. Its blossoms are not as regular and full as those of some of the other Oregon grape holly cultivars, but are, especially now, noticeable and welcome, giving off just a hint of honey, which is most pleasant.
Will either the mahonia or the forsythia blossom again this year should there be a return to normal seasons? Only time will tell, but my bet would be on the mahonia to do so. It seems somehow nearer to nature than does the forsythia, and more likely to try again. After all, its duty in life is to reproduce itself, and berries produced now are not guaranteed to fulfill their intended purpose, so it would be prudent for it to try again.
The evergreen daphne, so noticeable just now, is probably Daphne x burkwoodii 'Carol Mackie.' More than a decade old, it is some 3 feet high, that much around, and covered with foliage and blossom buds to ground level. The blossoms are not yet open, but show as purple buds which are most obvious against the dark green leaves, with cream/white margins. Should the weather continue, flowers will be open shortly. Ultimately the flowers will be pink tending toward white, and will easily top, in both beauty and aroma, anything else then blossoming in the garden.
Growing at the base of the daphne, planted there by one of my garden friends that feed on berries, seed and roots of plants that grow in the garden, is a variegated Arum italicum 'Pictum' that expands in size annually. Even if the daphne did not cover itself with foliage, one would still not be able to see its trunk, for the arum acts as a sort of skirt around its base.
Since the arum's green leaves are speckled with white, the marriage of the two is one that I might have made if I had enough gardening taste to do so. It happened, though, on its own, and I marvel at the taste of whichever of my garden friends had the good sense to bring it to my attention.
Little clumps of snowdrops, with their pure white bells, blossom here and there, as well. All in all, it is an exciting time in the garden, and the weather is fine enough to allow the gardener to spend time there, a chance one does not often get in January.
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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Now is a good time to go through the garden with shears and a shovel. One can see limbs that cross each other and need |
