Does this look familiar? Now is when I officially might start repeating myself - exactly one year ago tomorrow I wrote Blithewold’s first ever blog post - I kid you not. It’s Blithewold’s anniblogiversary!! And it’s truly déjà vu all over again because it looks for all the world like we’re on the same track as last year. Here’s my first post - should I just say “ditto”? This morning a few regular Deadheads, a couple of new faces and Joel potted up about 200 cuttings and transplanted at least as many seedlings. (What would we do without the volunteers?) Just like last year, tomorrow promises wind and we’ll definitely start cleaning up the North Garden this week. No doubt I’ll even want to wax rhapsodic all over again about those adorable little velvet accordian fold Alchemilla mollis (Lady’s mantle) leaves hidden under last seasons scrunky dead stuff. (I mentioned to Julie how much I love cleaning up the Lady’s mantle and she looked at me like I was painted purple. Come on! What’s not to love about that job?)

As gardeners we’re used to doing the same thing over and over, year in and out (dig, plant, weed, repeat). It’s a good thing our gardens are never the same twice though because I’d hate for this part of my job to become redundant. One of the most rewarding things - and the one I had no real idea of when I proposed writing a blog for Blithewold - was getting to meet such an amazing group of gardeners from all over the world. I live for your comments (I can hear the new-mail chime on my computer from the other end of the greenhouse) and just as the gardens wouldn’t be as beautiful without the volunteers, this blog wouldn’t be as writable without all of you. Thank you for a fabulous year and please join me for another!

The Sweet Peas have germinated!! And the cabbages, kale, and onions too! Of all the Sweet Peas only ‘Lilac Ripple’, ‘Chocolate Streamer’ and ‘Blue Streamer’ are lagging behind still snuggly sub-surface.

Beverly, one of the Rockettes, came in this morning to start some more seeds - in earnest now - and Gail was back and forth and up and down like a shooting gallery bear moving plants and trays to make room for all the newbies. Today Bev seeded things like snapdragons, Delphinium, Ammi majus, Lavandula angustifolia ‘Ellagance Sky Blue’ (a dwarf that’s supposed to bloom the first year from seed - we’ll see…), and digitalis, laurentia, limnanthus, asperula and glaucium - most of which I have no memory of ordering but Gail said a lot of them were my must-haves. hmmm…

I still have roses on the brain and am getting really excited about everyone’s suggestions. We’ll be ordering from Heirloom Roses because they have ‘Morning Has Broken’ and I’ve added a couple of Buck’s roses to the list as well as ‘Robusta’, ‘Stanwell Perpetual’ (both recommended by Jodi), ‘Autumn Sunset’ because it’s beeeautiful, and maybe ‘Silver Jubilee’ for the same reason. I also got a very nice email back from Alex Withrow who answered my question about AARS winners being sprayed with fungicide. She said the rule allowing for fungicidal spraying was changed in 2005 but they haven’t yet had any winners under the new conditions. Soon, she says and I hope for all our sakes and the rose growers’ that those winners are well publicized for being extra super-duper. In the meantime she sent this list of roses that she says perform well in the north east:

* Carefree Delight
* Crimson Bouquet
* Julia Child (my personal favorite!) - says Alex
* Knock Out
* Lady Elsie May
* Living Easy
* Rainbow Sorbet
* Memorial Day

Alex ought to know because she grew up in Providence. She said, “[I] have many wonderful memories of Blithewold from my childhood. Thank you for maintaining such a wonderful place!” - That’s just what we love to hear! Thanks, Alex and thank you all for sending your suggestions. (If anyone has more thoughts to share, I’m still listening - always!)

I don’t get out much. It’s actually a little embarrassing. I go to work; I go home and pet the cat. It’s true that I get to see a beautiful garden every day. But it’s probably good for my soul and imagination to get out and see other places now and again too. And when I do get out, like I did this weekend, I think “why don’t I do this more often???” The bus to Smith College in Northampton, MA left Blithewold at 9:30 Saturday morning and by noon we were transported far further than the hundred or so miles up the Mass pike.

The Lyman Conservatory greenhouses were a feast - though we weren’t allowed to touch and certainly weren’t allowed to taste! (I did have trouble keeping my hands off the plants and had to slap my own wrist several times.) Each house had a completely different “feel” - from a global temperate zone with plants segregated by continent to the palm tropics to a ferny understory to the desert - all of which made me wish I hadn’t worn my usual 42 winter layers. I might never make it around the world in one go but this felt like a start. I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves - if I managed to get a plant’s name, I’ve included it in the caption. My only regret on the trip (aside from wardrobe disfunction) was that I didn’t linger longer to write down names - nearly everything was beautifully labeled.

Outside, the campus was a treasure too and almost had me wistfully wishing I could be a dewy eyed undergrad again just to stride the curving campus paths like they were made for me. I got over the wistfullness when I remembered exams and allnighters. Our tour guide said that they frequently spot stressed out students in the “aroma room” - a house full of scented herbs. I think I should have taken better advantage of hort. therapy opportunities at my school - I’d have been happier for it, I’m sure. Anyone out there go to Smith or have happy memories of a beautiful college campus? Anyone seek solace in their campus greenhouse?

Let’s start at the very beginning
A very good place to start

Now that you are all enjoying a Rodgers and Hammerstein earworm like me, I can tell you spring has officially sprung at Blithewold. There’s something that happens in the 3rd week of February - have you noticed a change? We mark it in our calendars every year. The sun is a certain smidge higher in the sky so when it’s out - even if there’s a frigid wind like there’s been this week, the greenhouse toasts right up. The birds have noticed the change too and I’ve noticed them - just this week. There’s a guy outside the potting shed right now singing and chattering away all about how cool he is. (I agree that he’s a studmuffin but he does go on and on…)

And - drum roll please - it’s spring because we started sowing seeds! I think gardeners know the answer to the chicken/egg conundrum - what comes first, the plants or the seeds? - it’s the seeds, obviously -duh! Gail and Lilah (who - three cheers! - will be our intern this summer) did a bench full of 17 varieties of sweet peas. We don’t knick or soak our sweet pea seeds because we’re not in a rush for them to germinate. We sow 2 seeds per peat pot in damp potting soil (Metro mix 360 with coir) and we water them in and keep them in one of the cool greenhouses (night temps around 50 degrees F). Knock wood, most germinate within a couple of weeks - the red varieties are sometimes slower . No matter when sweet peas get their start, they’ll bloom around the same time because they’re day length dependent.

Dick (vegetable garden volunteer extraordinaire) also came in to go through his seeds and he couldn’t wait a moment more to start leeks, onions, strawberries and artichokes. Did you know artichokes need a period of vernalization - temperatures in the mid 30’s to 50’s in order to produce tasty flowers late summer?

During the flurry of seeding activity, Julie (Blithewold’s director of horticulture) and Tara (the princess) came to prune the 40 year old Calamondin Orange. Every year around this time, Julie gives the tree her trained eye and a trim and every three years or so she root prunes as well. It has gotten to the size and age now that we really should root prune more often. It didn’t just pop out of the pot like we thought it might and we had to ask the Men to work their muscle magic. (They used a saw. I gotta get me one of those.)

Julie cut away not quite a third of the roots altogether (a third is the general rule of greenthumb). She cut away from the top edge, scored triangle chunks out of the sides and sliced through the dead feeders that had been up against the pot. She trimmed a good 5 inches off the bottom as well. Early spring is the time for root pruning because that’s when the plants are programmed to put on new growth. For some plants, root pruning in the fall can induce permanent dormancy (call it death).

Anyone else out there who couldn’t wait another minute to start some seeds or do spring chores?

Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone! A day early for Garden Blogger’s Bloom Day, here are blooms galore (mostly from the greenhouse). Every day I work around plants that I want. I go around sometimes saying, “I want you. and you. and yes, you too … and you … and …” - I think you should tell your Valentines that you want them (every day) - even if they know they’re already yours!

Click on pictures for a larger view with caption or hover over for caption alone. Is the new font size better for everyone? (I’m not squinting nearly so much) Also, if you’ve been having trouble reading these posts using IE, that’s working better now too. Thank you, Scott (and thank you, Wiseacre for very constructive criticism - it’s always welcome here)!

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)