Galanthus sp.
Louise Beebe Wilder (who died in 1938) wrote of snowdrops (Galanthus sp.) saying that she’d seen them force their way upward in mid-winter, “through solid ice and blossom, each surrounded by a tiny melted circle in the ice as if the chill little blossoms emanated a slight warmth before which the frigid element must needs give way.” I believe if I lived in a harsher climate, I would better appreciate these tough little beauties. Read more »
Stipa gigantea 2/10/2013
In August I wrote about Stipa gigantea in the post, “Large ornamental grasses, to have or not to have?” The flowerheads glow in the afternoon sun but the leaves regardless of the time of year, aren’t beauteous. Here in February you can see these Stipa are suffering from the plant equivalent of a bad hair day, most leaves lax and a few sticking up willy-nilly. They remind me of some sort of nocturnal animal caught out unexpectedly in daylight, creeping desperately for home. Yes, they’re green, which is always appreciated in winter, but in an ideal world I would hide the foliage of this one summer and winter.
String tied around a trunk, girdling it, you can see both ends of the string. The rest is embedded in the tree.
Inadvertent tree girdling is a surprisingly common phenomenon. Something gets tied around a tree and left there. The tree grows but the string tried around it, doesn’t. It seems like the tree would break the string like some superhero breaking chains but no, it just grows around it. Eventually it reaches a place, as in this photo, where the string has been taken into the tree. Death of the part of the tree above the string will follow. Read more »
Cotoneaster lacteus 12/23/2012
I went past this Cotoneaster in December and it looked like somewhat had decorated it for Christmas. I went back a month or so later and although the birds had clearly been at the berries, it still was a bright, fresh note to the gray and green of a typical winter day. Read more »
Fuchsia magellanica 1/27/2013
Fuchsia magellanica. It blooms and blooms and blooms and then it is dead. Not actually dead but dormant and of an ugliness surpassed by few plants that haven’t been badly pruned. The moral of course, is to plant Fuchsia magellanica where a bunch of sticks going every which way won’t be a blight on the winter garden.
The Cornus kousa from previous posts on January 12, 2013
Slender and lacy, the winter silhouette of this Cornus kousa is so lightweight it barely shows in this photo.
The original post on Cornus kousa in November when it was strutting its autumnal colors can be found here. In a few months I’ll have some shots of it leafing out.
