WInter Gardens

I think I have covered most of the plants I missed last summer and worked them in here. Before we get any farther along towards spring I should probably do something on winter gardens and landscapes. Especially since it has been trying without much success to act like winter the last several weeks. The light snows have not lasted very long and the total accumulation is just barely over fifty percent of normal for the region. Perhaps it will all be corrected in April with a few but overly abundant late spring snows that used to characterize Missoula springs. Very few gardens are designed with winter in mind, but in this part of the country when winter is almost as long as the time when we can actively garden it isn’t a bad idea to plan for that other long part of the year. The new white background, snow or frost, creates a dramatic and highly contrastive background, revealing depth where little was exposed across a curtain of summer greens.

Another nice thing about gardens in winter is that we can just sit back and look at the landscape. There isn’t any mowing or pruning or weeding to worry about, none of the unpleasant tasks that take some of the fun out of gardening. It will all be taken care of during the spring cleanup as we prepare for anther season of abundant color.

And of course, what would a winter wonderland be without snow? These aspen are along the highway northeast of Ovando on Highway 200.

Next week maybe we can begin to think about spring. One of my friends informs me that the crocus in the front of her house are beginning to show so soon the blossoms will appear as well.

My Mid-winter Indoor Garden

It is mid-winter and except for four or five inches of new snow nothing has happened in my garden. My last peek before the new snow showed a dozen buds on my Christmas Rose, the white Hellebore that usually starts blooming in late November. But indoors the orchid garden is blooming, or still blooming or is going to be really blooming soon. Here are a few things that are in bloom now.

First, is Restrepia muscifera, Mother Nature’s very own garden gnomes. This one repeatedly blooms on the underside of the base of the leaf.

Oncidiums, sometimes referred to as the Dancing Lady Orchids, are a large group of New World tropical and sub-tropical orchids. Several species are found in southern Florida as an extension of their home ranges in the Bahamas and Caribbean, and Central and northern South America. Oncidium Carnival Costume has become one of my favorites, blooming on schedule during mid-to late winter, and often reblooming until July from the initial flower spikes. It also grows almost anywhere – windowsills, under lights as well as greenhouses. The bright yellow flowers spotted with red truly are little dancing ladies brightening up the indoor landscape nad nicely contrasting with the snow white landscape.

Epilaeliocattleya Don Hermann ‘Gold Rush’ came from the Spokane Orchid Show three years ago. It likes a bit more light than I can give it so it summers outside and then goes under my new hi-output fluorescents. That seems to have done the trick this year, as it has with Laeliocattleya Rojo ‘Barbara’ HCC/AOS which should be in bloom in another 2-3 weeks.

Brassavola Little Stars, a hybrid between Brassavola nodosa and B. subulifolia, has bloomed for me the last three years. Mom, or maybe it is Pop, grows next to its offspring and both spent last summer outside but s/he has yet to set buds. That would be the “nodosa” parent.

This green and white Maudiae-type Paphiopedilum followed me home one day from the Bitterroot Flower Shop. It has several siblings hiding out among the others which should bloom later in the spring and during the summer.

A year ago I posted pictures of Cymbidium Valentine. It hasn’t even spiked yet this year but Cym. Evening Star ‘Pinkie’ has made up for it, and another unnamed Cymbidium is beginning to open its flowers.

More Things I Missed this Summer Part II

I could do a whole chapter on daisies which have multiplied into numerous types and varieties, and several different colors. Here is Gold Rush, the double yellow variety. Hollywood Lights is also very yellow but has a single flower. The fluffy double varieties have a tendency to fall over when they get wet so need to be staked. Like the white varieties deer don’t eat the yellow varieties either.

Ligularia. There are several species of Ligularia in cultivation but two basic types if one looks at the flowers; either a round daisy-type flower or a tall spike. The one pictured here is Ligularia przewalskii (pronounced shev-alski-i). Notice the deeply denticulated and striking foliage below the flowers. All ligularias prefer constantly moist soil and some shade.

Corydalis lutea. The yellow species seems to do best here although there are several blues supposedly hardy enough for Missoula. I’ve tried two but neither has made it through the winter. One didn’t make it through the summer.

Bleeding Hearts have been a staple of American and European shade gardens for over a century. For me, their most admirable quality is that once they are done blooming they go dormant, the foliage dies back and something else can grow in and fill their space with another bloom. Not really a summer bloomer, like the Jack-in-the-Pulpit I didn't really have another place to put it.

And here is the spring blooming Hosta I wrote about in July. Just for Connie.