My Early Spring Garden

Hyacinth 'Delft Blue'

 

With the Spring Equinox past, early spring manifests itself in my garden. 'Delft Blue' hyacinths bloom along the front walk, as the carpet of several varieties of sedum begins to revive from its winter slumber. 

 

Blue Siberian squill, Pieris, and young rosettes of great blue lobelia.

"Queen Charlotte' violet (Viola odorata)

Along the east side of the house, the tiny blue flowers of Siberian squill (Scilla siberica) carpet the ground near a Pieris in bloom, among the sprouting young rosettes of the Great Blue Lobelia that is spreading here. My 'Queen Charlotte' violet is reviving and spreading nicely, but so far I detect no scent--perhaps it's still too chilly for the violet to emit its lovely perfume?

Hellebore Wedding Party 'True Love'

Hellebore 'True Love'

Close-up of 'True Love'

At the foot of the 'Bloodgood' Japanese maple, the hellebore Wedding Party 'True Love' is flourishing now that it's protected from the browsing deer. As soon as the critters have enough to eat in the woods, I'll remove the barrier so I can admire it without obstructions. I'd love to grow another hellebore near this one, perhaps one with white flowers with a touch of pink on the edges. There are so many beautiful varieties to choose from in my gardening catalogs, but all are so expensive, I may have to wait until I find some on sale.

Blue grape hyacinths (Muscari armeniacum) with 'Mount Hood' daffodils

In the back yard some grape hyacinths that haven't been browsed too much by the deer are emerging among the 'Mount Hood' daffodils, while the Forsythia's yellow announces the official start of spring. A few of the 'February Gold' daffodils in the back bed are in bloom, but most of the others won't open until a week or two later.

The back yard this week.

The Little Indians bed.

Lots of new shoots are coming up in all my flower beds--above are 'Autumn Joy' sedum with muscari and daffodil bulbs, and daylilies. I'd forgotten about the anemones I planted last year, and was surprised to find this tiny one coming up near my roses. Such a delicate little thing!

Anemones.

Bergenia buds

Front yard this week

In the front yard, the seasonal progression continues: the February Gold daffodils are finished, now the Thalia and Tazetta narcissus are just about to pop open. And, I have great hopes of seeing a few camellia blossoms for the first time--the buds are just beginning to unfold.

 

Camellia 'Kumasaka'

Ides of March

 

Blandy's Dogwood Lane, plein air watercolor, 14" h x 11"w.

Julius Caesar was warned, "Beware the Ides of March," in Shakespeare's play... at this time of the year the weather can be treacherous here--one day it snows, the next day it's a sunny sixty degrees! 

 

March 12 snow

 

Just last Saturday it snowed again, only a few inches, but the temperature stayed well below freezing the next day, and the snow stayed on the ground. The following day, the thermometer rose to sixty degrees, and the snow melted quickly.

Just a few days later, on the 16th, the Outdoor Painters of the Shenandoah group had scheduled the first paint-out of the year at Blandy Farm, and I was skeptical about joining them, but the morning dawned bright, sunny, and mild. So I headed out there, and was I glad! The day turned out to be gorgeous, so warm that I shed my three-season jacket halfway through the session. The day was inspiring, and my watercolor worked out so nicely!

The Exploding Sketchbook Challenge

 

Sketches from my exploding sketchbook.

 

One of the artist groups I joined recently, the Chickahominy Colored Pencil Artists, usually inspires us by presenting a challenge to work on each month. Last month's challenge was to create an exploding sketchbook or scrapbook, with links to instructions on how to make one on a couple of different websites.  One of the websites had a video showing the process, thank heaven--it would have been much harder to figure out how to fold and assemble this from only a verbal description. 

The concept was interesting, and the choice of paper as well as the size were up to each artist. I've recently become involved in keeping nature journals in the form of sketchbooks, so I thought it would be fun to create this unusual sketchbook as a challenge.

 

Fully extended sketchbook

 

I cut some old Waterford & Saunders watercolor paper that had been stashed in my studio for ages into three 15" squares, folded and glued them together per the instructions. The covers took longer to finish because I needed to find some decorative papers for the cardboard that would be large enough to cover the two 8" squares. The only decorative papers I could find large enough to allow me to have an extra 3/4" all around to fold over the edges were made in India--I ordered them from Dick Blick.

 

Front Cover of sketchbook.

Back cover of sketchbook.

The assortment of decorative papers had only one sheet of each pattern, so the front and back covers are different, but I think the whole thing looks elegant enough. Putting the ribbons and gluing the covers to the sketchbook was the last step. My sketchbook is now finished but not complete--it needs to be filled with sketches!

I've started filling the book with small watercolors and drawings. In the first section on the left, I've painted some Hellebores, crocuses and early spring flowers from my garden, and one of my orchids in bloom. I'll continue filling those pages as the season progresses. The center section will be devoted to summer flowers, and the last section on the right will have fall-blooming plants. Hopefully, once I've completed my sketches the exploding sketch book will constitute a unique work of art in and of itself, a record of flowers from my garden.

Spring Is Marching In

 

Crocus thomasinianus.

 

Spring is marching in early this year (pardon the pun!) with lots of crocuses blooming in my front yard under the cherry tree. The Crocus thomasinianus continues to spread; this species seems to be the only one that is impervious to squirrels in my yard. I've transplanted a few to other beds where they can continue to spread, and next fall, I'll transplant a few more to the backyard beds. My yard could use some snowdrops too, next fall.

Clumps of Crocus thomasinianus.

Species crocus with feathered veins.

The 'February Gold' daffodils in front are also bursting into bloom. The clump on the other side of our driveway, in a less sheltered spot, is about a week behind this one. The buds of white hyacinths along the front walk are coming up too.

'February Gold' daffodils.

'February Gold'

White hyacinth buds.

 

My hybrid witch hazel 'Diane' is blooming profusely now, along with the native one planted several years earlier.

Witch hazel 'Diane'

Shoots of 'Mount Hood' daffodils.

The new shoots of my "Mount Hood' daffodils are coming up too. Soon, my garden will be filled the flowers of spring bulbs!

My front yard on March 2.

Florida Sketches

 

Staghorn Fern (Platycerium superbum), watercolor, 10"h x 8"w.

I spent a week in Homosassa Springs recently, and managed to do a few paintings and sketches on location. I was fascinated by these huge staghorn ferns hanging from the porch of the owner's house next door to our rental cottage. I learned on-line that the staghorn ferns (Platycerium superbum) have two kinds of fronds: the sterile fronts are those plate-like flat leaves from which the horn-like fertile fronds emerge. The spores develop on the underside of the fertile leaves as brown patches at the tips.

 

Bald Cypress in Homosassa, watercolor sketch 8"h x 5"w.

 

Our rental cottage was right on the water, and had a wonderful view of the Homosassa River, with two lovely bald cypresses covered with Spanish moss and bromeliads shading the small yard. The views were fabulous!

 

The Homosassa River from our rental cottage.

Cloudy Morning in Homosassa, watercolor, 5"h x 8"w.

Dragon Boat on the Homosassa.

 

The owner of our rental cottage was kind enough to loan us two kayaks so we could paddle up to the main spring, which we did. It was a breezy day, and the distance turned out to be a bit more than we'd anticipated--the paddle upstream was a good workout. There were many manatees at the main spring, and lots of boaters, kayakers, snorkelers and divers there on this beautiful day. Unfortunately, the kayaks were open and I was afraid to get either my phone or camera wet, so I left them behind and didn't get any photos of the gorgeous scenery.

 

Blue heron in mating plumage.

 

A blue heron visited our yard one evening--this seemed to be his habitual turf, and he had no fear of us getting close. Lots of ibises, wood ducks, and other birds congregated on the opposite shore in the morning and evenings.

 

Ibises on the river.

Crystal River Archeological Park, watercolor, 14" x 10"

We spent an afternoon at Crystal River's Archeological Park, where I painted this watercolor of the view from the top of the largest of the Indian mounds found there. Another afternoon we drove out to the Chassahowitzka River, and it was packed like Grand Central Station there! Such a ruckus from the many radios/MP players from the boats on the water, nary a manatee dared to show. I didn't finish my watercolor of the view, though I made a promising start.

 

Pages 1-2 from my new Travel Journal.

Pages 3-4 of Travel Journal.

 

I filled in several pages of my new custom-made Travel Journal with sketches of an aloe on the porch next door, bromeliads that blew down from the bald cypresses, and a bald cypress seed from one of the opening cones--those little devils were resin-y and had very sharp points! On another page I drew a terminal branch from a loquat tree and a small branch from a live oak tree that was starting to put forth its blossoms.

 

Florida coontie (Zamia integrifolia).

Page 5 of Travel Journal.

At the Archeological Park in Crystal River I came across some coonties, a native Florida cycad (Zamia integrifolia). This cycad is dioecious--that is, there are male and female plants, and both have cone-like structures that develop at the base of the fronds. Only the female cones have seeds, of course--I managed to collect these two, which I'm going to try to sprout and grow at home. Attractive as they seem, these seeds are very poisonous, as is the rest of the plant. The Calusa Indians dug up the roots and leached the poisonous chemicals out of them to make a kind of flour.

Eagerly Awaited Harbingers

The first crocus.

 

The first early crocus opened a few days ago in my front yard on a lovely sunny fifty-some degree day--the first nice warm day since late December! I always note the date of this eagerly-awaited harbinger of spring (Feb. 9 this year), and was surprised that it was somewhat on schedule. The snow has been retreating since the beginning of the week, but apart from that, it has been so dry one would think it was hardly enough to encourage any subterranean growth. And yet, there is it!

 

Daffodil buds emerging.

I went about the rest of the garden looking for more signs of growth, and saw that a lot of the daffodil bulbs are emerging. These above are Mt. Hoods, but many others are coming up too, in all my beds.

 

More daffodil bulbs sprouting.

 

The following morning, another crocus popped up! This one seems to be one of the pale lilac Crocus thomasinianus. More will be coming up soon, if only it would rain.

 

Pale purple crocus.

The toadstools growing on the mulch seem to be re-growing too. They had been frozen under the snow cover earlier.

Toadstools growing on mulch.

Next week I'm off for Florida and new adventures. We'll see what the weather has in store for us when I get back in March.

The Snow Retreats

My back yard on Feb. 4.

 

This past January has been the longest amount of time that we've had snow cover the ground since we've lived here--almost ten years! The two storms that left snow and ice in early January didn't melt much during this period of extremely cold weather. One morning it was minus six degrees! And it seems that the groundhog did see his shadow, so we still have another six weeks of winter to get through.

But yesterday's rain started to melt the icy blanket, and it continues to drizzle today. A good bit of the snow has melted, although the shady parts of our back yard are always the last to go.

 

The east garden

It's looking almost spring-like, though new shoots are still far from emerging. Even so, my native witch hazel on the west side of the house is starting to open its blossoms. What a welcome sight! My hybrid witch hazel 'Diane' is nowhere near to opening its lovely reddish flowers, it will take a few sunny warm days to entice those to open.

Witch hazel flowers.

Front yard.

Our front yard has been filled with birds since we put out the feeders: a cardinal pair, a male red-bellied woodpecker, a blue jay, several nuthatches and downy woodpeckers, and lots of chickadees, sparrows, juncos, and titmice. Not many finches around this year--a couple of house finches at most. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to get any good shots of them--here's the best one from earlier in the week.

 

As the last bits of ice cling to the deck, it seems impossible that just a few days ago it was still covered with a treacherous layer of snow and ice. I look forward to seeing the first signs of spring soon. 

But first, I'm setting out for Florida with a friend in another week. I'm hoping to revisit some of my favorite places on the Nature Coast, then Big Cypress and the Everglades before we return on the 1st of March. Stay tuned for stories of our adventures.

Bits of ice cling to the deck.