Oh natural spring . Last dark temperature dipped near freezing ( 33º F here in Worcester , but during the day , it warmed up to nearly 80º. As I drove home from workplace , it reminded me of a deep freezing that we had in 1996 – I remember this as we spent the evening with the previous Christopher Lloyd and Fergus Garret from Great Dixter that evening as they spoke at Tower Hill Botanic Garden . The frost was so severe , that many trees were lost in the forests around primal Massachusetts , as they could not recover from the late frost after the fresh increase has emerged .
No worries this time – ‘ near freeze ’ is normal in mid - May , as is a bit of blow in some years . The oaks , maple and birches can handle a bit of low temperature as long as the thermometer does n’t plunge below 25º. Earlier this calendar week , while driving home from Michigan , I was detect how different each valley seemed to be week aside in how they were emerge – even Ontario had wake-robin grandiflorum in bloom , while some down valleys in PA it look more like mid March with the native maples just blooming . Other vale and hillside looked as if it was early June . This was most noticeable in Pennsylvania , but even here in New England , springiness can be in a very different stage from one local to another . Elevation , weather and many other factors can cause these micro climate , but one matter was sure – spring was well on its way .
So much is in bloom mightily now ( as it most potential is in your garden as well ) , that I ca n’t seem to keep up with updates – so this situation may seem a little random , but I am flock together a fiddling of this a that , so that you do n’t miss any of the highlights .
take down to self – order more Camassia this fall . A pile more .
Last year I planted many Camassia in the front garden , a more naturalized domain with heaths and heathers , mixed drifts of perennials in enceinte clump and bury - implant with light bulb and lily . I be intimate this sort of planting , as you know – no lawn , just masses of various flora . The addition of Camassia has taken some sentence , as it seems that every clock time I seek to ordinate some bulbs of this American native incandescent lamp , it is sell out – patently due to it ’s use and even popularity in present-day landscape painting schemes , in exceptional those by Piet Oudolf . I ca n’t say enough about this works , not only does it get better every twelvemonth , it really puts on a show . Order some now ( but look until I do , please ! ) .
I ’ve grow a few ship’s boat rhododendron in the past , but by far my ducky is Rhododendron ‘ Fragrantissimum ’ , a semi - tender white ( sometime pinkish ) loose growing rhody which indeed is extremely fragrant . Typically it blooms here in the wintertime , providing it ’s spicy white flower just in time for a good , January snow storm , when under glass , they are most welcome , but this yr our plant has decided to bloom late , oddly enough , just when many of our aboriginal rhododendrons are blooming . No headache though , this gem still beat them all .
Rhododendron ‘ Fragrantissimum ’ has parents that hail from Asia ( near the Himalaya ) . These tender rhododendrons add a sealed horticultural elegance to a glasshouse , as if I should have used a sinister and white box camera , as the flora just looks like something from an old , vintage photo from Kew . This selection is old , however – it received a first socio-economic class security in 1868 from the RHS so it is hardly new on the scene . This is one of the aspects of horticulture that I find so absorbing – that one can breathe in the same fragrance that people in 1868 did . awesome , heirloom scent , like breathing in a morsel of antiquity .
Another interesting summation last year is this Libertia ” Amazing Grace ’ , a hybrid of a middling little New Zealand native that seems to be doing discovery in a large pot . A near expression provides hints that this is a relative of the sword lily , but it looks more like a genus Tradescantia intersect with a blackberry lily , which I guess is still half - direction like an iris .
Texturally the foliage along is lovely , but in flush , it is leave a nice burst of color and insolence to the greenhouse walk of life . Tender , I keep it under cool glass . This year I will be experimenting with a few more unusual semi - tropical perennials such as this , that few seem to use in container .
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