So this is a start for blog contributions in 2017.  We’re hoping for  a lot more but time will tell. To begin I offer a picture of our Eranthis hyemaliswhich come up first each year and are replaced later by a bed of Hostas.

Of course there are snowdrops, Galanthus nivalis, here among some of the tufa from Ohio obtained on one of the chapter’s expeditions in summer 2015.  These pictures are dated 23 February 2017.

All this when on 1 February 2017 a shot of the front looked as follows.

But then 25 February 2017 the scene had changed to the Northwest Flower and Garden Show in Seattle, so we have, just for contrast the stand for The Butchart Gardens from Victoria, B. C. , with, for instance prominent display of Veltheimia capensis in pots, which is very much a greenhouse plant in Ann Arbor.

and then sculpture in the show gardens

and unusual shrubs such as Viburnum bodnanentse “Dawn”

Finally as an indication of the show’s excess, we have the amazing planting of a Corylus tree among vast rocks.  According to the garden designer Dan Robinson, this tree was dug up around 1930 and transported to their gardens, then it is shown from time to time, in this case being balled in a base of around 6′ x 8′ x 2.5′ to be moved.  He has opened it up and pruned, taking advantage of the fact that the oringinal owner of the tree had reduced it to a single main trunk.  Apparently Dan is a master bonsai artist, and that’s what he was sitting to one side of his rock pile demonstrating.  Elandan Gardens which was the exhibitor was apparently founded in 1993.