January's parting gifts

Has January 2012 been the mildest January on record? It certainly has seemed so. Those who have planted gardens for winter interest are really getting their money's worth this year. If you planted seeds of poppies, larkspurs, corn flowers and other hardy annuals you are probably seeing a lot of green by now - and, barring a severe shift in the weather, the promise of lots of huge plants in a few months.

Here are some photos taken today which give an idea of what is happening in the garden. From top to bottom: Galanthus 'S.Arnott', Hamamelis 'Jelena', Crocus tommasinianus, Jasminum nudiflorum, Cyclamen persicum and Taraxacum officinale (dandelion).

The cyclamen are florists' cyclamen and were purchased about a month ago; they have been outside since except for one or two extremely cold nights. If you have failed with these plants in the past, try again but this time keep them as cool as possible (but above freezing). Plants purchased during the Christmas holidays can still be blooming in April if they have been kept cool and moist. That is moist, not wet: the roots rot quickly if the drainage is poor. The big, large flowered forms have a disagreeable odor, but the smaller pink and white  ones seen above  are very sweet (the red one has the stink of the big ones). As you can see, they are worth growing for their foliage, too.

Enjoying it while it lasts...

Weather-wise it's hard to believe that it's January 27th. At 6:00 A.M. this morning the  temperature was 58 degrees F. We then had some rain, and at 8:30 A.M. there was a thunderclap to raise the dead., soon followed by another one. It's turning out to be one of those days when we're at the edge of a cloud mass so that when the clouds obscure the sun it cools off, and when the clouds move and the sun comes through the temperature jumps. When the wind stops and the sun is shining, the sun is warm on the skin.

The first winter aconite is up: that's a record here in this garden. The winter aconites here typically begin to bloom about two weeks after reports come of blooming aconites in other local gardens. Tommies have started to bloom, too. Many hellebores are in full bloom - I picked the small bouquet shown above this afternoon.

The unnerving thing is that winter can hardly be said to have started here; so far there has been only one day when the temperature did not get above the freezing point. Occasional drops into the single digit range are not unknown for February, so there might be trouble ahead.

The Giant Snowdrop

Here's a size comparison of several snowdrops blooming now.

The common snowdrop, Galanthus nivalis, is not in bloom yet, so a direct, side-by-side  comparison in size between it and these very robust sorts cannot be shown. So I've done the best I can with what's available: I've included a budded scape of Galanthus nivalis and have used a stem of Galanthus 'S. Arnott' for comparison. 'S. Arnott' itself is a significant jump in size over the common snowdrop, and I hope this helps to give an idea of the size of these big ones.

The remaining ones are all forms of Galanthus elwesii in the broad sense, and it's not hard to see why a half-century ago Galanthus elwesii was marketed as The Giant Snowdrop. There was in fact a company which called itself The Giant Snowdrop Company back then. The Giant Snowdrop Company is long gone, but its spirit (and possibly some of its plants) has been revived here:

http://www.snowdrop.org.uk/

Now back to the plants shown above. From left to right they are 'S. Arnott', then four progressively larger forms of Galanthus elwesii and finally on the right the budded scape of the common snowdrop, Galanthus nivalis.

The image which follows was added on February 7, 2012, and shows the contrast in size between the small common snowdrop, Galanthus nivalis, and one of my big ones.

Herons

Late last year, while walking Biscuit, I noticed some unfamiliar young men who had stopped on the path and were intently watching something across the street. As I approached them they assumed an attitude and gave me a look which suggested that they might be up to no good, so I greeted them and asked them what they were watching so intently. Their answer surprised me: they were watching what they thought was a big bird in a neighbor’s yard. They pointed, and I looked: indeed, there seemed to be a Great Blue Heron off in the distance. At this point, I started to laugh: the “great blue heron” was in fact a statue of a heron placed by a pond to frighten off the real thing – heron predation in local fish ponds is becoming an issue for some of us. When I told them we all had a good laugh about it. But I’m still amazed at the acuity of their eye sight: I had walked by that spot hundreds of times and looked over in the direction of the fake heron and never noticed it. Since I had been in that garden and seen the fake heron close up, I knew it was there. But how in the world did those young men notice it from such a distance?

Last week Biscuit and I were returning from our walk and as we approached a house near the site of the fake heron I thought I heard a rustling sound. Thinking it might be a deer emerging from the woods, I looked over in the direction where I’ve seen deer leave the woods. There were no deer in sight. Was the sound from a neighbor moving around the side of the nearby house? No, there were no people in sight either. Then I looked down at Biscuit to see what she thought. She was not looking at the house or the woods, she was looking up. So I looked up. There, sitting on the chimney of the house, was a Great Blue Heron. It was probably warming itself in the heat coming from the chimney. To see it sitting on a chimney reminded me of storks in Europe. The bird remained calm while we were there, and after we resumed our walk, the bird remained as long as I could still see it.

As I was leaving the house yesterday, a neighbor called over to me “Jim, a crane just flew into your back yard”. Right away I knew what kind of “crane” it was; I went back to take a look and got there just in time to see a Great Blue Heron  flapping off to a new roost.  

There is no sign of gold fish in my pond: presumably the herons have had many a good meal. It’s time to restock!

Kingfisher

While walking Biscuit this morning I had a nice surprise as we were crossing the bridge over the creek: a long, chattering bird call caught my attention. I looked over in time to see a flash of white as the bird dropped from its perch and skimmed the water, then the bird landed on another snag projecting from the water. Now I got a good look, and as expected it was a kingfisher.
Years ago I found a place where the creek banks were high and there were holes dug in the banks: these were the nest tunnels of the kingfishers.

Kingfishers are the sort of bird of which it can be said "you see them when you see them". What I mean is that although they are probably always back there patrolling  along the creek, I don't expect to see them every time I'm down there.

The technical name of this bird, Ceryle alcyon, is a bit of a redundancy: both words mean kingfisher in classical Greek, although both words were also used to name a mythological bird. The English expression  "halcyon days", in the sense  "the good old days when things were better, less hectic", is derived from the name of the mythological bird, which was thought to have the ability to calm the seas during its winter solstice nesting period at sea.

Looking ahead to where I want to be

I'm in the throes of re-doing a part of the garden. Several aspects of the original design, while they looked good on paper, did not work out on the ground.  The space available in the CGP has emboldened me to move plants and get them out of the way. The original design had its strengths, and luckily I was there to photograph some of them.

Here are two photos from several years ago. The upper one shows many aspects of the outline of the original design; here it is captured after a light snowfall which has the effect of highlighting the structure of the garden.

If this garden were in the southern hemisphere, the scene shown in the second image might have been captured today. Somewhere in the southern hemisphere the roses are in full bloom today. I need some encouragement to keep me focused on where I want the garden to be, and the scene here is one I want to repeat.

The aroma level

When I walked Biscuit this evening at about 7 P.M. I had the chance to experience again one of the interesting atmospheric effects associated with living on a hill. We live at the top of a hill, and a turn to the right or the left on the sidewalk takes me downhill in either direction.  The temperature at 7 P.M. was an improbable 61 degrees F – especially improbably when I consider that only a few days ago we were experiencing the coldest day since last winter, a day during which the temperature did not rise above the freezing point all day.

So it was a pleasure to leave the house and step out into a relatively balmy temperature.  It was at a point about half way down the hill that the atmospheric effect alluded to above became apparent.  We passed through the place where the warm air mass was layered over a colder air mass. That in itself is interesting to me, but there is another aspect of this which is notable: at the point where my face passes the level where the two air masses meet, there are always distinctive and pronounced odors apparent. Often this is the fragrance of soil itself, or more frequently (as it was tonight) the odor of the creek water.   On a couple of late summer evenings it’s been the fragrance of the kudzu blooms – those are evenings to remember!

The same effect takes place in the house. When I go up or down the basement stairs, there is a point where I pass the “aroma level” – in this case typically an enhanced version of whatever I have been cooking.

As winter is coming to an end, the most poignant of these odors is the fragrance of defrosting  soil after the frozen months of denial.

Winter jasmine

Here’s a good example of why this plant has been cherished by generations of gardeners: it’s January 5^th and as we approach the front door we’re greeted by a scattering of cheery blooms. No, it’s not May in January, but they are flowers and they are bright enough to attract attention. It’s not fragrant, and that’s doubly curious: first of all because it is a true jasmine, a group noted for intense fragrance; and secondly because plants which bloom in winter often have intense scents, presumably to advertise their presence to the few pollinators likely to be active at that season. Sorry, the second clause in that last sentence was wildly metaphoric (plants don’t advertise, for example), but these days more and more that’s the way we talk about these things.

Time of bloom with this plant is erratic, and that only adds to its charm. In the same garden plants on a sunny bank will bloom before plants on the north side of the house.  It’s usually seen as an untrained mound of arching, sprawling stems about two or three feet high and of ever expanding width. It’s easily trained against a wall or even on an isolated stake six or eight feet high, and plants trained upright can be really spectacular in bloom.

This is one plant on my list of plants I would not want to be without.

Baby, it's cold outside!

This is Rhododendron 'PJM Elite'. When I saw it early this morning it was in full curled-leaf mode: it looked as if the leaves had all been transformed into little brown cigarettes. By the time I got around to taking these photos at about noon, the leaves had already uncurled a lot. It's thought that this leaf curling is an adaptation to prevent desiccation during below freezing conditions.
I've never seen this plant used as a hedge (I've been thinking about it here) but it would be easy to see through a hedge in full leaf curl mode. Most of us wouldn't want the neighbors to catch us sun bathing nude in 20 degree F weather, would we?

Or would we? It's all relative: years ago Wayne and I used to bird regularly during the winter. Several ocean-side sites were often our goal, and  on more than one occasion, as we stood on the windy beaches shivering under multiple layers of coats, scarves, hats and gloves, we spotted some rare birds indeed. They're a shy, quiet species which typically lands on some far, remote end of the beach. Their  bright pink color makes them very conspicuous from a distance.  "No", I thought to myself the first time I saw them, "it couldn't be, could it?..." But our eyes were not deceiving us: there they were,  Canadians from the frozen prairies far to the north,  all but naked in the frigid air, sunning themselves under conditions which perhaps suggested spring back home to them.  Brave souls indeed: all I could think of was getting to someplace out of the wind and settling down to hot lunch.

Is this the Red Line fern?

The local branch of the Washington, D.C. subway system is the Red Line. Who would have thought that attentive riders of this line can do some botanizing deep below the streets of the city above? Yet there they are:  as the trains approach certain underground stops such as Woodley the lights beside and underneath the tracks illuminate a fringe of green in the glow of the lights. That fringe of green is a fern,  a fern of the genus Adiantum. I don't know which species it is, but if it's a native fern,  the one shown above, Adiantum capillus-veneris, is a likely candidate. This species grows in many countries around the Mediterranean and from northern South America well up into North America. On the Atlantic coast it gets at least as far north as Virginia.

On the other hand, there are several tropical species of this genus which are commonly sold as house plants, and over the years many of these have probably been brought into the subway system by shoppers. Perhaps spores from one of these got things going.

Whatever they are, it's a surprise to see them deep in the subway system. They are abundant and easily spotted at several stops. Are they confined to the Red Line? I don't know; perhaps someone reading this will comment.

Billbergia nutans

Here's an old friend helping us to celebrate the end of the year: this is Billbergia nutans, a long cultivated bromeliad often called queen's tears. It has been grown as a house plant since at least  before the Second World War. It thrives under typical house plant conditions and treatment and can be potted in soil. Our plant spends the frost-free season outside in full sun. It is brought inside when night frosts are likely. This year it waited until the end of December to produce any sign of bloom. About two weeks ago I left it outside overnight during a period of rain, and within a week the inflorescences began to appear.

The plant in the image above is not yet actually in bloom: none of the flowers is actually open yet. I'll add an image of the blooms later.  

Christmas Day in the garden

It's been a full month since the last post: what have I been up to? I've been up to planting; the community garden plots are now stuffed with roses, tree peonies, lilies, other bulbs both ornamental (tulips, bulbous irises, alliums, musk hyacinths et al.) and comestible (garlic, shallots, multiplier onions and others). Thirty-nine roses (wichurana hybrids, large-flowered climbers, polyanthas, some early hybrid teas and old shrub types among othres)  were planted last week (or was it the week before?). Most of the planting is now done, and I'm beginning to relax a bit and look forward to next year's garden. We've had two months of perfect planting weather, and the opportunities presented by the weather have kept me energized and sometimes even exhilarated: I can hardly believe what I've accomplished in the last two months.

Week after week of relatively mild weather has had an effect on the home garden and other local gardens, too. This year may well have been the best year ever for fall blooming camellias, and some precocious Camellia japonica sorts are also reported as blooming now. Those who keep lists of plants blooming on Christmas Day or New Year's Day will probably have long and varied lists this year.

My Christmas Day list from the home garden is short but sweet this year: snowdrops (Galanthus elwesii sorts), winter sweet, winter jasmine, winter honeysuckle, Camellia sasanqua and Elaeagnus pungens. Iris unguicularis was in bloom late last week, but the one flower had started to shrivel by today. Dandelions are blooming here and there. Helleborus foetidus (here) and H. niger (elsewhere) are blooming. Some garden hellebores are in advanced bud. I could not find any witch hazel flowers. In one of the cold frames Narcissus tazetta is blooming. Knock Out roses are still to be seen blooming here and there.

This morning I saw (and heard - what a pleasure to hear bird song on this date!)   a flock of birds (goldfinches?) working over the buds of the red maples.

In terms of what I've accomplished in the garden, I'm better prepared for the arrival of real winter this year than in any recent previous year; but emotionally I'm not prepared at all, and it's going to sting when it happens.

That's winter sweet, Chimonanthus praecox 'Luteus' in the image above.

How little some things have changed...

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The top image above is the cover page of the magazine Home & Garden from April of 1914. That's two years and several months short of a century ago. Was the original for that photograph an autochrome? And look at the width and thickness of the lumber used for the framing of the cold frame:  I've never seen anything that big for sale. The hat and the pipe are very much of the time, and at first glance I thought "What is Sherlock looking for  down there in the dirt?" I took an immediate liking to this cover, and over the decades I've owned it have taken it out now and them to keep up my hopes that one day I might have something like it.

Now fast forward nearly a century. The lower image shows one of my cold frames at my community garden plots. It's planted with lettuces, sage cuttings, rosemary cuttings, lamb's lettuce, flat leaf parsley, chervil and some odds and ends. No Sherlock because he was the one taking the picture.  I expect the plants in the cold frame to be fine until about the turn of the year; after that, we'll see.  

Carrot 'Parisian'



No, those are not orange radishes. The little orange globes you see above are the old carrot variety 'Parisian', sometimes called 'Parisian Market'. In addition to offering an unusual shape for carrots, they have the advantage, because of their round shape, of growing well in rough, stony soil (e.g. the soil in my new community garden plots). To attain their sleek, long form, typical carrots require deeply prepared soil free of obstructions such as stones. To harvest 'Parisian' no digging is necessary: the carrots form at the surface or just under it and pull easily from the ground.

Above you see them as freshly dug and then after a stop with the fluffers for their blog debut.

Remembering Frank Kameny

I first became aware of Frank Kameny in the late 1950s when his arrest on sodomy charges made the news. I was about 14 at that time, and although I was mortified by the sodomy charges aspect of the events, I nevertheless knew very well who I was and that it was my team which was taking a very public bashing.  It was not long before I heard about the  Mattachine Society, although I had no idea how to become a member. 

Now fast forward about twenty years. In the mid 1970s I joined the DC Gay Activists Alliance and finally met this man who had been on the margins of my consciousness for so long. That first meeting was not entirely propitious: had I been looking for a hero, I probably would have kept looking. Frank was hardly the prepossessing sort; in fact, my initial cursory impression was that he was a Marabou stork of a man. I wasn’t the only one who felt that way: there were actually serious discussions at the GAA meetings to arrange some sort of funding to pay for Frank to have dental work. ”The movement” back then was preoccupied with public images, and while no one seriously doubted his ability to speak eloquently and effectively on behalf of our cause, there were frequent backstage murmurs about the appearance of the messenger.

It didn’t take me long to realize that my ornithology was all wrong: the man was not a stork, he was an eagle. Those monthly GAA meetings could be tedious and boring, yet on nights when Frank was in good form, they provided some lively theatrics. No sooner had some injudicious newbie had the temerity to voice some poorly thought-out or logically flawed proposal than Frank would launch a keenly articulated rebuttal.   If the idea being offered was one he found to be repugnant, then the rhetorical fireworks really went off in an almost ferocious explosion. But the wonder of these exchanges was that as I knew him, he never lowered himself to ad hominem attacks: he stayed focused on the issues, not the person. And when it became apparent to him that his adversary was acting out of truculence, he would abruptly end the discussion and announce – and I can still hear him saying this - “In that case, then we agree to disagree.” It wasn’t unusual to hear him later chatting convivially with the erstwhile target of his lashings. 

One of the things I sometimes wondered about when I first began to attend GAA meetings was how this man, who alone for about two decades had been the most conspicuous face in the gay rights movement, would work with the younger upstarts who now surrounded him. There was a pervasive respect for Frank back then, an always present awareness of his unique status in our community, yet those attitudes did not necessarily translate into tranquil exchanges in a changing world where the young Turks were sometimes pulling for new ideas and different directions. Yet it quickly became apparent to me that he had another good quality: for all of his seeming apartness, he was a skillful team player.

Many times during a lively debate one could look over and see Frank sitting there, taking it all in. There were times when the look on his face suggested bemusement; I like to think that that look was at least partly motivated by a sort of avuncular pride: after all, he more than anyone had made it happen.

Years after I left GAA I read the diaries of Virginia Woolf; there is a passage there in which Woolf describes the fascination she experienced as she watched Jewesses (her word) listening to Classical music.  No sooner had I read those words than I remembered the fascination I felt in watching Frank as he, with almost palpable intensity of concentration, followed the development of a proposal being broached by another GAA member.

The leadership of GAA in those days kept to a surprisingly high-minded standard of deportment during meetings. Those attempting a sally into the trivial or frivolous risked a public rebuke. Smarts and accomplishment won you respect. It took me a while to win Frank’s respect, but when the time came I relished it. As the one man communications committee person I had written a letter on behalf of GAA to the Washington Post in which I pointed out some shortcomings in an article which the Post had published. We desperately wanted recognition back in those days, and no one expected the Post to deign to reply. But reply they did, and surprising as that was, there was something else  which pushed it over the top: the Post’s response was signed by none other than Ben Bradlee himself. Frank gave me a look that day I’ll never forget.

Years after I left GAA I ran into him around town a few times. I remember one meeting where, after a bit of prompting, he seemed to remember me. I vaguely remember another meeting much later when even generous prompting didn’t seem to elicit a response. But both times he was delighted to be recognized and responded with a profuse display of the old fashioned, almost courtly politesse with which he always addressed me (and I suppose everyone else he did not know well).

I’ve never met anyone else with such an utterly imperturbable sense of integrity; he could be persuaded by a well-articulated argument, but his core beliefs seemed to be adamantine and immutable. Once fixed on a goal, he was relentless. These qualities sometimes impelled him on to conclusions which baffled or even offended his supporters, conclusions which were definitely not ready for prime time. Yet this candor rarely left any doubt about his position on the issues.

Frank may have forgotten me, but I doubt that I will ever forget Frank. And I am glad to have this opportunity to publicly express my gratitude for all he has done for us.

A view of the back garden

Here’s a view of what’s happening in the back garden right now. The image is out of focus ( I tried several times but could not get the Hamamelis flowers in sharp focus), but in a sense that improves the overall effect. The red foliage on the left is that of Hamamelis ‘Feuerzauber’, the yellow flowers in the center those of the plant onto which ‘Feuerzauber’ is grafted, the red foliage on the right is that of Franklinia alatamaha.

Rosa 'The Fairy'

This little charmer is a 1930s anticipation of the modern ‘Knock Out’ roses. And like that more modern group it has almost all of the qualities of the best roses. It shares the same failing: lack of fragrance. But  it finally dawned on me that it was time to get off my high horse when it comes to fragrance in roses. Yes, I definitely prefer my roses to be fragrant. But does it make sense to ignore a rose which scores in the highest ways in other qualities simply because it lacks fragrance? It does not to me, and so I’ve made my peace with the Knock Outs and am ready to really appreciate Bentall’s little 1932 beauty.

Do you have doubts? If so, I suggest you seek out established plantings of these roses in November. I wish I had the room for an allée of autumn camellias and Knock Out roses in harmonious colors; maybe some of the Encore azaleas would work in this grouping, too. The whole planting would be fronted by ‘The Fairy’. These are plants which have the ability to bring a spring-like freshness to the garden at a time when it is otherwise winding down for the year.

‘The Fairy’ is conventionally placed among the so-called Polyantha roses; but unlike most Polyantha roses ‘The Fairy’ has Rosa wichurana (formerly R. wichuraiana) in its background. It makes just as much sense to think of it as a dwarf shrub rose.

I have not grown this rose yet myself, so the image you see above is an exception to my usual rule to include only plants grown in my own garden. Wayne and I visited our Northern Neck friends Charles and Hilda last weekend, and as we were about to leave Hilda took me over to “The Fairy’ and cut a nice bouquet. The cool weather was especially kind to the color of the flowers, and the foliage of the plant was immaculate. It was hard to believe that this rose had gone through the summer: everything about it was so fresh, clean and brimming with vigor. And the color warmed up beautifully under incandescent light.

Tilling season

Yikes! I have not made a blog posting in almost a month.What's going on?

The answer is that my other garden, my community garden plot, is absorbing every bit of time I give it.- and then begging for more.

I binged on bulbs recently, and as soon as I finish the tilling at the plot, I'll be planting bulbs - probably right up to the time the ground freezes.

I also built and installed two simple cold frames at the plot. New wood chip mulch was recently delivered to the plot site, and I've been busy moving it to my plot where I till it into the ground. 

Newly purchased nursery stock has been lined out at the plot where it will remain until I'm ready for it back here at the home garden. There are some new hedges in the home garden's future (at least if my back holds out).

There are days when I come home from the garden plot on the verge of exhaustion; but it makes for wonderful dreams!

Variegated Fritillary Euptoieta claudia Silver and gold

While working in the garden the other day I spotted this little gem. It brought to mind some metal smith working in molten silver and gold: as he worked, drops of silver and gold dropped from his workbench and clumped on the floor.

In fact it's the elegant wrapping around a gem of a different sort: there is a pupa of a fritillary inside that chrysalis. It's the Variegated Fritillary   Euptoieta claudia, a species whose host plants include passion flower. The chrysalis was found not far from a rampageous tangle of Passiflora incarnata in the garden. To see Passiflora incarnata, look here:

http://mcwort.blogspot.com/2007/07/surpassing-delight-of-all-flowers.html

Canna × ‘Ehemannii’

 

Although I’ve known about this plant – or thought I knew about this plant – for a long time, it’s blooming in my garden this year for the first time. And this is the first time I’ve actually seen it. It’s over a century old: it appeared in the late nineteenth century. It looks a lot like Canna iridiflora, and from the beginning there seems to have been uncertainty about whether ‘Ehemannii’ is a form of that species or a hybrid.

It’s unique among the garden cannas I know. The drooping flowers (some accounts say the entire inflorescence droops) give the plant a very graceful quality, and graceful is rarely the first thing which comes to mind when discussing cannas. It’s a puzzle to me why more hybrid cannas have not been produced with this style of inflorescence. In fact, it’s a big puzzle because Canna iridiflora itself appears in the stated genealogy of many hybrid canna strains.  

This plant can be tall, and drooping flowers on a tall plant are an advantage in that the viewer looks up into the flower instead of looking up and seeing the underside of the bloom.