Easter Flowers
Happy Easter from my garden to yours. Spring has sprung at Northview Gardens at last.Read more
Beautiful Bloodroot – A wild flower for a spring shade garden
The Bloodroot, (Sanguinaria canadensis) is a spring ephemeral flower native to Eastern North America. The flowers appear for only a few days and then the irregular leaves unfurl from around the stem. Bloodroot is a wild treasure that is well worth growing in a shade garden under deciduous trees like oak.Read more
Twenty Minutes in the life of Crocus tommasinianus ‘Roseus’
At last a sunny morning that feels a little more like spring. These two photos, taken twenty minutes apart, show the opening of these diminutive crocuses as the sunlight warmed them. How cool to actually stand there and watch flowers open.Read more
Digging dandelions? Salad anyone?
Dandelions (Taraxacum) are the bane of the neat gardener. In the spring they grow fast using the energy stored in their tap-roots. Before you know it they will be cheerfully flowering and then quickly producing many wind blown parachute-like seeds. After the snow melt and spring rains the soil is moist enough to easily…Read more
‘Snow Bunting’ Crocus
This dear little white crocus called ‘Snow Bunting’. It is the only crocus bred by E.A. Bowles that is commercially available. Check out the web site for his former garden in England. These corms were planted in a terracotta pot sunk into the ground to try and stop the voles and mice from eating them.…Read more
The Spring Garden at Northview
This is the Spring Garden at Northview on the first day of Spring 2014 (Compare to previous post). The snowdrops are out – Galanthus nivalis – single, double – Flore Pleno and Viridapice with green on the outer segments. Look out for future post about the different types of snowdrops.Read more
Two years ago on this date – it looked like spring
Today is technically the first day of spring, but it is not very spring-like. Despite the heavy rain yesterday we still have a few little patches of snow left. The cold air, frozen soil, and the fact that we only have snowdrops and winter aconites out, make the garden feel more like winter than spring.…Read more
Hello Garden! – On re-acquaintance of garden and gardener after a snowy winter
After a long period of hibernation, the slumbering, catalog-crazed gardener emerges from the nook by the fireside. Stepping gingerly outside the back door, it is time to reconnect with the still frozen wasteland that used to be called your garden. What a hard winter! Frozen rain and strong winds have broken branches and knocked down…Read more
Tommie crocus shocked by a St Patrick’s Day snow
Even though Spring is only a few days, away an early morning snow shower surprised the Tommie crocus (See yesterday’s post). Luckily the early spring blooming flowers are adapted to changing environmental conditions as the mostly come from mountains where the weather changes rapidly. The flower is closed tightly to shed the falling snow. Photo…Read more
Crocus tommasinianus (Tommies)
At only two and a half inches tall, this fragile ephemeral beauty is commonly known as a “Tommie” crocus (Crocus tommasinianus). The great English horticulturist, E. A. Bowles, called these crocuses “Tom” for short, but I am more inclined to call them the more feminine “Tomasina.” Bowles described the “chief charm” of a Tommie, as…Read more
