Daphne odora

Yesterday Wayne and I visited our friend Hilda to participate in a celebration of her 80th birthday. There are several reminders of her generosity in my garden, and the one I'm enjoying the most right now is shown above: Daphne odora. She gave this to me as a potted,  rooted cutting - a budded rooted cutting - in 2008. When I got home with it, I put it in one of the protected cold frames; that's where it's been since then, and it's still in the same pot in which it was brought home. It bloomed in the winter of 2009 from the buds on the rooted cutting. This year it's in bloom again, this time with more flowers.

Daphne odora is known to survive local winters occasionally, but there seems to be a grudging consensus that it is not really a plant adapted to our conditions. Still, many gardeners plant it and enjoy it as long as it lasts. This uncertainty about its long-term adaptability to our conditions has prompted me to keep my plant in one of the protected cold frames. It's a real pleasure to open the frames when this plant is in bloom: the fragrance is wonderful. And it's a nice way to be reminded of a dear friend.

Digging for gold in the snow

I worked up the courage to uncover the most protected cold frames today. It was hard to get to them: when the neighbors cleared the snow from their driveway, they heaped it onto our lot. The cold frame area is surrounded by a three foot deep dyke of snow.

I have not yet opened the frames (there is still snow around the edges, and the space is so tight that I can’t easily get to it). But I got the snow off, and pulled back the protective tarps, and now light can get into the plants. They have been in the dark for….well, I forget just how long they have been covered up. The sunlight is intense at this time of year: it’s really pleasant to be outside now when the sun is shining – it’s actually very warm on the skin. And since almost everything is still snow covered, the overall light intensity is terrific.

Now that I’ve had a look, I can say that the news is good: there are no obvious signs of cold damage. At least one of the Chilean Tropaeolum (I’m obsessed with these this year) looks fine – I can’t see the other one yet.

From what I can see, everything looks just as it did when I covered things up before the last big snowfall. Not all of the plants in the frame are bulby things: there are some gerberas (in bloom) which seem to be taking to cold frame life very well. The big red Persian cyclamen is entering its fourth month of bloom. Some garden forms of Primula vulgaris seem to be in suspended animation: they don’t seem to have changed in weeks – the bright flowers go on and on.

The biggest surprise from this effort today came not from a plant actually in the cold frames but rather from one which grows wedged between the two cold frames: Iris unguicularis has a nice fat colorful bud up. And when I went in closer to examine this, I could see another flower of this iris which had evidently bloomed under the tarps and was not withered. This one is a real trouper!

What I call my Christmas snowdrop, which has been blooming since mid-December, is still blooming.

And a rooted cutting of Daphne odora is blooming sweetly.

Mourning doves, northern cardinals, Carolina chickadees and titmice were all singing this morning. The birds are obviously responding to the increasing length of the day rather than to the immediate conditions here in the garden.

In mid-April I probably would not take a second look at any of these things. But when you have to dig them out of the snow, they’re precious!

The spirit of William Morris

It was cold last night; the temperature at 7:30 this morning was about 25 º F.

These cold nights bring with them a new responsibility for me: I have to remember to close the cold frames each afternoon. I do this when the sun begins to go down, ideally as soon as the sun no longer directly strikes the cold frames. Cold frames are like a dog: they don’t require much attention, but they do require your attention at least twice a day. And like dogs they are well worth it.

No, the cold frames are not bursting with bloom right now, but they are full of interest. It’s a real pleasure to go out on a cold morning and peer through the glass light and see signs of life. The cold frames here have a primary purpose of housing a wide collection of marginally hardy bulby odds and ends. But each year I slip in various things which provide a nice contrast to the largely grassy foliage of the bulbs. Certain woody plants for instance provide a good change of pace. This year the rooted cutting of Daphne odora already shows flower color. A hardy gardenia, a new Ruscus, several asarums, some Selaginella, rosemary and Cistus psilosepalus all provide foliage interest and, in the case of the flowering plants, the promise of flowers and fragrance eventually.

The cold frame also provides an answer to the question of what to do with the florist’s cyclamen. The house is too warm and the garden is too cold. It turns out that the cold frame is just right: the glass light of the cold frame bears a flourish of frost flowers on cold mornings, but under the glass the bright red flowers of the florist’s cyclamen presents a burst of intense color.

A clump of snowdrops dug from the garden this week now blooms serenely under the glass. Another sort of snow drop is all over the news now: beginning tomorrow night, we are expected to have a 5-12” snow fall.

I opened this piece by writing that there was not much in bloom in the cold frames now. But one of the less protected cold frames offered an unexpected seasonal bouquet yesterday morning. I don't know what I did to deserve such a decorative acanthus-leaf pattern of frost flowers: it's as if the spirit of William Morris himself had worked over the under surface of the light. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

Daphne odora

Last year my friend Hilda gave me a pot of newly rooted cuttings of Daphne odora. For her, this plant grows as if it were Forsythia. She has bushes the size of Volkswagens.

Here in my neighborhood, Daphne odora is a fickle plant: typically it thrives just long enough to beguile the grower – and then it suddenly dies. For that reason, among others, I didn’t really know what to do with the rooted cuttings she gave me. They were in a pot, so I put the pot into the protected cold frame and more or less forgot about it. There were two cuttings, and one of them quickly died. Later I noticed that the remaining cutting had flower buds; and eventually these bloomed and gave me a chance to experience the wonderful fragrance.

It’s now over a year later, and the cutting is still in the same pot. What I thought earlier were buds for leaf growth have swollen enough for me to see that they are flower buds: it’s going to bloom again! Evidently it likes life in the protected cold frame.