Spring may have come but winter hasn’t quite left, not just yet. Last week’s glorious weather had stoked the urge to get out and begin the early spring gardening chores. I started (off as I usually do), by removing last year’s foliage from the all of hybrid hellebores, followed by the peonies. Next I had started in on cutting down the ornamental grasses in the lower garden, as I also burned off the little prairie that’s down there. I tossed the removed grass foliage onto the patches of the prairie that were still a bit too damp to burn without a little extra dry fuel.

The fine spring weather continued and the garden responded. All of the early, spring flowering plants took advantage the warm sunshine, much to the delight of my neighbor’s honeybees

Down in the Pit-House (protected from chillier nighttime temperatures), the stock from this year’s early plant orders were really starting to take off. Out I the garden, the Eranthus and Galanthus were at their peak bloom. Several of the clumps of G. nivale needed dividing, and as I planted out the divisions, I figured I might as well get all of the new plants from Carolyn’s Shade Garden (as well as the new Eranthus and Galanthus I brought back from a recent collecting trip), into the ground as well.

And as if just waiting for me to make such a move, “Old Man Winter” rolled right back in.

Now, this sort of thing really doesn’t cause much of a problem for these early spring-bloomers. In my garden, anything that can’t handle this sort of treatment has perished long ago. However, I am unsure of how my new transplants will fare. Fortunately I have plenty of bagged oak leaves on hand, and so not to risk it, I went round the garden and top dressed all of the transplants with dry leaves to offer some protection during this cold snap (20 degrees F last night and 13 degrees forecasted for tonight)!

No idea if it’s needed but I’m not willing to risk doing nothing, especially with old favorites and new treasures.

While I was at it, I decided to cover other treasured plants (whether it’s necessary or not), it only took seconds and the dry leaves will simply to be brushed aside when the warmth returns come Wednesday.

Wishing you the best in your garden and looking forward to warmer days!

We can’t control either the weather or the climate in our yards, but we can work to get flowers as early as possible to give a much needed boost after Michigan’s winter.

So what blooms really early — before winter has officially ended — and does anything bloom in the dead of winter?

As I write this, it is late March — just before the main flush of crocuses (though some have started) and other spring bulbs and plants like corydalis, tulips, squills, hellebores, and many others. This is the time for the very earliest bulbs, and a very few other herbaceous plants, though I hasten to add that it is also the season for the winter blooming witch hazels, which, except for showing one below, I won’t mention more — you can’t go wrong with them, and they deserve a write-up all to themselves!

Besides the witch hazels, two plant groups that are out now and can form nice shows even in late winter are, of course, snowdrops, and winter aconites. Snowdrops are just the best! Two main species are grown in this part of the world, the common snowdrop, Galanthus nivalis, in many forms, some weird, and a few only galanthophiles could love and the giant snowdrop, Galanthus elwesii –with fewer forms. Here they are:

How do you tell them apart? Check the flowers below. The common snowdrop has a single green spot near the tip of the inner (tubular) floral parts, while the giant snowdrop has green on both the top and bottom.

There are a few other snowdrops that are occasionally seen — one of the more recognizable ones is Galanthus woronowii, the green snowdrop, with striking broad shiny green leaves. It’s below.

These all will bloom before winter officially ends — and in some years, even in late February.

Now for an additional thing that will bloom (conditions allowing) in the dead of winter, Galanthus elwesii var. monostictus. I wish I had more of this! Below is a picture taken Dec. 24, 2021. A snowfall broke some of the flowers — always a hazard.

The other well known genus that will bloom before winter officially ends. is Eranthis — the winter aconite. Here, almost all the ones grown are Eranthis hyemalis — also the earliest and easiest. It’s a good spreader for most people — sometimes seeding too readily! Almost everything you see is the typical yellow single — quite nice, and needing no introduction.

There are other color forms, as well a doubles, both yellow and green. A nice one is called ‘Moonlight’– a pale moonlight yellow, below right.

Now there are other Eranthis, and in eastern Asia (China, Japan, Korea and adjacent temperate Asia), there are a number of white flowered species. These are spectacular, but seem more difficult that the yellow species. Below is a Japanese hybrid that reasonably promptly forms a little patch. It is a lovely thing.

The hybrid is sterile, sadly, which also means that this does not develop the remarkable blue anthers that these have!

Less well known, and a bit fussy, especially to move and divide, are the Asian Adonis species. Especially the cultivar ‘Fukujukai’ will bloom in February in some seasons. Below is ‘Fukujukai,’ the most adaptable and fastest increaser, I think. The flowers are lovely in the sunshine.

Another one, fussier, but desirable, is the cultivar ‘Chichibu beni.’ In this, the flowers open quite orange, fading a little as they age. They are already now fading. Here are a couple pictures.

A cultivar with interesting floral form is Adonis ‘Beni Nadeshiko’ It is a bit later blooming perhaps.

Why are these so expensive? Well, it is because these fancy cultivars are all sterile, presumably of hybrid origin. So all propagation has to be vegetative. I’ve tried to get the parents, which are interesting, but a little less showy, and have managed to establish only one, which I think is Adonis ramosa (I’m not certain — it may be A. multiflora) It’s below, sets fertile seed, and self sows gently. Nice.

I’d be remiss if I did not mention one other genus, Helleborus. One clone of Helleborus niger, a plant I got years ago from Seneca Hill Perennials as a clone that starts blooming for Thanksgiving, consistently blooms from late fall, through the winter, often peaking in mid-March Now the flowers are fading (which means turning pink). It does not have the largest flowers but as it can bloom in mid winter, that’s pretty nice! So this is the third plant that can bloom for me in Michigan in the dead of winter (the other two being Hamamelis ‘Orange Peel’ and Galanthus elwesii var. monostichus).

Other Helleborus niger are at peak now. Some years (but not this year) Helleborus thibetanus will also bloom before winter is over — I’ve stuck in a photo from last year for fun, of a very nice rich pink. It’s so beautiful, and the leaves have the decency to be deciduous, so you don’t have to choose between cutting them off or looking at ugly, winter damaged leaves!

Well, that’s enough — and just about covers most things that will bloom in winter (or at least just before winter is officially over). But let me just add one more thing that is quite surprising — the largest species of the otherwise rather uninspiring genus Chrysosplenium — Chrysosplenium macrophyllum. When I took the picture, last week, it was not quite in bloom — but the bright pink anthers are just fantastic.

Chrysosplenium macrophyllum

This is the only time in the spring when you can just about cover everything in flower — the floodgates will soon open and we’ll be inundated with bloom!

One last note. All these early bloomers respond to a warmth, so you can have considerable influence on flowering time by siting, either hastening it in a warm site, or delaying it in a cool site. You do have to be a bit careful to not push this too far, however, or plants may burn by coming out too soon.

Just before COVID hit, our chapter had agreed to do a re-build of the Marie Azary Rock garden, It was a small tufa garden, and with a quick redesign by Bob Grese (then Director) with our Chapter advising, we got started. The new plan involved more area, more tufa, more relief, and a design that centered around a dell to maximize microhabitats based on exposure and elevation.

So off we went — and suddenly crashed to a halt when everything shut down with COVID. We just barely got the outline laid out. But last fall, we started up again, started building up the dell, got some more tufa, and things are looking good.

Once we got the outline of the dell started , we started to work on the narrow (S) side, firming up the outline, and building height. The largest pieces of tufa were mostly on top, as they will retain the most water. The soil used was a fairly heavy moisture-retentive loam. Most of the planting will be on the tufa, so a moisture retentive soil will help wick water to the tufa and keep it moist longer.

We needed lots of soil to build up the spine of this lobe of the garden, and lots of helping hands.

Here is the upper part of this lobe. But more soil and more tufa later, we are getting up there.

This truck load of tufa got us to the end of the season.

Below, we can see the high point starting to take shape with more tufa.

Here is a view up the dell, with the highest point in place — just about all we could do last fall

We finished up the ridgeline along the south side, with a small section of tufa crevices, to have more habitat diversity. Should be great for Daphnes.

What’s next? The south section is done, and after settling over the winter, we first need to get the garden weeded. The richer soil will have lots of weed seeds, some perennial and nasty. Then, we will be ready for planting. We’ll keep you posted.

And we will also need to have work days for the north side, after getting yet more tufa.

Come help out — we’ll let you know when things start up.

For the second year (of our two year obligation) the Great Lakes Chapter has completed filling the Second Round of the NARGS Seed Ex. In this phase NARGS members requested seed that was still on hand after all of the First Round seed requests had been filled.

GLC members filling orders would select a seed order request (which would ranging from 20, 40, 60, 80, or 100 seed packets). NARGS members requesting seeds indicated the number of seed packets they were interested in acquiring, by listing the identifying seed number as their first choices. If a desired packet of seed was no longer available, then a second choice (if listed) was selected in place of the missing first choice. GLC volunteers moved from table to table pulling designated glassine envelopes of seed (each species and cultivar marked with it’s own identifying number) from trays holding rows of seed packets, and dropping them into a berry box (for that order)

Between 15 to 20 of the GLC members donated their time over a 2 week period, to meet up at Tony Reznicek’s garage and fill a total of 247 Second Round Seed Orders.

Once a pass across all of the tables of seed trays has been made, pulling requested seed packets from the order list, a second pass may be necessary in order to replace first choices (not available) by pulling second choice seed packets (also listed on the order. If, after the second pass thru all of the available seed trays failed to meet the requested number of seed packets, the shortage would be made up by pulling substitutes (if requested). The seed packets were then placed into plastic bags with the order number written onto the bag and set on the staging table along with the order form, to be transferred into the padded mailing envelopes.

As this was our second year of filling these orders, this job will be preformed by another Chapter of NARGS next year. Something to consider when selecting a place to accomplish this task, is to have a heated space (especially for Chapters in a Northern locals), in which to work in. Tony’s garage was not and we had to make do with multiple space heaters. If your local NARGS Chapter has not yet taken of a project on behalf of the National before, the Second Round Seed Ex. is a great project to start with.

The loins share of the work accomplished was done by Holly Pilon (the overall director of this project and wearer of many hats), along with Lisa Quieggle, who took the seed order numbers from the on-line cart orders, and created the paper forms used to fill orders, and Colleen Mitchel, who’s duties included all things financial in addition to tracking and mailing. But all three of these ladies did a lot more than what I highlighted.

The Seed Ex is a big part of why people join NARGS. It would not happen if not for a lot of work most all of it unseen and unrealized. All NARGS members owe a great deal of thanks especially to Joyce Fingerut and Laura Sewowitz.

On behalf of everyone who donated seed, packaged it, filled the First Round Orders, and those of us in the GLC who filled the Second Round Orders,

Happy Gardening!

all photographs courtesy of Tony Reznicek.

Several months ago I posted about protecting newly planted conifers with paper Yard-Waste bags, I failed to include any mention about when to remove the bags. With the sudden jump in temperature this weekend ( despite the soil still being thoroughly frozen ), I’ve decided now’s the time to remove the protective bags. I usually wait for a forecast of 2 or 3 days of cloudy weather before I pull the trigger, however rain and snow moves in tonight and may last into Tuesday so I’ll uncover my plants today as I don’t want to be out in tomorrow’s weather.

Pinus virginiana ‘Wate’s Golden Broom’ showing it’s winter coloration. As today is quite sunny I’ll take some clothes pins and secure a piece of burlap fabric to the stakes to insure the sun light doesn’t scald any of the needles that were shaded for the past several months inside the bag. I’ll remove the fabric later this evening once the sun’s rays no longer reach it.

I hope you were able to get out and enjoy this weekend’s wonderful weather!