Enjoy It While It Lasts - Winter Jasmine, Hellebores, Daffodils, 'Georgia Blue' Speedwell, Boxwood Flowers and More!

After a harsh winter (especially last month - 8th coldest February on record in Tennessee) we have been basking in above-average temperatures for the past couple of weeks.

Yesterday's high temperature was 77 (Fahrenheit). The previous day was 73. Last week, we hit 80.

As a result, leaves, buds and flowers have been bursting out all over, making for a lot of pretty pictures (see below).

Unfortunately, temperatures are supposed to take a nose dive later this week. We're expecting lows in the 20s (perhaps as low as 23) on Friday night and Saturday night.

Usually, I am what you'd call a Darwinian gardener - I let plans thrive or die with minimal intervention. (Well, I water them for a season to get them established, but I don't spray or coddle after that.) But in this case, I'm tempted to try throwing a sheet over the crabapple tree. It's loaded with buds and I'm worried that many of them will be killed in the cold snap.

For now, enjoy these signs of Spring!

'Honey Bee Blue' Agastache (I believe A. rugosa). Purchased three from a local nursery last year, they all seem to be coming back nicely.

I'm pretty sure this is Agastache foeniculum 'Golden Jubilee' (anise hyssop), but the leaves should be emerging a chartreuse color. So perhaps the original plant has died and the seedlings have reverted to the species A. foeniculum? (Prairie Nursery does call the species a biennial.)  I'll post an update later in the year as to the foliage color as these seedlings mature.

Shoots and flower buds on Ajuga genevensis (blue bugle, Geneva bugleweed)

Sedum telephium (I believe the 'Autumn Joy' cultivar)

I'll admit it, generally I think boxwoods (Buxus) are boring and overplanted. Yet, the thing I like most about boxwoods is probably what other people overlook - not their bland evergreen foliage, but their sweetly-scented spiky flowers that attract pollinators such as bees and (as you can see here) other insects including flies. Flies don't get much respect, but I'm sure they have a bigger role to play in the world than landing on our picnic lunches.

And here's a bee (honeybee?) buzzing in the boxwood.

Clematis 'Crystal Fountain' -- got to do some judicious pruning here...

Aquilegia (columbine) self sows with abandon here. I love it and encourage it. Originally I planted a few different columbine species including the European A vulgaris and a hybrid called 'Winky', but I've decided to focus on adding and encouraging reseeding by the native species A. canadensis (wild columbine)

Purple coneflowers (Echinacea purpurea) are coming up throughout the garden, both as returning perennials and new seedlings. Again, love and encourage the reseeding. I'm also happy that the new seedlings are easy to spot and identify, unlike some species where you have to wonder for a while whether you're growing a desirable plant or nurturing weeds.

Look closely at the base of these stems and you could spot new growth emerging on Baptisia australis (blue false indigo). Although B. australis reportedly prefers well-drained soil and full sun, it seems to have done pretty well for a couple of years now in our heavy clay soil with a bit of shade from a neighboring crape myrtle tree. Note that the new growth can look a little bit like asparagus, but there is evidence that Baptisia is poisonous (for people) and should not be eaten! So to avoid a potentially dangerous misidentification, don't plant this anywhere near your asparagus patch!

Beautiful foliage and buds on the 'Sugar Tyme' crabapple. This is the one where I don't know whether I should try to provide some protection from the upcoming cold snap or stay true to my Darwinian ethos.

First cheerful blue flowers are appearing on 'Georgia Blue' speedwell (Veronica peduncularis)

Daffodils!

Most of the year I'm neutral-to-negative on daylilies (overplanted, high-maintenance, don't seem to have much wildlife value), but I always appreciate the lush, fresh new foliage in March that leaps out of the ground when many other perennials are still snoozing.

Dianthus gratianopolitanus 'Firewitch' (cheddar pink) - I was thinking of planting more cheddar pinks as a groundcover, but I'm a bit concerned that this one could be dying off in the center after a few years, which would not speak well for its potential as a long-term groundcover. I think I'll wait to see how/whether it recovers over the next few weeks...

Geranium sanguineum (bloody cranesbill) - planted three tiny specimens of the 'Vision Violet' cultivar last year. They struggled a bit as they had to compete with a rampant patch of cherry tomatoes, but they all seem to have returned bigger and stronger than last year, so that's a good sign.

Added a couple of hellebores to the garden last month. Of course, I planted them just before our temperatures crashed below average and stayed there for weeks with temperatures dipping into the single digits multiple times. Since these had been growing in an unheated greenhouse and hadn't had a chance to harden off, I assumed they would be goners. I covered them cardboard boxes (weighted down by bricks) that subsequently got soaked by rain and collapsed by ice. When I gathered the courage to remove the boxes after a few weeks, the hellebores looked fit as a fiddle. These are some tough plants!

Alchemilla mollis (lady's mantle)

Stachys byzantina 'Helene von Stein' (lamb's ear)

Lily

Philadelphus x virginalis 'Natchez' (mock orange) - Bought this from a sale section in autumn 2013 and got a great bloom last May. Then the plant just say there all last year, not growing an inch. I worried as to whether it had exhausted itself with the bloom and was on the road to ruin. Then late in the season, it sent up a sucker about six inches with fresh new leaves. Was that a good sign or did it mean all the old growth had died off? Well, so far, things look good. I'm seeing all the old growth (and the new sucker) leafing out. I'll remain optimistic on the mock orange.

I don't know much about mosses, but I think they're fantastic from both a visual and tactile standpoint, so I try to encourage them in the garden. I don't know how to identify this moss, but it seems to be entering its reproductive stage where sporophytes will release spores that will hopefully help the moss spread around the garden!

Symphyotrichum oblongifolium 'October Skies' emerging from under a winter blanket of leaves. I'm pleased to see that all three clumps of October Skies aromatic aster seem to have expanded nicely.

Phlox paniculata (garden phlox) 'David' - As with the daylilies, I think the sight of the fresh green foliage emerging in early spring may be my favorite think about garden phlox. The foliage always seems to get pretty tattered (and sometimes mildewed) later in the season. Still, it's a tough plant that has come back reliably year after year, so I should probably learn to appreciate it more. (I think there are some little Agastache seedlings growing alongside it this year.)

Viburnum 'Pragense' (Prague viburnum). I had five of them planted last year. This is the most impressive one of the bunch and I'm still not impressed.

Here are two of the less impressive Prague viburnums (Viburnum 'Pragense')

I'm pretty excited to see that this Salvia greggii (autumn sage) survived the winter. It's only marginally hardy in our zone and supposedly dislikes poorly drained soil (which is a big problem with our heavy clay). Still, it's one tough cookie and I'm pleased to see that it's back for another round. The other autumn sage I planted last spring seems to have died back closer to the ground, but I still see some new leaves near the base of that plant.

Native to the Mediterranean, Teucrium chamaedrys (wall germander) supposedly needs (prefers?) well-drained soil, but it seemed to cope pretty well in lightly amended heavy clay. All three clumps survived the winter and stayed partially evergreen. I cut off some of the damaged foliage to reveal this fresh new growth. The clumps seem to be expanding at a measured, moderate pace.

Myrica cerifera (southern waxmyrtle) not looking good. This is another marginally hardy plant in our zone. It's mainly native to sandy soils in the Coastal Plain of the Deep South. Perhaps I should have planted it in the spring to give it a chance to get established before it had to face near-zero winter temperatures and ice storms? I may have been doing a bit of excessive zone pushing with this one...(To add insult to injury, I walked by yesterday - after this photo was taken - and saw that deer had chomped off most of the branches. They didn't eat it, they just decapitated the plant, said 'Blech!' and moved on.)

Jasminum nudiflorum (winter jasmine). I'd read that winter jasmine might flower as early as December or January, and perhaps it would if we'd had a couple weeks of warm weather, but with temperatures at or below normal, it started flowering around the same time as the forsythia in mid-March. Bloom was sparse this year, with some of the buds frozen before they had a chance to open. The flowers are cheerful and I like the green stems, but the plant has a reputation for being aggressive in the garden. I'm not terribly enthusiastic after the first winter, but I'll take a wait and see approach and hope I'm bowled over next year (in a good way).

Rhapsody in Blue

Veronica  peduncularis "Georgia Blue" in glorious full bloom on April 9, 2014

Georgia Blue's foliage burned considerably over this harsh 2013-14 winter, and I toyed with the idea of shovel-pruning it and chalking it up as another gardening trial-and-error.

What a colossal dunderhead move that would have been!

Luckily, I bided my time and Veronica rewarded my patience with the foliage recovering at a stunning pace. (In fact, I didn't even have to remove any of the dead foliage as it quickly decayed and/or was covered up by new growth.)

Now I'm so smitten that I'm planning to add a couple more Georgia Blues in the same spot!

A Hard Winter, A Lot of Damage, A Little Hope

This has been a hard winter in Tennessee.

For the first time in years, the mercury dipped below zero degrees (-2 was the lowest I saw) and we had several nights in the zero to 5 degree range.

The lack of insulating snow cover and gusty breezes in my windswept hilltop garden compounded the impact of the cold temperatures.

The result? Zone-pushing plants took a real hit -- and even some broadleaf evergreens that should have been OK in my zone (like Sarcococca confusa) seem to have been killed or severely wounded.

After singing the praises of camellias in previous years, now I'm faced with the hard truth that they are only marginally hardy in Middle Tennessee.

A young camellia that I planted in November in a windy, relatively sunny spot seems to have suffered severe damage. 

Even this established camellia in a shadier and slightly more sheltered spot seems to have damage on about half its foliage.

And then there's Raphiolepsis umbellata, a.k.a. Indian Hawthorn. There were three of these in the back foundation bed (SW exposure) when we moved in. Native to India and Southern China, these members of the rose family are champs when it comes to tolerating heat and drought. They barely blinked and certainly did not wilt even when temperatures regularly soared past 100 degrees during the summer of 2012. Wind and humidity didn't faze them. Rabbits and deer didn't bother them. But the cold seems to have got the better of them.

Even the most cold-tolerant varieties are only rated as being hardy to 5 degrees Fahrenheit, and we've fallen below that number a couple of times this winter. I'm seeing what looks like significant foliage damage on all three Hawthorns. Of course, having never dealt with this before, I don't know whether the plants will shed their leaves in the spring and grow new ones, or whether they're not long for this world.

Indian Hawthorn in happier times (July 2013)

A toasted Indian Hawthorn in February 2014. Not looking promising...

Here are some photos of a few other plants that are not looking their best:

Ajuga reptans - Looks awful, but since it is rated as being hardy to zone 4, I presume it will bounce back

Ajuga genevensis - Much less common but a zone hardier than A. reptans, looks relatively thick, lush and unperturbed by zero degree temps.

Rubus calycinoides, Creeping Raspberry looking crispy. Hopefully this one will bounce back. It's rated to zone 6, but it's in a sunny, windy spot where it probably faced unusually high winter stress.

Stachys byzantina, Helene von Stein, Lamb's Ear - Most of this looks dead, but rated as hardy to zone 4, so I'm hoping it's just playing possum. There's a bit of fresh new growth peaking out from under the rubble of last year's leaves. The question is: Do I need to rake away the old growth this spring, or should I let it stay and decompose as mulch/fertilizer?

Veronica peduncularis, Prostrate Speedwell "Georgia Blue" - Looking fairly dreadful, but rated as hardy to zone 4 or 5, so again, I'm hoping this will bounce back as the weather warms.

What about the deciduous plants like crape myrtle, vitex, rose of sharon, fothergilla, chokeberry or redbud? Any damage they've suffered in these cold spells won't be visible for months until the plants leaf out (or not). I'll try to post an update when that happens.

It's hard not to get discouraged seeing how poorly some of the new and established plants have fared in this hard winter. But gardening teaches humility. I've gone back to the drawing board a bit this winter, scratching some ideas off the list and trying to find others that can withstand whatever heat, cold, floods or drought Tennessee's climate can throw at them!


So....where does the Hope come in?

Well, I did add two new shrubs to the garden that have impressed me so far with their toughness:

Juniperus virginiana "Grey Owl" -- rated to zone 2, this charming evergreen with a soft grey-green color has seemed fairly unperturbed, which is no real surprise as it's rated hardy to zone 2. Supposed to eventually reach 3-feet high by 6-feet wide, I'm considering getting several more as replacements for the Indian Hawthorns. As an Eastern Red Cedar, it's native to Tennessee, which is another plus in my book. 

Viburnum x rhytidophylloides --  Yes, the Latin name is daunting. And the 'common' name of Lantanaphyllum Viburnum really isn't that much friendlier. But last November, I bought and planted the pronounceable and esteemed "Allegheny" variety, which is supposedly more resistant to bacterial leaf spot than the species. (Always a good thing.) Allegheny viburnum is supposed to tolerate drought, pollution and heat. Thrown into the crucible its first winter in the ground, I can report that it has held onto at least a few of its leaves, which turned a lovely purplish color. And it's very encouraging to see the new baby leaves taking shape at a time when there are not many other signs of life in the garden.

So hope does spring eternal!

A maple branch starts to color up against a bright blue sky on a clear and seasonable February day.

Signs of Life ... and Death?

With the shot of warm air that finally hit Middle Tennessee yesterday (and looks like it will stick around for a while), I had the urge to go out and stroll the garden, taking photos of comeback kid plants and those that have put on a disappearing act.

Here's what I found...

The pink camellia (not sure of the name since it was here when we moved in) is still going strong and covered in blooms. I only fertilize this plant once a year with an acidic natural fertilizer! Yesterday was the first day this year to see a bee working the camellia bush. Definitely a sign of spring!

I wasn't too impressed with Dianthus Firewitch last year. It just kind of sat there, but at least it didn't die in full sun, intense heat and drought. This year, it seems to be expanding. All of a sudden, just in the last couple of days, it is shooting outward in all directions. Love the foliage color. Curious to see whether this will be a long-lived perennial...

One of the two native coral honeysuckles flanking the front steps. LOTS of buds on the plant this year (its second year in the ground). Looks to be establishing nicely. Can't wait to see if a profusion of flowers will attract hummingbirds (as it is supposed to do). Last year, it had a sparse bloom and I didn't see any hummers...

Phlox paniculata 'David' - tall garden phlox. I planted three small plants back in 2011 (so two years ago). All three have come back and multiplied. From one initial stalk on this particular one, it looks like I have about a dozen stalks this year. Exciting!

I was worried that I had killed my Rozanne Geraniums by transplanting them twice last year - first from the full sun back of the house to the afternoon shade in the front. Then transplanted them again to bring these low plants closer to the front of the border where they would be more visible -- and also because I needed the space to put in an oakleaf hydrangea (see below). Anyway, I'm pretty sure these small leaves are the reemergence of one of the Rozanne Geraniums. I see another plant emerging nearby. So that's 2 out of 3 (at least). Not bad for plants that were manhandled roughly last year.

I forgot about this lily altogether until I saw it pushing up boldly in the front of the house! We put in three Stargazer Lilies when we moved in back in 2011. I remember the two in the back of the house in full sun, but the one in the front in afternoon shade has never done much. It looks really strong this year though so I have high hopes!

This is the oakleaf hydrangea I mentioned above. The new leaves are unfurling at the tips of the branches even as the old leaves still hang on. I'd say that our oakleaf hydrangea was semi-evergreen in its first winter, but the old leaves are still beautiful - colorful and almost like they are etched with frost. I think it's exciting to see the new and the old side-by-side, each beautiful in its own way. Look forward to watching this plant undergo its metamorphoses throughout the year.

And now for some not-so-great news. As you can see, the buffalo grass patch is still looking pitiful. Not a single sign of green on any of the tufts. They might be dead for all I know, or maybe just still dormant. Either way, I can't imagine planting a larger patch of buffalo grass here in Middle Tennessee. Even if it is low-growing and green in the summer, I can't imagine having the lawn look like this (or a version of this with the dormant grass more filled in) during 5-6 months from November to April.

Trying to find the bright side of the ridiculously awful buffalo grass, I will say that all the spaces between the dormant tufts provide room for self-sown annuals like this volunteer lettuce to pop up. I plan to eat this soon. It looks better in real life than in this top-down photo.

And alongside the lettuce amid the dormant buffalo grass, I also like to see these adorable violets. They popped up early despite the cold spring and have added a touch of color and movement at a time when almost everything else was dead, dormant, brown or grey. I know some people think of violets as weeds, but I like them in my garden :)

Here's a close-up on a dormant tuft of buffalo grass so you can see just how pitiful and scrawny it looks. Not surprisingly, I had to weed this patch heavily earlier in the winter...

Moving to the front of the house, there are no signs of life on this Clematis integrifolia. I did not really like the plant last year - the flowers were pretty but down-turned on a low plant so that I would have had to lie on the ground to really see them. That's my own aesthetic sensibility - just not much of a fan of down-turned flowers. I don't mind them on Aquilegia (Columbine) but I'm not particularly longing for a Hellebore either for the same reason. Anyway, I figure I'll give this Clematis another week or two to make an appearance or show some signs of life before shovel-pruning it. Or perhaps I'll just cut it way back and see if it ever makes a reappearance...

This is actually one of my biggest disappointments of the spring! You're probably thinking, "That doesn't look like much." You're right - that's the problem! This is one of the three Ceratostigma plumbaginoides (Hardy Blue Plumbago) in my garden. All three of them are just bare little sticks right now. I loved these tough plants last year - they were pretty slow-growing, but they slowly did expand over the course of the growing season and they had the prettiest blue flowers plus lovely red foliage in the autumn. But I have heard these are very late to leaf out in the spring and they seem to be sticking true to that description. It's a pity, because I was thinking to try to propagate these and divide them and buy more to get a large scale Hardy Blue Plumbago groundcover, but I'm not sure I want to do that if they're going to stay dormant this far into the spring. (And that's presuming they do make an appearance and didn't bite the bullet for some reason over the winter...)

This is Geranium maculatum, just purchased via mail order. I don't have a good feeling about this plant to be honest (or most of the other plants that arrived in the same order).  The plant is quite small and some of the leaves have died since I planted it. But Geraniums are kind of tough plants (see the Rozanne above that I transplanted twice last year and still survived) so I'm hoping this one will pull through. I put it near the Rozanne to have a nice mixed Geranium area. That's the idea anyway.

This is Hexastylis arifolia, an ornamental ginger native to the Southeast. It arrived in the same mail order package as the Geranium maculatum above. Again, I think it's looking really pitiful. Only one of the leaves is hanging strong and the rest of the stems have pretty much keeled over. I'll give it time to recover, but I don't think it's looking good. 

OK, let's finish on a high note with some upbeat images. As I mentioned in my last post, I'm loving the Veronica Georgia Blue so far. I added two to the garden last autumn and both stayed evergreen through the winter and are now blooming their pretty little heads off in March and April. They are most floriferous on sunny days. Just beautiful!! Love that shade of blue :)  (This one is in afternoon shade and seems to be spreading a bit wider than the one in full sun, but the one in full sun looks good too, just growing a little tighter.)

I don't have the tag for this anymore, but I believe this is a variegated variety of Agastache foeniculum, a.k.a. Anise Hyssop. I bought this plant late last autumn and it did not have much time to settle in before it went dormant for the winter, so I was a little worried about it, but it seems to be coming back nicely this spring. It is actually supposed to prefer full sun (I have it in an afternoon shade setting) but it's related to mint and mints like moist soil and the full sun areas on my property tend to bake and dry out in mid-summer. So even though it is supposedly drought tolerant, I placed it in afternoon shade. So I may not get as many flowers as I would if it were in full sun, but hopefully the plant will survive and thrive. If I ever get another one, I'll probably try it in full sun just to see what happens, but I'm trying to minimize supplemental irrigation in my garden and find plants that can survive just on rain water (with an occasional  assist in extreme droughts), and I'm not sure that Anise Hyssop would fit that bill in a full sun setting.

Here's another plant that I added late last year. It's hard to tell what's going on from this photo, but trust me when I say this is a top-down view of a dogwood that was sort mistreated by being partially buried alongside a brush pile last winter. Some branches were broken and/or perhaps nibbled by the mice who made their home in said brush pile. Nonetheless, the dogwood seems to have pulled through and is starting to leaf out! Exciting stuff!!

Here's another perennial with a reputation for breaking dormancy late in the year. But it's still up and growing before the Hardy Blue Plumbago. You're looking at the emerging stems of the balloon flower - Platycodon grandiflorus, Mariesii variety. Again, I added this late last year and it still flowered prettily in the autumn, but I was not sure if it had time to settle in before winter. Looks like it did just fine. I love the fleshy purple stems. I believe Platycodon is supposed to be long-lived and able to thrive with little human care. My kind of perennia! Plus the flowers are amazing.

Again, it's a little hard to tell from this photo (given the difficulty my camera has with focusing sometimes), but this is Aronia arbutifolia Brilliantissima variety. All three of my aronias struggled with the heat and drought last year, but they all pulled through and are leafing out nicely. The two A. melanocarpas on the other side of the front steps are a bit smaller, but this A. arbutifolia has lots of leaves and seems to be covered with buds. I'll be amazed if it blooms when it is this small (only about 12-18 inches tall) but it looks like it might just do that! Wow.

Finally, to finish with a favorite, this is the impossibly fresh and clean green foliage of Sweet Woodruff. One of three patches that I have in the garden (another one smaller than this and one that's much bigger). This came from Gardens in the Wood of Grassy Creek (GITWOGC) last autumn and it looks just beautiful. Based on my experiences so far, I can say that GITWOGC is the only mail order nursery that impressed me with the size and health of its plants and their vigor. I placed another order from Dottie at GITWOGC this spring and am looking forward to receiving my plants next week. (Normally, I think she would ship earlier, but North Carolina's spring has been as cold as ours here in Tennessee.) Some folks say that Sweet Woodruff is invasive. I'm sure I'll regret saying this later, but right now I'm hoping it will invade a lot of the bare ground in my landscape beds! ;)