The light is definitely changing. I have to be quick now because in the middle of the afternoon the sun angles in the potting shed windows, arcs across the monitor screen and slides underneath my eyelids like it’s trying to poke me awake from my wintertime torporific stupor. Ground Hog’s Day has always been my favorite holiday because for me it marks spring within reach. Regardless of whether we get a Blizzard of ‘78 anniversary event or even snow in March, spring is still inevitable and closer by the day. The birds are singing, the sun is high enough and warm enough to send the greenhouse vents flapping and we’re getting into gear - a slow first gear to warm up our engines for the big spring push starting for us, in March and April.

A couple of volunteers came in today to help Gail and me tackle the weeds. Just like any other garden, the greenhouse desperately needs to be weeded every minute and the Kenilworth Ivy (Cymbalaria muralis) had gotten ahead of us. I think it looks pretty but it’s a very tasty harbor for the dreaded whitefly. Maybe thanks to my pest-icidal tendencies (I’m a killing machine armed with a soapy water spray bottle), we didn’t have clouds of whitefly up our noses and instead just suffered the discomfort of out of practice squats and deep knee bends. (Gardener calisthenics)

I know I’m not the only one to be easily distracted in the garden, or in this case, the greenhouse (Carol at May Dreams Gardens has written a lot about it) but you’d think because I do this every day and for a living that I might have achieved a little more focus by now. This morning I very purposely started unpotting this poor potbound Colocasia (C. fallax), then I’m not sure what happened - maybe I noticed a weed or wanted my camera or saw something shiny and the next thing I knew hours had gone forgotten by. My hori-hori was still impaled in the pot and poor babies were high and dry on the floor. All is well though. I went back to it and have it almost all divided and repotted now. Hey look, the iris are starting to bloom!

Gail and I were joined last week by an adorably snarky representative from Generation Y who maybe just might definitely be a gardener. Lila is a senior at Barrington High School. Her parents have a vegetable garden that keeps the family out of the produce aisle and she volunteered (of her own volition) with the Deadheads last summer. Gail and I got such a kick out of Lila that we encouraged her to come up with a senior project that would bring her back to the greenhouse this winter. Lila’s thesis goes like this: “The genetic modification of plants presents hazards to ecology and human health that outweigh the benefits of agricultural biotechnology.” For her field work, she brought in Arabidopsis seeds to test Mendel’s Laws - which in turn test my memory of high school and college biology. (Mendel is the one who said - in a nutshell - we carry dominant and recessive traits in our genes and pass a set of those traits to offspring in a ratio of 3:1) And Lila learned “old fashioned” plant propagation techniques from her project mentor, Gail.

One thing that I (as project photographer and nosey parker) noticed while working with Lila was that here was a teenager who, although she plans on studying environmental biology (or something else smart sounding) rather than horticulture, had some serious opinions about gardens and plants. (Seriously wacky opinions but I’ll get to that in a minute.) For all I’ve heard about gardening being a dying trend, I wonder - what about all the children of gardeners? Don’t you credit a parent or grandparent for teaching you -probably by example- to love gardening? My mother took over in our garden where my great-grandfather left off. As a kid, I was pretty disinterested in that garden aside from jumping in leaf piles and climbing Grampy’s trees but I have clear memories of my Mom planting flats of annuals and chewing parsley as she weeded. It wasn’t until college that I realized I inherited their gardening gene. (Maybe the love-to-garden allele is dominant and follows Mendel’s First Law)

While Lila worked on her project, Gail and I finalized the seed orders and discussed the gardens. And Lila chimed in. We may have to thank her for a new a new accent color on the cobalt chair and bench and she thinks we should have orange zinnias in the garden again and is dead-against ornamental vegetables (like our favorites Swiss Chard ‘Bright Lights’ and ‘Bull’s Blood’ beets) in a mixed garden. “Vegetables are for eating - not looking at!”, she said with conviction. Apparently it’s ok for a few flowers to prettify the vegetable garden though… Gail and I are secretly proud of her opinions and have no intention of following some of her advice.

I guess I was a little distracted on Bloom Day this month because I missed these little sweetums blooming (outdoors!) practically right under my nose. Walking from the greenhouse to the house I pass this little clump of heathers (or are they “heaths” when they’re winter flowering?) along the Enclosed Garden path. It was only when I walked that same path in the opposite direction the other day that I noticed them blooming away. Ericas like well drained, acid soil and full sun (according to AHS A-Z) and these definitely exhibit more blooms on winter’s sunny side. — So if you want to plant them for color from a winter window, think about placing them north of your view. This grouping includes Erica carnea ‘December Red’ (purple in the middle), ‘Springwood White’(front), ‘Myretoun Ruby’ (right) and E. x darleyensis ‘Mediterranean White’ (in the way back).

Taking the path from the Bosquet to the Water Garden yesterday I snuck up on the witch hazels and was surprised to find what I was looking for - Hamamelis x intermedia ‘Diane’ is starting to pucker up her lipstick blooms. Have you checked your witch hazels lately? Yo-yo winter weather might get them started before you know it.

In the greenhouse another fun surprise: Our Graptopetalum -probably a cultivar of G. paraguayense- is busy making babies.

If that’s not an excellent example of survival of the of the most opportunistic I don’t know what is. (Of course I gave new homes to all the kids I found.) Anything suprise you this week?

Seed catalog shopping is a dangerous business. Even for us. Even with a greenhouse for early spring sowing and 5 good sized gardens to fill we have to be careful to not buy more than we can realistically find space for. And like most home gardeners who are not independently fabulously wealthy, we have a tight budget. So as Gail and I go through the catalogs we also mentally scan the gardens and every time we find something - or are lured by artful photography with a blaze across that shouts NEW! - that we weren’t looking for, we have to figure out exactly where it will fit in the garden. (And that will help justify creating room for the seedlings in the already packed to the gills greenhouse.)

The Rock Garden was short shrifted last year and the Rockettes might be pleased to know that we have been keeping our eyes peeled for diminutive annuals to spark and brighten the midsummer “holes”. The plant we’re most jazzed about so far for the Rock is a teeny Eschscholzia caespitosa (California poppy) called ‘Sundew‘ from Thompson & Morgan.

Last year was the first year the Rose Garden saw much annuals action - this year we’ll branch out there too. (We know there’s more to life than Zinnia ‘Profusion Orange’.) It’s always a challenge to find new things for the Cutting Garden - it’s got to be long-stemmed, prolific, clean, pretty in vase and out - but our list of favorites and good-for-cut worthies is getting longer by the year. Is anyone -besides Julie!- tired of seeing Asclepias physocarpus ‘Oscar’ aka ‘Hairy Balls’ yet? New changes in the Display Garden mean new room for experiment there too.

We like to justify impulse purchases by reminding ourselves that we really have an obligation to try new plants/varieties so we can tell/show people if it’s worth the hype. What do you think about that? Do you want to see new things at your favorite public garden that are possibly difficult to find or grow yourself? Garden bloggers, are you letting yourself budget for things you might not have tried before “going public”?

It’s a sunny, breezy 24 degrees F. outside and a sunny, fragrant, toasty-feeling 62 in the greenhouse. I’d rather be in the greenhouse than out of it right now. If you’re anything like me, in the middle of deep winter on the cusp of the age of aquarius you have a serious case or at least the onset of a serious case of cabin fever. It’s raw outside and it’s funky inside. For a gardener, I think the best cure is to surround yourself with plants.

As I see it there are a couple of options. For the unwilling to venture out, you could gather all of your plant babies together (or make the rounds) and spend some quality time grooming them. Have you started fertilizing yet? If you have, you might notice bugs on the succulent new growth. There’s nothing better than a little pest-icide on a winter’s day. Do you have a favorite method of control? In the greenhouse we duke it out with aphids, whitefly, mealy bug, scale and occasionally spidermite. We recently tried a Neem spray by Organica which cost $9 for a quart. For the difference in price between that and dish soap/insecticidal soap and no discernible difference in results, I have to say I prefer using soap. With soap I can spray with abandon! Neither Gail nor I love the smell of the Neem or the insectical soap, and I’m thinking of switching to my favorite lavender scented dish soap. Doesn’t lavender oil have insecticidal properties too or am I making that up? (Not that there’s much/any real lavender oil in the soap…) When I use any kind of soap, I dilute it so that there’s just the hint of a bubble in the spray and we don’t use it on the ferns or anything else with sensitive pores. We used to use horticultural oil (again, not on ferns, etc) but probably because I do have a tendency to spray with wanton abandon, many poor plants suffered under the onslaught and their leaves burned. It is best to spray -anything- on a cloudy day. Horticultural oil will kill scale but I actually prefer picking them off by hand and washing leaves and stems to control the sooty mold that grows on their sugary poo.

If you’ve already turned your own house into a greenhouse (anytime you pay attention to the plants in your house, you’re in a virtual greenhouse) and you’re ready for an outing - think about going to an actual greenhouse to indulge in a different climate. Not all greenhouses feel tropical but they are warmer than the outdoors and more humid than indoors - a welcome sigh in the middle of dry winter! More often than not there’s a scent or 12 to sip with your breath too. This teeny weeny little cluster of blooms is part of what’s scenting our greenhouse these days. It’s a Sweet Olive - Osmanthus fragrans and it’s delish.

The trip to the Smith College Botanic Garden is still on and there’s not much time left to sign up (the deadline for registration is February 6). Don’t miss this trip - sign up now and cure that cabin fever! Check out the Smith College Botanic Garden site if you need more motivation.

(click on images for a larger view and captions)

Like most people who have eyes and ears and minds that are open, I learn something new every day - but sometimes it’s good to get out and actually be “schooled”. Now that the gardens aren’t commandeering every moment of our time and every scrap of energy in our minds and bodies, we can give ourselves the chance to be taught by something/someone else outside of our daily realm. For Gail and me it’s a winter ritual to go to the RI Nursery and Landscape Assoc. (RINLA) Conference and Trade Show.

I attended the RINLA Conference yesterday and as usual came back with my mind humming and my world a little rattled. Sometimes it’s not just that I don’t already have access to the information that’s being shared but find by listening to someone else (usually an expert) speak about it, I am handed a new way to process or think about the information. For instance, during the panel discussion on invasives (what’s currently being done to limit/control invasive species in RI and MA), Dr. Sue Gordon from URI mentioned worms. She said that as a kid she remembers crashing around the forest in leaf litter that was up to her knees. Now-a-days forest leaf litter is only ever inches thick. Native worms in the U.S. were wiped out in the last ice age and what we’ve got now (we all know this) are European immigrants and we’ve been taught as gardeners to love and feed these lowly dirt munchers. Well. Perhaps too much of a good thing is not so good after all. Worms are not meant to be in our forests and leaf litter that breaks down too quickly is not good for forest ecology (see Teeming with Microbes by J. Lowenfels and W. Lewis). Native plants get stressed and opportunistic invasives get the strangle hold and the balance goes all out of whack. Dr. Gordon who also manages Kinney Azalea Gardens in South County said that she can’t keep a root ball around her nursery plants because the worms have made the soil so friable. Have you ever had worms in a potted plant? Because now that I think of it, it’s awfully hard to keep a wormy pot watered… Maybe - could it be that we shouldn’t go quite so crazy adding organic matter to our gardens - especially those of us in places that have been teetering on the edges of drought? I don’t mean to say that we should stop making compost or ammending the soil in our gardens but I do think we might have to keep an ever more vigilant eye out for all kinds of potential invasives in our local landscapes. And we’ll have to learn methods of moderation. (Doesn’t come down to “all things in moderation”?) And I think we should keep getting “schooled” by the experts. Have you learned or heard anything that rattled your world this winter? (For lists of Blithewold’s winter educational offerings click here and here.) At RINLA I learned more than I knew about using native plants too - stay tuned for that post later (when I’ve done some more reading on the subject!).

I can’t let a 15th of any month go by anymore without a peruse for blooms for Garden Blogger’s Bloom Day - now a year old at May Dreams Gardens! This time of year it’s not easy to find outdoor blooms - I actually can’t tell if the hellebore is blooming today or still fully in bud (I didn’t want to track footprints into the bed to investigate)! More shall be revealed with the melt… Like most gardeners with a real hibernation style winter, we have more blooms indoors. Here is a little greenhouse selection:

Today at Blithewold has otherwise been about undoings. The garden volunteers came in to help finish un-decorating the house. It was a morning of organized chaos; a calm implosion of glitter and ribbon and a chance to reconnect with friends after the holidays. There is something about undoing that is a lot like gardening - it’s fairly tedious and yet relaxing (or is it mind-numbing? This group who spooled miles of tulle called it some kind of therapeutic - “moron therapy” I think it was…) and it’s completely gratifying to see the tree un-ornamented and boxes neatly packed and labeled - like finally taking a good satisfied look at the garden you spent all morning on your knees weeding. It seems like we only just decorated the tree and it will seem like only another moment before we’re back in the gardens together again. A couple of garden volunteers were honored at lunch today - Ann A. is beginning her 31st year in the gardens and Louise W. her 26th - that’s amazing dedication and devotion! And this gardener was honored and completely undone - I know now what it means to be “showered”! I’m going against the grain to include this picture of me (this blog is about Blithewold!) but I want those of you to whom my back was turned to see the giant grin you placed on my face (the tears didn’t show in the photo). Merci beaucoup beaucoup beaucoup!!

I think winter’s gone upside down for the moment. Less than a week ago I posted this about an honest to goodness arctic-like morning where my fingers felt like they might fall off and I couldn’t hide my nose deep enough in my scarf to keep mean Jack from biting. This week the temperatures in RI have risen into the 60’s. Weird. I’m not inclined to complain - the other day I worked in the potting shed with the outside door wide open while the greenhouse vents flapped up and down (they’re set at 75 and 80 degrees F, I kid you not). It’s pleasant to walk out in less than eleven layers of clothing. The smell of thaw outside is gorgeous and sweet and I want to suck it all up and wear it like perfume. Birds are singing, the bees have been out for a stretch and still-fat squirrels are racing all around. The weather is perfect for winter walks and wildlife sightings (hawks have been circling overhead). I like it. But it’s weird.

I’m nervous for the spring flowerers. If you were a bud wouldn’t you want to swell to burst in this weather? The Forsythia are still wrapped but the Quince is showing an awful lot of green… And the Witch-hazel buds might open soon.

The unseasonable warmth can induce a gotta-get-out panic in gardeners too. It’s ok. Relax. It’s not time to cut the garden back yet. Instead, go for a walk and look for buds, keep perusing the seed catalogs and start thinking about fertilizing your houseplants again. The sun is out again today so I gave half-strength fish emulsion (Neptune’s Harvest, 2-4-1) to our big potted flowerers like the Camellias, the citruses and Gardenia and to particularly anemic looking other things. In another couple of weeks on another sunshine day, I’ll feed the whole greenhouse (except the Sweet Olive -Osmanthus fragrans- which, we found out recently, prefers starvation).

Tomorrow the forecast is calling for rain and thunderstorms. Thunder in winter? - Weird. After that maybe it will start to feel like January again.

I think one of the best things about January is getting to flip through the blank pages in a crisp new calendar and writing in the stuff of life. (Yes, I’m easily amused.) I like to write things like “fly to Paris”, “sunny, warm - bees are out”, and “Bonsai workshop 10:30-12″. Blithewold members, did you get your winter flyer of education programs and events? Have you filled in your calendar? (–Have you registered for classes?) Those of you who aren’t members, don’t you wish you were? click here for a special deal and just for kicks, check out what we’re offering this winter and see if you’re inspired to fill in a page -or 9- in your calendar too.

The first to do is the Owl Prowl - sure to be a hoot and a half (am I easily amusing too?) the evening of January 23. There’s nothing like the sound of an owl - and to get to see a real Hedwig winging over Blithewold would be amazing. Fred Orwiler, former director of education at the Norman Bird Sanctuary will teach everyone how to hoot like an owl with any luck the group will get to watch one in action.

On February 9th, Julie Morris (director of horticulture here and container planter-upper extraordinaire) is teaching a bonsai workshop where you’ll get to take home your very own trainee. Anyone who loves the miniature worlds of fairy gardens and terrariums will get hooked on bonsai too - it’s inevitable. I’ll be there.

After that on February 12 (just in time for the big V day) learn all about the health benefits of chocolate from herbalist Bonnie Kavanagh. Evidently chocolate is one of the major food groups (I knew it all along) - try samples, learn recipes and impress your Valentine.

Hop on the bus to the Smith College Botanic Garden on February 23. Our own greenhouses are very cool (if I may say so myself) but I was blown away by Smith’s. There’s just nothing like house after house after house of the most amazing plants from all over the world. If you can tear yourself away from the greenhouses (I had trouble) the entire campus is a gorgeous garden too. This trip needs 30 people to happen - please oh please sign up by Feb. 6 - for my sake if not your own!

Learn about xeriscaping from landscape designer Brooke Merriam on February 27. Anyone with a garden who remembers last years drought (let’s not sugarcoat it - some of us watered a lot) should attend this class. Xeriscape isn’t about desert gardens anymore - it’s about being smart about water.

March 1 is all about (All Abuzz over) bees and honey. If you’re half as facinated as I am by bees and how important they are in the world, you won’t want to miss this. Local beekeepers will tell us all about pollination, bee culture and keeping. And after trying honey samples and different cheeses from Milk and Honey Bazaar you might never have the same relationship with regular sugar again. It’s honey for me all the way. (Hey look! - It’s so warm today, the bees are out! You’ll have to believe me - they don’t show up well in the photo.)

Our own Susan Gimblet is sharing her love of African Violets on March 19. She’ll be selling plants from her own (ginormous) collection, and will divulge all the secrets she knows about growing and grooming healthy bloomers. Look out - African Violets can be as addictive as terrariums and bonsai…

We can’t be awake in the world right now and not be thinking “green”. Bob Chew from SolarWrights will talk about renewable energy systems on March 22 and show how you can transform your home into a lean green machine.

Finally, get out your camera and learn digital garden photography from a real pro on March 29. Barbara Bourgette, an organic gardener and artist will show examples of her work and critique yours. This is a camera’s-on workshop. Just think - you and I might find ourselves using some of those mysterious bells and whistles on our fancy cameras!

I don’t know about you but my calendar is filling right up. Anyone else as gratified as I am to fill fresh pages with what’s going on?

I know a lot of you in the world are used to cold weather but this Bristol morning’s wicked cold temps felt remarkable to me! And just to prove it, I took my camera to the water for a couple of shots of the harbor boil, rimy ice on the rocks and the wind that made me send my nose and faceparts scarfward. brrrrrr!!!! It was a fast, frozen fingers, fogged glasses walk back to the potting shed, I’m telling you!

The greenhouse was covered in ice and the uninsulated potting shed windows were gorgeously glazed. Gail and I cranked the heat (to a balmy 62), leaned our elbows on the radiator next to the table and spent the whole day scheming and planning each garden, working our way across the property from the Rose Garden to the Rock Garden. Now that we have color ideas (no, we’re not stuck on orange this year - yet!) we’re ready to dive into catalogs starting tomorrow…