David Griffiths' 1934 BULBS FROM SEED

The post title says it all. Here is the full text of David Griffiths' BULBS FROM SEED, published in June, 1934, as Circular No. 311 of the US Department of Agriculture.

Two of my favorite passages: on page three, he points out that a seedling bed 3 feet by 50 feet can produce about 25,000 plants! That should rejoice the heart of all of you who cherish dreams of a back yard cottage industry. On page 25, he points out that many bulbs need to mature into a drought - I've worked this one into many of the bulb presentations I've given. I think it's one of the most important things to know about bulb culture in our climate. 

The plant he mentions as Cyclamen europeum (sic) is almost certainly C. hederifolium. 

Witch-hazel in morning sun

What a treat in the middle of winter! The flowering of the witch-hazels always catches me by surprise. Yes, I know from long experience that they bloom in the winter. But really severe conditions will delay the flowering, and I've never been sure just what combination of conditions allows them to bloom. This winter, another of our recent mild winters, has had its mild and its bitter times, enough cold to shut down the snowdrops for a while. A haze of red out over the pergola caught my eye the other day, and sure enough Hamamelis 'Feuerzauber' was in full bloom. Yesterday I got out into the garden to do some close-up checking, and found 'Jelena' also in full bloom. 'Diane' is also blooming. That's 'Jelena' in the image above.

Nothing lights up the winter garden the way a witch-hazel in full bloom does.

It's spring in the cold frames

We are in the throes - temporarily I hope - of another cold wave.  Recent mornings have brought temperature readings of 16⁰ F. Early bloomers outside in the garden are frozen stiff. But it's spring in the cold frames. If you look carefully, you should be able to make out four flowers of Iris unguicularis, the Algerian iris. To the right of the iris is a white-flowered Cyclamen persicum. And then there are the primroses. These are garden forms derived from Primula vulgaris (long known as P. acaulis).

What a pleasure it is on a day like this to bundle up, go out into the garden and open the frames to find a sight like this! This really cheers me up. And it matters not if the temperature again drops: all of these plants are snug in the cold frame.

The iris took a couple of years to dig in and begin to bloom: but you can see that it's now putting on a good show. The cyclamen was purchased either late in 2011 or very early in 2012: these deliciously scented plants bloom for months - they will probably still be in bloom in April! I bought the primroses last week at the grocery store. They cost all of three for five dollars: what a deal! In the house they would probably last only for a week or two before the heat gets them. In the cold frames they will go on for weeks as long as they are watered regularly.

Fox sighting!

I was absentmindedly looking out into the garden about a half hour ago and noticed something brown moving around. At first I thought it might be a small deer, but then an immediately recognizable face came into view: it was an adult red fox. It was sitting out in the sun grooming itself and scratching now and then. Every once in a while its eyes would start to close, as if the warmth from the sun might be inducing a nap. But it remained alert, continually turning its head this way and that.

This was probably the first time I've seen a fox seemingly at east in broad daylight. Usually I see them as a fleeting blur of color at the edge of the woods or fields.

When we first moved here a bit over fifty years ago, I saw a gray fox once. And there were local skunks back then, too. I have not seen a local skunk for decades. Opossums are still here, but they seem to be either very uncommon or very secretive - and more likely to be seen dead on the road than live in the woods. Groundhogs seem not to remain in the immediate area for long, but do occasionally pass through. Raccoons are a common sight. Foxes, always red foxes,  I see infrequently, but often enough to suggest that the local population is healthy and here to stay. They can occasionally be seen prowling the road side at night down in the park.

A mid-winter surprise

There was a surprise waiting for me out in the garden earlier today. At the front door there are plants of Cyclamen persicum, garden primroses and winter jasmine in bloom. But here's what's remarkable, and it would have been just as remarkable in the middle of the summer: there were bees, honeybees, many of them, visiting the flowers. I can't remember the last time I saw even one bee in the garden. Of the plants mentioned, only the cyclamens have a fragrance which I can detect - did they draw in the bees?

One of my neighbors several blocks away got started with honey bees last year. After she told me about that, I began to keep an eye on the flowers in the garden. But the bees never found my garden - or if they did they took no interest in it. During October and November, when there were plenty of asters blooming in the garden, I expected to see plenty of bees. But I don't think I  saw even one.

Were the bees I saw this morning from her hives?

Popovers again

I fell asleep last night resolving to make popovers for breakfast today. One of the tricks to integrating popovers into the morning routine is to get them into the oven before you start to do anything else. That way the 45-50 minute  cooking time passes quickly. By the time they are ready and you sit down to eat them, you can reward yourself with a few extra ones for what you've already accomplished that morning. If the only thing you've accomplished that morning was to read the morning paper, then be assured that a nice plate of popovers is a great way to assuage the anxiety provoked by reading the news. If you've done nothing but loaf and daydream while they were cooking, go ahead and dig in anyway: after all, you made them!

The last post on popovers was done in 2009; the image above looks a lot like the one posted back then, but the ones you see were baked and consumed this morning.   Popovers are very photogenic, aren't they?  

Happy New Year's Day from the garden

The mild winters we've been experiencing in recent years have allowed those of us who play the "what's blooming on New Year's Day" game to take this sport a little more seriously - or at least to practice it with a bit more satisfaction. My list for today won't be much different from my Christmas list, but there is one big addition. I was working in the cold frames yesterday. I keep a rosemary bush going there to have a source for cuttings and the kitchen. It had grown too big, so I hacked it down to about four inch stubs. As I butchered the plant a flash of bright blue caught my eye as quickly as if the plant had been bleeding. Too late I realized that I had cut into one of the blue bloods of my garden: Iris cretensis had an open flower, the first it has produced here. Iris cretensis is a cold frame sized version of Iris unguicularis: it's only  a fraction of the size of the larger plant. I'll post an image when another flower opens later.

In the photos above, all of them taken only about an hour ago,  you see many of the old stalwarts of the winter gardebn: from top to bottom, the charmingly named wintersweet, Chimonanthus praecox 'Luteus' (its botanical name is derived from Latin and Greek words for winter, flower and early; the cultivar name 'Luteus' is Latin for yellow), then Hamamelis 'Jelena' named for the late Jelena de Belder and one of the first of the modern hybrids to gain wide distribution and still very much worth having, then a home-grown-from-seed Camellia sasanqua, then a huddle of one-spot Galanthus elwesii monostictus (monostictus is Latinized Greek from the words for one and spot and calls attention to the fact that traditional Galanthus elwesii has two spots), then Helleborus foetidus which is not malodorous in spite of its name, then Jasminum nudiflorum the aptly named winter jasmine, and finally Cyclamen persicum. Some might object to the inclusion of the cyclamen because it is not a garden plant in this climate. But the plant shown has been outside since purchase about a year ago: I brought it in during a couple of hard freezes, but otherwise the only protection it has had has been a hand towel tossed over it on frosty evenings. I keep meaning to transfer it to one of the cold frames. It is surrounded by self-sown seedlings.

So, wouldn't you say things are off to a good start this year?

'Mrs. Aaron Ward': A rose and her eponym

I have a small rooted cutting of the early twentieth century rose 'Mrs. Aaron Ward' coming along in the garden now. My plant is of the climbing form discovered in the early Twenties; the original bush form was introduced in 1906-7.  It has not yet bloomed here. I've assembled an interesting collection of older roses, and now I'm busy keeping my nose buried in old books to track down more information about them.

Earlier this year a newspaper article on the release to the public of a treasure trove of digitized versions of old lantern slides prepared from photographs of Frances Benjamin Johnston got my attention. At the time I went to the website for these and took a look:  there are thousands of slides to be seen.  For a Christmas present this year Wayne gave me a copy of the newly published volume by Sam Watters on the life and work of early twentieth century photographer Frances Benjamin Johnston, Gardens for a Beautiful America 1895-1935,  Acanthus Press, New York, 2012. This is illustrated with a selection of lantern slides from the Library of Congress collection here:

http://www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/fbj/

I've just started with this one, but no sooner had I skimmed the contents than I hit pay dirt: there is a photo there captioned "Rear Admiral Aaron and Elizabeth Cairns Ward, circa 1914" .  On the opposite page is another photo captioned "Willomere, Real Admiral Aaron Ward House, Roslyn Harbor, New York. Rose Garden, circa 1914". I'll stick my neck out and say that the rose garden photo shows an extensive planting of  the rose 'Mrs. Aaron Ward'. The height and the color look right: this is known to be a very variable rose in terms of color, and the colors shown in the image seem right on to me.

Keep in mind that these are not the sort of color slide transparencies we were used to until the arrival of digital photography. They are in fact an example of an amazing hybrid technology in use at the time: the monochrome slide original was painstakingly hand tinted resulting in something which is neither simply a photograph nor a painting.  The photographer generally gets the credit for these images, yet the person who did the tinting was at least an equal partner. The colorist for Johnston's slides was one Grace Smith Anderson  according to Watters' text. These tinted slides can produce magical effects, effects unique to the process used to make them. No modern color photograph is apt to approach the moodily atmospheric effects seen in these slides.

And here are two of the Ward images from the Library of Congress collection (both of these are included in Gardens for a Beautiful America 1895-1935):

above: http://www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/fbj/item/2007686315/

above: http://www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/fbj/item/2007685964/

Next June look for an image of the rose!

From the garden on Christmas Day

The venerable tradition of keeping tabs on what is in bloom in the garden on Christmas Day and New Year's Day is one I enthusiastically observe. The climate here, especially in the past, was not always supportive of this; but recent years have been so mild that local gardeners are turning in the sort of lists which in the past we thought were unlikely outside of the milder parts of England. 

I have my favorites among winter flowering plants, and one in particular, the Algerian iris, makes me feel that we are really in the running in the pursuit of this sport. And by "we" I mean those of us in the greater Washington, D.C. area. Many of us tried to grow this plant in the past, and few if any of us saw flowers. The developing buds evidently freeze readily, and although the plants survived from year to year, the flowers did not develop properly. But recent winters have been different, and it's a real pleasure to see it blooming each year now. That's it center right in the image above. 

The image above does not give the full roll call of today's garden: I had cut some Helleborus foetidus for this group, but they got lost along the way and I did not notice their absence until the images had been made. Winter honeysuckle has buds today but no open flowers. Helleborus niger, the Christmas rose, is in advanced bud only. 

Here's what's in the group above: how many can you pick out? Look for these: Camellia sasanqua, Jasminum nudiflorum, Iris unguicularis, rose hips, Narcissus tazetta, Chimonanthus praeox 'Luteus', Adiantum venustum, Adiantum capillus-veneris, Skimmia "Brookside", Ruscus aculeatus, Smilax smallii, Smilax laurifolia, Arum italicum, Galanthus elwesii, Rosa 'Safrano', Iris foetidissima, Hedera helix 'Manda's Crested', Viola walteri, Cyclamen persicum, garden hellebores and (mostly hidden) a leaf of Fatsia japonica.  

Merry Christmas!

Allium oschaninii French Gray Shallot

This is the French gray shallot which, as it turns out, is botanically distinct from the shallots of grocery stores ( or at least the grocery stores where I shop). The grocery store shallot is botanically a form of the culinary onion, Allium cepa. The French gray shallot is a distinct species, Allium oschaninii. There is a school of thought which claims that the French gray is the true shallot, and while that point of view might have merit, for practical purposes it's about as significant as the distinction sometimes made between cassia (what most of us  - "us" in this case being most of us Americans - know as cinnamon) and "true" or Ceylon cinnamon. Cassia and Ceylon cinnamon are distinct in taste, and shallots of the onion sort and French gray shallots are distinct in taste. All have their uses.

The gray shallot originated in the middle east where it still grows wild. We call them French gray shallots probably for the same reason we call dwarf box "English" box: because that's where our predecessors more than likely got them. French gray shallots are not native to France.

As far as I know, both culinary onions and garlic are known only as cultivated plants; culinary onions are grown from seed, but garlic apparently is not known to produce seed. My French gray shallots have not bloomed here, and I don't know if they produce viable seed or not. 

Iris unguicularis

Iris unguicularis, the Algerian iris, began to bloom last week; the flower you see in the image above is the second to appear this season. This species has the potential to bloom from November right through April. The plant shown above grows in a cold frame; another one grows nearby outside the frame.

The flower buds are very sensitive to freezing in my experience, so the plants get covered on cold nights. When they successfully bloom during the winter they are the largest true flowers to be seen in the garden.

The related irises known as Iris cretensis and I. lazica  will follow later; in fact, I see flower buds developing on I. cretensis now.

Passiflora incarnata How to eat maypops

Passiflora incarnata was the subject of the second post to this blog back in July 2007. It's been in the garden for decades, and now ramps freely on the front of the house and over all nearby shrubbery. It flowers and fruits freely. The first few times it fruited I tried the fruit and was not favorably impressed: there was a bit of something sweet and citrusy, but little more. I wrote them off long ago, and began to wonder why any one would make a fuss about them.

Yesterday some nurses came by to help with mom. As one of them approached the house, she spotted one of the maypos on its vine. In a richly modulated tone of voice which expressed surprise, indignation, disbelief, delight and who knows what else, she rhetorically asked (it was obvious that she knew the answer) "what are these?" And before I could articulate my reply she pounced on one, ripped it open, and began a sonata of gustatory pleasure sounds. Then came questions as numerous as the seeds in the maypop.

I told her what she already knew: that they were passion fruit. I began to ask her how she knew about them: was she from one of the Caribbean islands or somewhere in South America (no, she was from Zimbabwe!). It was hard to keep her attention because the whole time we talked she eagerly scanned the tangle of vines for more fruit - and as soon as she found some, promptly consumed it. In a movement which suggested plenty of practice, she broke open each fruit and exposed the cluster of seeds, each seed  in its individual juicy capsule. I noticed that these clusters were darker than the ones I had sampled.  So I tried one too: it was much, much better than the ones I had tasted earlier in the season. They were definitely juicier, and they had a rich fragrance and flavor the ones I had tried did not have.

So I not only learned how (and when) to eat maypops yesterday, I learned that they are well worth eating! In the image above you see a very ripe one: the aroma was enticing once the fruit was broken open.  The juice is not plentiful, but there is enough to make them worth trying. The flavor has a quality which suggests grapefruit to me, but grapefruit mixed with something else a bit musty. This quality is also present in the ripe fruits of mayapple, Podophyllum peltatum.

Crab for breakfast

Well, not really: but I fixed some scrambled eggs the other day, and since I was in a mood for something a little different I began to look around for something to add to them. Let's see, maybe some shallot, or thyme, or marjoram, or celery seed or... that's it, curry powder. I sprinkled just a bit into the eggs and then cooked them up. As I took the first bite I was distracted by something in the morning paper, and it took a moment for me to realize what I was eating. It tasted so much like crab that I stopped reading and focused on the eggs. The texture was not right for crab, but the taste sure was.

Now I'm wondering if eggs cooked this way might be used to make a mock-crab salad or sandwich, something with mayonnaise, chopped celery, a bit of onion and parsley.. Maybe I'll conduct a little experiment at lunch today. 

Euonymus fortunei

What looks like bittersweet in these photos is actually Euonymus fortunei, once one of the most highly valued plants in our gardens. It and the common Eurasian ivy Hedera helix are the only evergreen vines of merit which dependably  survive winters in the Northeast US. As a result of decades-long, successful ecesis. both have now been banished to the ranks of potentially invasive plants. Nevertheless, both are cherished in this garden for their winter effect: to my eyes an old oak festooned with ivy or the euonymus is one of the most cheerful effects our winter gardens offer.

This euonymus is a bit of a shape-shifter: the plants I bought and planted decades ago were of one of the small-leafed, restrained creeping forms, probably the one sold as 'Kewensis'.  After a while, the purchased plant of 'Kewensis' reverted to the typical wild form with three to four inch leaves and high-climbing stems. This large-leafed piece then began to climb the oak under which it had been planted. Now, decades later, it's probably fifty or so feet up into the oak. The upper two-thirds are made up of thin, sparse growth; the lowest third is broad and massive, and during the winter is one of the most conspicuous features of the garden. These events duplicate those reported for this species in the eighth edition of Bean's Trees and Shrubs Hardy in the British Isles. 

In the upper picture you see some branches picked about a week ago; the leaves were removed to show off the fruit. The container is a (for me, expensive) piece of decorative glass I purchased with just this combination in mind (or rather, with bittersweet in mind - but the euonymus and bittersweet are close relatives).

While preparing the branches, the book seen in the lower picture was on the same table. I noticed how well the colors of the book cover harmonized with the green of the euonymus leaves, the orange of the glass and fruit and the polished wood of the table top: the more I looked at it, the more I liked it. So the vase, the book and its companion vegetation have been together all week. For me, it's a great example of the whole being so much greater than the sum of its parts. 

Erythronium 'Pagoda' bulbs

Decades ago, when Erythronium 'Pagoda' first began to appear on the commercial bulb lists at reasonable prices, I tried a few now and then. They never amounted to anything. The bulbs were probably near death if not actually dead when purchased - expensive mummies in fact. I never gave up on this one, and years later I obtained fifty bulbs in excellent condition from a reliable mail -order supplier.  These were planted in a newly prepared bed full of Compro (composted sewage sludge). The following spring every bulb bloomed, and I thought I had arrived. I crossed this one off of my "difficult" list and assumed that this new feather in my cap was here to stay. In fact, the following year I waited in vain for them to reappear. I never saw even one of those fifty plants again: they were gone without a trace. Of the two usual culprits, rodents and "summer rot", there was insufficient evidence to pin the blame with certainty. 'Pagoda' went back onto my "difficult" list, and  for years I avoided it.

In the meantime, my experience and insight into growing bulbs native to the West Coast of North America ('Pagoda' is a hybrid of two western species) began to progress. As is the case with most bulbs native to the West Coast of North America, they are unlikely to ever be reliable garden plants here on the East Coast for the sort of gardeners who plant them and walk away. But that does not mean that they cannot be grown here. What it does mean is that the gardener must step in and make sure certain things do not happen. The most important of these is to be sure the bulbs are never both wet and hot. Wet is fine during the winter, and hot (but dry) is fine during the summer. But never allow them to be both wet and hot. It's simply stated, but much harder to put into effect in the garden. That's why I don't think they will ever be successful garden plants  for most of us.

The plants die down for the year in May here, and they should be dying down into drying soil. Check out the rain averages for May in this area and then consider the chances of dry soil in a typical year. It's not going to happen.

One solution is to dig the bulbs for the summer. Here's where a little bit of knowledge is not your friend. For those of us who garden on the East Coast, where we have native Erythronium in the woods (they are almost never seen in gardens), we know these plants as woodland plants, plants which grow in moist soil, soil high in organic matter. The same is true of the Eurasian Erythronium dens-canis: it's a woodland plant. Unless carefully handled, commercial stocks of Erythronium dens-canis are apt to be desiccated beyond help. Bulbs of these plants should not be dried out the way one would dry a tulip bulb for the summer. I've heard of at least one site where Erythronium dens-canis has naturalized here in the greater Washington, D.C. area.

But 'Pagoda' and many species and cultivars originating from West Coast species need dry summer conditions when grown on the East Coast. Here's what works for me: when the foliage dies down, I wait a week or two and then gently dig out the bulbs. By then the roots should be dead or dying. I pack the bulbs in improvised newspaper pouches and then store the pouches in a shady place outside for a few weeks. The idea is to avoid drying them out too quickly. Once the bulbs have dried  they are moved to a  place inside the house. The bulbs remain in the paper pouches until sometime in September, when the paper pouches are moistened, slipped into a zip lock plastic bag and then put into the refrigerator (not the freezer!). Within about two weeks the bases of the bulbs will show signs of swelling, and soon after that the roots will start to appear. Get them back into the soil at this point, and don't let them dry out once the roots start to appear.

The image above shows bulbs of 'Pagoda' which were stored dry for the summer in the way described above: as you can see, they are rooting vigorously and are ready to be replanted. Note that even the tiny little bulb is rooting well. Don't be afraid to keep these dry during the summer.

Adiantum × mairisii and Adiantum venustum

Throughout most of North America the name maidenhair fern refers to Adiantum pedatum. I'm sure I'm not the only gardener who, back in the days when I was first learning my ferns, looked longingly at pictures of the southern maidenhair, Adiantum capillus-veneris, and wished that it grew in our woods.   This southern species provides a look which is very distinct from that of the northern maidenhair. I eventually saw this species in the wild: it was during my Army days when I was stationed in central Texas. It grew at the top edge of a huge sink hole: from the floor of the sink hole I looked up and saw a fringe of green. A quick close-up look proved it to be the southern maidenhair.

Years later, some relatives of a friend bought an old house out in the country which had a collapsed greenhouse on the property. I was surprised to find a thriving colony of one of the subtropical Adiantum ferns huddled in a corner.  This was really exciting for me because at the time I did not know that there were truly hardy members of this genus other than the familiar A. pedatum. Stories of bats in the attic of the old house distracted me from the ferns, and I never remembered to collect a piece.

It would be years before two other reliably hardy Adiantum ferns came into my life. One was Adiantum venustum. This grows well here in the greater Washington D.C. area and will form broad low clumps of delicate, small,  parsley-like foliage in the open garden. That's it in the lower image above.

The other one is Adiantum × mairisii, shown in the upper image above.  Don't confuse that with Adiantum mariesii.  As I put together my thoughts for this post, I decided to do a Google search to see if I might learn more about it. I noticed that Tony Avent had something to say about it on his Plant Delights site, and so I took a look. At that point I had one of those humorous small-world experiences: Tony's account was almost sentence for sentence what I had intended to write for this post. And this was true down to one uncannily arcane detail: Tony mentions that he first learned about this fern from Nancy Swell. Too funny: so did I! Nancy and her husband used to appear at the big Green Spring sales once or twice a year back in the old days. Once I discovered her, I made a bee line to her table every year as soon as I arrived at the sale. She specialized in ferns and often had then rare Asarum, Ruscus, Danaë, Trillium and other wildflowers and botanical curiosities which piqued my interest. And it was she who introduced me to a quotation from Shakespeare: "We have the recipe of fern-seed, we walk invisible."

So far, the garden worthiness of any form of Adiantum capillus-veneris in our climate is open to question. I have three sorts on trial; they have yet to be tested by a bad winter. But the hardiness of the two shown above in not in question, and as far as I know these are our best bets for a reliable fern with the look of the southern maidenhair.

Cyclamen hederifolium seedlings

Gardening has its pleasures of the instant gratification sort (credit cards are generally involved here), and at the other end of that spectrum it has those delights which become apparent only over a period of years. In the latter category come the always surprising events taking place in the seedling frames. Some seeds take their time about germination, and it can be a real thrill when a plant which one supposed would never grow here germinates and gets off to a good start. Then there are those plants which are not difficult to grow from seed (I didn't say fast!) but take their time about revealing their best qualities. Peonies, for instance, are easy from seed, but one waits five or six years to see the first good flower. It can be really exciting to visit the frames for the first time after months of neglect - and find some long desired seedling up and growing. That's one of those times when I feel like a "real" gardener.

Cyclamen occupy a middle ground in this spectrum. Fresh seed germinates easily at the appropriate time of year, and even old seed will eventually germinate. Under home garden conditions, the first flowers come in the second or third year. In the meantime, there is something else to occupy the imagination of the grower: even the first leaves give a hint of the mature foliage, and there are many strains of cyclamen, both hardy and tender,  worth growing for their leaves alone: I'm sure there would be gardeners who would grow them even if they never bloomed.

Cyclamen graecum and C. cyprium are well established here as cold frame plants, but I frankly doubt their utility in the open garden. Cyclamen persicum persists from year to year so long as it is not exposed to hard freezes: it's not really suited for use as a house plant here (our homes are generally too warm), and it will not survive our typical winters outside. Here I move them in and out during the winter, and this suits them well indeed: last year's plants bloomed for five or six months without a break. Some will eventually go into the cold frames.

Under ideal conditions, both Cyclamen hederifolium and C. coum can be used as garden plants here. But those "ideal conditions" include summers drier than the local climate provides. Sharp drainage will sometimes compensate for what our climate does not naturally produce, but more than once I've seen an old, seemingly well established plant rot during a particularly wet summer. The little ones I'm raising from seed will eventually go into a cold frame at the shady back of the garden. I have a hunch that with a glass over them during the summer, all should be well.

The leaves in the image above are of seedling plants raised from seed provided by Ellen Horning of Seneca Hill Perennials fame. She described the seed as "Cyclamen hederifolium, well marked", and as you can see in the images above they are indeed well marked.  These will eventually, I hope,  form the basis of my "hardy cyclamen grown for their foliage" collection.

Ceratostigma griffithii

Ceratostigma griffithii put on a growth spurt this year which surprised me. In the past it formed a sprawling subshrub with branches up to about two feet long. This year, although it's still  sprawling, it grew up behind the glass door used to cover the cold frame in which it grows. This year the longest branches are probably about five feet long. So far, the only flowers to appear have been at the tips of the branches. If you squint, you can make out the very spotty effect this produces in the image of the whole plant. Since we're already past the middle of November, it's hard to see what value this plant would have in the open garden; in fact, it's hard to see what value it has grown in the cold frame. On the other hand, the foliage does color up nicely - as can be seen in both images.

When really cold weather arrives I'll take the Ceratostigma down and tuck it in among the other plants in the cold frame. If it continues to bloom throughout the fall and into winter I might keep it. Otherwise, I'm not so sure. 

Woodland with beech trees in autumn color

The local woods are primarily a mixture of oak, sycamore, tulip poplar and beech trees; less common here are hickories, maples, persimmon, birch and sour gum. There are other hardwoods, and here and there relic pine groves. The composition of the local woodlands is easiest to estimate in the autumn as each group colors up.

Right now, the woods glow with the amber tints of ripening beech leaves. For me, this is the most moving and deeply satisfying of the autumnal leaf spectacles.  To walk through the woods now is like being in a huge, translucent, yellow-brown bottle.

Yesterday Wayne caught the woods at their best. He took these photos (using a ten year old point and shoot Kodak digital camera) late in the afternoon when the low sun warmed up the leaf color most agreeably. He was riding his bicycle home at the time, and the path you see in these images is the bicycle path which parallels Beach (not Beech!) Drive in back of my home. As I viewed these images I felt as if I were being drawn into each scene - and then it dawned on me: the path in these images  has a beckoning quality. Great work, Wayne!