outdoors and in

Outdoors, the hellebores and the rosemary are the only things blooming in today's storm of snow, rain and slush.

 Helleborus x ericsmithii 'Champion' has a refined appearance, a green flush, and looks like it is carved out of stone.

 Helleborus niger 'Joseph Lemper' is larger, and less formal in appearance. He has a larger flower than his brother 'Jacob', and the flowers tend to appear as twins, which make them look a bit crowded.

 The H. orientalis hybrids (H. x orientalis) are beginning to bud. This one is a single white from Pine Knot.

 'Connie' suffered a lot from too much sun this last summer, but may still put on a show.

 The double spotted white I got from High Country Gardens before it closed, is starting to bud.

 Rosemary 'Gorizia' has a few scattered lavender flowers.

The plain old rosemary from Home Depot has a lot more flowers, of a nice blue.

 I might have started seeds too soon. This is cardoon 'Gobbo di Nizza.'

I had saved seeds of Dianthus leucophaeus from my old garden. I'm afraid for them since I do not have a sunny cool window, and these are my only seeds. I can't find seeds on-line. This is just like the Veronica tauricola that I had at the old garden. I'm sure the new owners have killed it, and I don't have any and can't find any. Lesson: when you get an unusual plant, do what you can to keep it. It may be very hard or impossible to replace.

winter orchids

This is why I grow orchids.

Neofinetia falcata

When the outdoors is full of peaceful browns, greys, and dark greens, I may get a yearning for something blooming, and even better, something that smells delicious, like this Neo, which gets my mouth watering with its vanilla creamsicle scent.

Dendrobium 'Blue Twinkle'

'Blue Twinkle has a bit of sweet fragrance when the sun hits them.
Orchids are actually less work than the amaryllis (Hippeastrum) that has to go outdoors in the summer. I still haven't found the right spot for them - the direct high desert sun is too much for them, and the shade is too dark. I don't have a tree big enough to put them under.

Neostylis Lou Sneary 'Bluebird'

I have the orchids growing under lights next to a window. The lights are powered by electricity, which is ironically produced by the sun through the PV system on the roof. Better than from fossil fuels, but not a perfect system I know. It would be better to move to Hawaii, but then of course, there is all the fossil fuels used to transport household goods, food, etc., to the islands. So all in all, I think I'm doing okay. This intergeneric hybrid combines the fragrance of Neofinetia with the grape-like fragrance of Rhynchostylis.

Lc. Rojo 'Barbara'

This is not the Rojo that I grew as a teenager, which was an unnamed seedling. I knew it as the child of Laelia milleri and Cattleya aurantiaca, but I see on the web that Laelia milleri is now known as Sophronitis milleri, and Cattleya aurantiaca is now Guarianthe aurantiaca, so Lc. Rojo is now Sophranthe Rojo. Whatever you call it, the one I had years ago, was more of a sealing wax red, with shiny petals that looked like they were made out of wax. This one is an award winning clone (for whatever reason), and is more orange red. I've had this plant for 2 years, purchased as a tiny growth,  and this is its first flowers. As the plant grows, it will produce more flowers, hopefully like my old plant which had 10-20 flowers on a stem. Rojo isn't fragrant, but so what.

I've had some success with Dendrobium moniliforme, so last year I bought this variegated version Dendrobium moniliforme 'Himeginsetsu' from Andy's. Bummer that the leaf tips have browned, but it's doing well enough to bloom. It's produced a few blooms off and on for the last few months, the pale pink flowers smell like cherry blossoms.

Buds are forming on some of my other orchids, so more to look forward to. Yay!

hellebores again

Hellebore 'Jacob' fading to pink picotee. It didn't do that last year.

First time for this plant of Hellebore 'Joseph Lemper' to bloom. Not looking very impressive, but next year should be nice.

 Just as the H. niger's are fading, Hellebore 'Champion' starts to open. I bought this last year as H. niger 'Joseph' but I knew it wasn't, since the leaves were wrong. I believe that this is H. x ericsmithii 'Champion' since it was the only other white Hellebore that the company sold. More green tinge than H. niger, which is typical for the x ericsmithii hybrids. A bit disappointing to me at first, but now I like it.

vitex before/after

Before:

After: 

Funny that the Vitex held onto its leaves this year. None of the others in the neighborhood did. After an hour and a half of leaf stripping and pruning, I'm much happier. From mushy mess to architectural. Very satisfying.

winter combo

I really like this combination of Siberian iris 'Caesar's Brother', Helleborus hybrid and Veronica liwaniensis.

lawn-b-gone

In two days the lawn was taken out and a flagstone path was placed with new drip irrigation and new planting beds (yes, that's frost on the planting beds).  I'm not sure if it looks nice or if I hate it. Sigh! I'll just have to think about all the new plants that I can put in.

the clean up debate

Every year the question is debated: to prune now and clean up the garden when there is little else to do, or wait until spring and allow some winter interest? Some plants have an attractive winter appearance, and if we follow the examples of Piet Oudolf and Oehme/Van Sweden, we should leave them alone until spring. Waiting until spring also shows which parts have died over the winter and which have survived. Cutting back too early can also remove some of the plant's winter protection and cause more winter die-back.

Logically, the ones that don't have such a nice winter appearance and don't have the worries about die-back (such as the herbaceous perennials that die to the ground) should be prettied up now.

So that should mean that this vitex should be cleaned up now, although it does get a significant amount of winter dieback which is not necessarily predictable, and pruning now can mean pruning again in the spring when new growth shows where the live parts and dead parts are.

 This Nepeta 'Walker's Low' doesn't have the most attractive winter appearance, but the dead foliage does serve as a marker so that I don't "forget" how big it gets and try to sneak in more plants than will really fit.

Caryopteris has a nice winter appearance, but will need to be pruned back hard in the spring, and although I could just shear it down, I like to do the more time consuming task of pruning out the dead wood. So the debate continues. In all honesty, things will get cleaned up as time and weather permits, usually when I'm itching to do something in the garden, even if I "should" wait until spring.

There, don't you feel better now?