Real Good Hellebores

Monday, June 25, 2012

A most welcomed rain began last night and continues intermittently this morning. It's an even 55° outside now, windless and quiet and the critters of the woods and skies are quiet too, apparently waiting for the storm to pass. We have been asking for rain for weeks now and although we still didn't get what we really need, the amount that has fallen so far has made farmers happy that the parched fields left from recent "first cuttings" have had a drink. Gail says the weather reports look like continued rain for three days. We'll see.

The picture up top here is of some hellebores I purchased from Barry Glick, Sunshine Farm and Gardens several years ago. Although they are going to seed right now, they were beautiful this spring and because of such limited snow cover this past winter, they bloomed earlier and longer than usual. Barry has been hybridzing this plant for many years and his website is worth a look-see for many reasons. He has a special going on now and I am thinking about purchasing another 150 plants to spread among the shade garden at the flower farm. Hellebores do great with sun but I have places were the sun pokes through the maples and box elders and that's where I am thinking for more spring and early summer color.

If you grow different hellebores, send along a note or some pictures so more gardeners can see what a nice plant this is. A bouquet of mixed colors is beautiful and brightens the house for some time.

Time to pack some lunch and head to the farm. Need to start by giving the zinnias a final weeding. Not fun work but it has to happen. If you are out and about today, stop and say hello. Gail and Michael will be there all day today. I'll be in and out.

George Africa
The Vermont Gardener
Vermont Flower Farm
On Facebook as Vermont Flower Farm and Gardens and also as George Africa
On Twitter as vtflowerfarm
Always here to help you grow your green thumb!

May Day

Sunday May 1, 2011

Bright sunshine is everywhere and the crisp, wind-free morning made it difficult to get Karl the Wonder Dog to return to the house. I have a ton of things to do before our crew shows up at the nursery but the overwhelming cheerfulness of the morning makes me wish I could stay here on the mountain and enjoy the new sights and sounds of spring. All manner of birds are singing this morning with mourning doves adding their part and pileated woodpeckers drumming on sugar maples.

In just a couple days the spring flowers have really advanced. Daffodils are popping out, drumstick and common primroses are adding spots of color, and the hellebores, heads hanging, offer contrasting whites and purples. The Trillium grandiflorum I seeded in four summers ago are up 6 inches and looking good but the larger clumps have hardly started to break ground. The Trillium luteum that will offer yellow later on are up two inches and Trillium erectum, the odoriferous "stinking benjamins" are coming along nicely . Someplace here I planted some bloodroot but in contrast to along the Winooski River at our nursery where they are in bloom, I cannot even find them here.

Walk your gardens today and get a final look at your layout before the leaves really pop. Make mental notes of spaces that need attention with another plant or shrub and keep your friends in mind for a shovelful of extra plants that need to be divided. Your friends will smile like the spring flowers knowing your gift will add to next spring's beauty.

I have to get going here. We open the nursery next weekend for the season but if you're passing through today, stop and say hello. We're plating madly but we always have time to help you grow a greener thumb!

Writing from the mountain above Peacham Pond where loons are calling.

George Africa
The Vermont Gardener
Vermont Flower Farm
Helping you grow a greener thumb!
Find us on Facebook and twitter

Shivering: A Spring Cautionary

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Gray sky, sun peaking through two ominous clouds, winds at 7, bursting to 11 mph and back. It's spring! Yesterday's heavy rain raised streams and rivers and moved Lake Champlain to flood stage. Dirt roads like ours that last week held promise of drying out have returned to ruts and runoff. They remind me of my youth on Church Hill Road, Woodstock. Seemed to me that age six was too young to learn about building temporary corduroy roads to get the old Chevy home for the night. There was no choice and we all pitched in to find old tree limbs along the roadway to fill in ruts and get the car, equipped with tire chains and already well muddied, home again.

Spring looks different around New England today. In Burlington along Lake Champlain, the hellebores slow significant bloom and draw many "What is that?"s from still unfamiliar gardeners. Ours here on the mountain are still buried under a couple feet of snow and are weeks away from bloom. And it's this disparity of garden images that's important to remember as gardeners, with pent up energies, want to get busy in their gardens.

Like the hellebores in some gardens, hosta pips rise from still-cold soil and give encouragement of luxuriant growth soon to come. Garden lovers often get a little hasty in the spring and on that first warm day rake leaves and want to begin to fertilize. This is not good thinking as fertilizers spread before the last threat of frost has past encourage quick leaf growth of weak, thin, susceptible leaves that will get nailed day after day by subsequent frosts. Here on the mountain I make myself hold back on the leaf raking in the hosta gardens for this very reason. The tree leaves blanket the emerging growth and offer some protection until we get closer to the first week in June. Where you live it may well be a different world but to stave off disappointment here, we have to be patient. Give this reminder some thought and temper it with your knowledge of your last frost date.

Writing from the mountain above Peacham Pond where the winds have blown every last seed off the platform bird feeder. The ground is covered with finches, some bullied back and forth by mourning doves scratching for millet seed. Karl the Wonder Dog is begging for a second opportunity to sniff spring.

George Africa
The Vermont Gardener
Vermont Flower Farm
Social Networking Works!©
Find us on Facebook at Vermont Flower Farm and Gardens or at George Africa
Writing on Twitter as vtflowerfarm
At VFF we'll help you GROW your GREEN THUMB!

Ravens of Winter

Friday, January 1, 2010

Slow getting started this morning after staying up with Gail to watch the New York festivities. I have to say that Karl the Wonder Dog and I have never been impressed with the thought of standing on a street corner in NYC for 10 hours shifting from one foot to the other while waiting for the appointed time. For some, this is something that must be done and now watchers come from around the world to stand and watch.

The snow is falling lightly now. For almost a week weather forecasters have been emphasizing low pressure zones, "ocean influence" and "heavy snowfall potential". This morning the prediction had been reworked to read something like "light snowfall over a long period" as if saying over forty days and forty nights you might need a shovel but probably just a snow brush and the windshield wipers will get you to town safely. Storms do have the potential to change and two days ago when the high winds began, we saw 36 hours straight when the wind gusted from the northeast and I envisioned hours in the truck plowing snow. Don't think so this time.

I fed the birds this morning and put two fresh chucks of suet on the platform feeder. The birds swarmed to the feeder and blue jays came out of the forest to eat. Almost as quickly as they came, they left. I wondered if a shrike or peregrine falcon has appeared on the treeline as they sometimes do but I couldn't see anything. As hunt and peck put letters on the screen, I noticed a blur out of the corner of my eye and as if trained to do so, I stood and stepped to the window. My presence and movement had caught a mature raven in mid flight heading for the suet. Just the flash reminded me of Bernd Heinrich's book Ravens In Winter but I did not need a book to identify the great suet grabbers. Two of them. I yelled to Gail to stand in the window and act odd if the ravens returned while I went hunting for old onion bags to wrap the suet in. Before Gail chanced to perform, I was outside wrapping the suet and tying two orange bags securely together. The larger of two ravens vocalized some nasties from a tall balsam. That may not have been true as I don't understand raven but I do know they weren't all that pleased to see the suet confined to bags. These are a very intelligent bird that deserve more study if you have any living around your house.

The lower shade garden is well covered with snow now but I still think of my missing European ginger and a collection of hellebores I bought from Barry Glick at Sunshine Farm some years back. Since hellebores are a beautiful spring flowering plant, it's worth a little time to research what's on the market and who has big, well rooted plants for spring delivery. I'm buying some again this year as I finally have a place ready for a hundred or so new plants. Take a look at Barry's site and determine if you should try some this year too. He uses those tall tree band pots and they encourage excellent root systems that translate to big plants in short order. Here are some pictures of some that I have growing.

Just thinking about the lower garden has encouraged me to take a walk. Karl's tail is wagging a welcoming "Let's go!" Hope you had a pleasant New Years Eve and that today and the rest of the New Year will be healthy for you and your gardens.


Writing from the mountain above Peacham Pond where fearless chickadees are eating sunflower seed between the chunks of ravenless suet.

George Africa
The Vermont Gardener
Vermont Flower Farm

First Snow

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Returned home late yesterday, but fully aware that a big storm was coming. It was billed as a possible nor'easter and I knew that this time of year that could mean about anything. One forecaster had the Adirondacks of New York lined up with 12-14 inches of snow and high winds so I decided I'd try one last time to grab a few pictures and enjoy the fall scene.

The list of things to clean up in the gardens before serious snow arrives is quite long and this apparently is not the year to challenge Mother Nature. That reminder was confirmed when Vermont Public Radio mentioned a major storm of over a foot of snow on the same day in 1952. Although quite young, I remember that year well because that was when we were fairly new to Vermont and depended on a vegetable garden for food. Let me leave it that there was just not a lot to go around. Unlike the melting snow, those memories have never left me.

I changed quickly and got Karl the Wonder Dog and the camera and away we went with Karl's nose pointed out the truck window, sniffing and snorting fall smells of interest. We arrived down at Ethan Allen Corners and the view I wanted was perfect, although the rain didn't help the photographer much. The tamaracks are a beautiful yellow right now and they contrast against the rusty browns and yellows of the swamp grass. This valley opens with wildlife this time of year as large game cross back and forth and waterfowl follow the small stream southwest to where it meets the Winooski River. This is an area that makes you want to stop and stare and enjoy.

We turned around and headed back home as I wanted to walk the shade garden again. That garden has been a part of me since I began to build it years ago. It presents a tranquility, a peacefulness that I thrive on. I miss it when I can't find the time to enjoy it.

We made it to the garden bench and I spread out my jacket and sat down. Karl chased a chipmunk that was missing an inch of his tail. Rain fell, but the smell of the leaves on the air was refreshing just the same. In front of me were dozens of hostas, topless and well trimmed. Deer on fall maneuvers had diligently eaten each leaf, flower scape and seed pod, leaving only spiky looking affairs that could have served as models to Dale Chihuly's beautiful glass art. Oh those deer...what an unusual relationship I have with them!

I couldn't sit as long as I wanted. Karl was impatient and I wanted to walk a little more. The power of the granite foundation blocks looked stronger than ever, their color enhanced by the rain. The Christmas Ferns were beautiful and the adjacent groupings of European Ginger contrasted so well with the fallen maple leaves.


As Karl and I walked up out of the sunken garden, the Japanese primroses and the various hellebores were obvious. The wet summer days had set the year's seed crop well and gave last year's new plants a good jump start. Next spring Gail will have a good selection to dig and pot for sales.

We reached the yard and I noticed a crab apple tree shaking with a flock of robins devouring the seeded fruits.For some reason a line from an old Johnny Cash song came back to me, not the song's name, not the whole line, just a piece, hopefully correct, kind of appropriate to the view.

"Did you ever see a robin weep, when leaves begin to die?"

We grabbed the mail out of the box, waved to a passing neighbor and headed for the house. Our brief mission was complete.



Writing from the mountain above Peacham Pond where geese are resting for the night, hopeful for clear skies tomorrow.

George Africa
The Vermont Gardener
Vermont Gardens
Vermont Flower Farm

Rising temps, rising flowers

Saturday, April 28, 2007

Up to 45 degrees here on the hill, the light drizzle has stopped and a bit of sunlight is encouraging me to write faster and get outside. I really wanted breakfast to serve as a jump start today but Gail suggested a piece of freshly frosted carrot cake instead. She just finished making a beauty for the planting crew that will be here shortly.

Gail makes one of the best carrot cakes you'll ever eat--to me "the" best. If you want the recipe, let me know and I'll send you a copy. I like moist cakes with good flavor and this one fits the bill. But for this morning I was thinking about some eggs and toast and juice. I've been informed that I'm on my own, but that's not uncommon around here this time of year. Already Alex and I have found ourselves looking at each other at 9 PM asking "Did we have supper yet?"

Apologies from The Vermont Gardener for taking a leave of absence from this blog without having the courtesy to advise regular viewers we'd gone into hiding. It wasn't really like that, we were just plain busy. There's legislation in Montpelier related to autism and that's a subject that's dear to us. That meant a constant daily/nightly email campaign. Monday the House will get the bill out of the House Education Committee and we're hopeful on that. Two weeks ago we had Gail's mother's 90th b-day party and in between we have raked tons of leaves, planted a buckets of lily bulbs, put the cover on the greenhouse, and split two cords of wood for next winter. We've also compared aches and pains which prevail when out-of-shape +50 year olds come out of hibernation and find out how far it is to the ground all over again.


The forsythia is finally coming into bloom and the pulmonarias are already putting out flowers for the first hummingbirds to savor. If those tiny birds got a good travel agent this spring, they should be arriving here on time the end of next week, beginning of the following week. They are like clockwork in their arrival here unless there is a big storm someplace that delays them just like the big jets that can't get out for a few hours or a few days.

Gail's favorite, the hepaticas, began to bloom earlier this week and as always with her first look, shel begs me to plant her some more. This is one of those childhood loves that never fades. I agree they are a very nice wild flower and they help jump start our gardening enthusiasm for dirty hands and happy spirits.

I have raked off a third of the lower hosta garden pictured above. This is the garden built inside an old barn foundation. It's coming along nicely and with the rain this weekend, the first hostas will begin to grow. Montana aureomarginata is usually the first or second to break ground. It does this just in time to get nailed by a hard frost or two but it always comes back in all its glory. The lancifolias break through early and hold tight as they can handle temperature change better.

The hellebores are in bloom and for once the foliage looks great but the first flowers look a little weak. That will all change in a week or so. If you don't have any of these, stop by and take a look. We don't have any for sale this year but will next year when we move.

The first daffodils are in bloom over the bank here by my office. The tulips are up about 2 inches and growing fast. I raked off the hosta garden by the little frog pond and already the blue scilla are up two inches so bloom should be this week too. The list goes on and on.

If you're out and about, Peacham Pond Road is muddy in a couple places. Our place looks like a bomb hit as there are piles of tires stacked here and there and hundreds and hundreds of feet of rolled up plastic and folder insulating cloth. Place looks like a big recycling center but this is how it should look as we uncover the gardens and prepare for another season of growing good plants.

As I have said for many years, we grow hardy plants for hardy Vermonters and their friends. Be a gardening friend and keep us in mind for a visit this season. In the meantime, show compassion for my absence from this blog and give us a question or two to help your gardens grow better. We don't have all the answers but we know a lot of people who do.

From the mountain above Peacham Pond where a tom turkey is calling his female friends and looking for a fight with competing males, while two docile mourning doves coo happy thoughts and act out plans for a new family.

Gardening wishes,

George Africa
http://vermontflowerfarm.com
http://vermontgardens.blogspot.com

Desirous of Spring

<

Sunday, April 15, 2007

Already 7 PM and the snow continues to fall heavily, drifted first left, then right by shifting winds that care not where the flakes fall. The seedheads of the various rudbeckias have pretty much been pecked clean by the goldfinches but tonight they are like mini towers with 2" of snow stacked like a tube on top of each head. The still-firm stalks hold strong and the snow waves back and forth in the wind. Nature's super glue at work!

No one can deny the beauty outside with today's snow but you'll be hard pressed to find words of encouragement from anyone around here. It's an even 32 degrees now and has been for an hour. Before that it was 34 degrees which made the sticky snow cling tightly to every tree and shrub. There it remains. The blackberry bushes look impressive but already the birches are weeping under the heavy weight and these trees never seem to rebound from wet snows. All is not as beautiful as first glace suggests.

Today we had a get-together to celebrate Gail's mother's 90th birthday. It was a low key event with family members from Massachusetts and South Burlington. Another couple from Johnson caught one of those spring viruses that are going around and they had to cancel. I was sorry as I knew they would come early and if they had come, Jan and Al would have enjoyed a sight at the bird feeder at about 11 AM.

I was shuffling things around tryng to get the seating set up and I caught a flash out of the corner of my eye. It came from the birdfeeder outside my office window. Earlier I had chased away a flock of grackles and two ravens which were trying to steal some small pieces of suet yesterdays blue jay visitors had broken off the bigger pieces I set out Friday.

As I stopped and turned back to look at the feeder, I peregrine falcon burst from under the feeder, chickadee in its talons, and it fanned its tailfeathers and headed aloft with tremendous power and speed. These are beautiful birds and they are here because of a successful restoration program several years ago. Their favorite food is pigeons and their favorite residence has become cities, not pigeonless, houseless forestland like Groton State Forest. I do wish they would rewrite their menu to include a few grackles but they have no preference for those birds. Maybe it's the grackle's eyes and their finicky, easy-to-startle attitude.

Usually I am out raking leaves by now, or putting a new cover on the greenhouse we use to plant inside. In typical years the hellebores in the lower shade garden are forming buds and although the left-over leaves from last fall are wrinkled and brown, the promise of fine colored flowers and new leaf growth is encouraging.

Some years the first crocus would have come and gone by now but this year even by the house, the ground temperature never got warm enough to jump start the bulbs higher than half an inch out of the ground.

Gail just looked over my shoulder and commented on the hellebore pictures. She likes them too and thinks Barry Glick at Sunshine Farm and Gardens is the best US grower. I concur. I also wonder if he has snow cover today like we do. We're at 1530 feet and as I recall he's at about 4200 feet in West Virginia. Chances are it's warmer than here but snow may be in his vision too.


Time to move along as I need to get get organized for tomorrow morning. I plan to be in the truck by 4 AM to get things plowed out and cleaned up so I can get to work. If it keeps snowing like this, it could be that the "get to work" part won't be possible. We'll see.

From the mountain above Peacham Pond where Karl the wonder dog is asking to go out, just as snow slides slowly off the standing seam roof with a "thud-thud-thud" noise as it hits the piles of snow now far above the bottom of the window sills.

Cold gardening wishes,

George Africa
http://vermontflowerfarm.com
http://vermontgardens.blogspot.com