Last Sunday was as nice a day as one could possibly hope for in January. The sun shone. The breeze blew gentle, and almost balmy. The Earth was soft, still, from rain overnight. When the sunrise penetrated the departing clouds, making the raindrops on leaves sparkle in the morning light, I knew this was my remaining window to plant those final few Narcissus bulbs.
What had seemed like 20 to 30 remaining bulbs when I finished up and came back indoors on Saturday had dwindled to only a dozen by Sunday morning. Did the Narcissus devas help me in the night? Or did I just overestimate the work left to be done?
There is a patch of ferns in the upper woodland garden that I’ve been planting over the past three years, and I wanted to add the remaining bulbs around those ferns. I gave up mid-effort there on Saturday, too cold and sore to continue. When I returned on Sunday morning, I noticed a woody vine stem emerging from the leaves in the center of this planting bed, behind some evergreen ferns. I am always trying to remove invasive vines in this area, so I gave it a good tug. Up came the stem with a large network of Akebia roots. I cut the woody stem as far back as I could, gave the root mass a good shake, and there was a generous planting hole ready for a half-dozen bulbs.
Just a little digging and probing revealed spots for the remaining bulbs nearby, still among the ferns. And I was finished in about ten minutes. All 330 bulbs brought home in early November were finally planted, ready to grow.
And not a moment to spare, because foul weather set in again by Sunday afternoon, and it has been one of the coldest and wettest weeks here in several years. We have had flurries, but no snow on the ground; rain and ice, but no freezing rain on the trees. So we are grateful to have been spared the severe weather so many have experienced in both Europe and the United States and Canada this past week.
Still, it has been a great week to stay indoors, make soup, enjoy the fire, and find every last crack around a door or a window to insulate with something. I didn’t even go outside for several days, until Friday morning, when I went out to retrieve my brand new home weather station, just delivered. It is beautiful, by the way, and a hit with my partner.
But that short walk to retrieve our package inspired me to grab the camera and explore a bit. Right beside the drive was a scarlet Camellia flower just breaking into bloom. How could a beautiful Camellia bloom when it was 17F degrees just two nights before? If such miracles are manifesting near one’s own back door, then surely I need to be a little curious and look for more.
I found more Narcissus leaves growing; more clumps of Hellebores coming into bloom; parsley, mint, rosemary and thyme ready for harvest; and a lovely snowdrop in bloom. This is our first flower of the season from a bulb. What a blessing to have a garden that remains ever green and growing, even through the hard freezes we have had this week.
Our next door neighbors have had daffodils in bloom since Christmas. They prefers the early varieties, while I tend to choose those that bloom a bit later. Between us, we enjoy daffodils for four to five months each year. We always celebrate the start of daffodil season, which it seems is underway yet again. There is symmetry, somehow, for me to plant the last bulbs of the season as their’s begin to bloom.
The first snowdrop promises that spring is stirring here already, even as we look at a few more days of unusual cold for our area. There will be no gardening here today or tomorrow. Only a cup of tea, a fire, and a new John Matthews book about the Irish sidhe to enjoy. I read recently that faery rings have been found in Virginia, amid some ancient standing stones in the Blue Ridge Mountains. I can only hope that they are still there, and that I come across them one day. Like this garden, the old places remain ever-green.
With appreciation to Jim Stephens of Garden Ruminations, who hosts Six on Saturday each week.
Our Forest Garden 
Love the snowdrops. A great sign of new life.
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And they always seem to appear right when you need them the most ❤
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Parsley and mint, my dream at the moment because everything is covered in snow… Nice red color of that camellia flower.
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Camellias, daffodils and snowdrops bring unexpected pleasure to gloomy winter days. I appreciate the image of a fire and a good book.
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Ha, the Blue Ridge Mountains are another one of the few places in the World beyond here that I would like to eventually travel to. Although I am not so interested in the more popular tourist attractions, I find other places to be about as compelling, and the Blue Ridge Mountains are one of those places. I can not explain why.
Anyway, is it about time for me to send the gingers?
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Tony, the Blue Ridge Mountains are well worth the trip. The Shenandoah Valley, between the Blue Ridge and the Allegheny Mountains, is also well-worth a visit, particularly in spring time. I intended to write to you today to say that we have a thaw coming, a pause of warmth before the next potential cold snap. So this is an excellent time to send the gingers, and thank you very much for your thoughtfulness. We will have almost spring like temperatures by Wednesday and they should hold above normal for at least the next week.
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Splendid! I will send them prior to noon tomorrow. I can send an explanation of the contents separately by email.
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Wonderful! Thank you! I am looking forward to receiving your package with new plants to enjoy!
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It left this morning, and is predicted to arrive by Thursday night. (Is mail delivered at night?!) I will send an explanation of the contents before it arrives. (I wrote it down, but did not print it.)
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Thank you so much! I really appreciate your kindness and will keep an eye out for the package. Our mail usually comes in the middle of the day, but it does sometimes come after dark, here, especially when there is a substitute carrier. Amazon sometimes gives a delivery window up until 10 PM, though we generally receive packages by 8. Not exactly when I want to go out to gather the post, but such is life ‘in the county.’
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This is a modified copy of the letter that I should have sent with the package.
Dear Mrs. McCoy,
These are the contents of the parcel, with a few notes about them. The variegated Hedychium that supposedly blooms white may actually be ‘Tatian Flame’, which blooms peachy orange. If so, then the other unidentified Hedychium may instead bloom white, and could redundantly be Hedychium coronarium, like you sent to me. Because most of these perennials were acquired only recently, and gophers consumed much of those that were here long enough to otherwise be more abundant, there were not many rhizomes to send. Fortunately, these few should efficiently get established, and after they do, they will likely grow like weeds. Canna ‘Australia’ rhizomes were added as packing material because they happened to be available at the time. They are merely dinky bits that came up with finished canes that I plucked from the planter box downtown. Finally, a few small cuttings of what I believe to be ‘Pele’s Smoke’ sugar cane were added, also because they happened to be available at the time. It is an ornamental variety with bronze foliage. These cuttings should be buried deeply enough so that the foliage of their upper buds barely extends above their medium, with their bases below the medium. Incidentally, their foliage resembles that of pampas grass, so can cause paper cuts. Of these perennials, this sugarcane is the least likely to survive the trip.
Alpinia galanga, galangal is a culinary ginger with rather uninteresting bloom.
Hedychium gardnerianum, kahili ginger is the common ornamental ginger.
Hedychium greenii, red butterfly ginger is not positively identified.
Hedychium, supposedly blooms peachy pink, but is unidentified.
Hedychium, supposedly blooms white with variegated foliage, but is unidentified.
Heliconia psittacorum, parakeet flower blooms yellow, but is unidentified.
Heliconia schiedeana ‘Fire and Ice’, false bird of paradise blooms red and pale yellow.
Canna ‘Australia’ lacks labelling, but is identifiable by its bronze canes and lack of labels.
Saccharum officinarum ‘Pele’s Smoke’ sugar cane is identifiable by its rigid canes.
Sincerely,
Tony Tomeo
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Wow! What a cornucopia of horticultural riches! Thank you very, very much! ❤ ❤ ❤
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You are welcome. They are not as awesome as American holly and beautyberry and the first white butterfly ginger though.
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Let me be the judge of that 😉 Awesome is in the eye of the beholder, as they say. I appreciate you sharing them and it will be fun to grow more plants from California!
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I am confident that most will perform well there, like the white butterfly ginger. I doubt that the sugarcane will perform well though, and it may not survive the trip. I just sent it because there are a few more than we can accommodate here.
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It looks like the sugar cane survived fine. Thank you for clarifying that you stuffed the box with Cannas. I opened those first, of course, and assumed them to be Hedychium. I will go back and shift some labels today. I just loved opening the fragrant gingers. I am giving some of the sugar cane to my neighbor, who has room to grow it near a bright window. (My living space is stuffed to overflowing with plants I am overwintering.) I am finding bright spots in the basement and garage for the plants you sent that already have leaves, until I can move them outside once the weather settles for spring.
I appreciate how you wrote on the tape to label the different bundles. I certainly wouldn’t have been able to recognize many of the plants you sent, so the labels are a real help.
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Galangal was likely the aromatic ginger. The other ornamental gingers are not so aromatic. I might be able to send more sugarcane later if more is desired. I plugged too many cuttings of it when I brought it back from Southern California, and will likely get more scraps when I return at the end of winter. It is an ornamental cultivar though, rather than a productive cultivar, although it is supposedly reasonably productive. I hope to acquire a productive cultivar, such as ‘San Diego Yellow’, this year, although I will more likely just grab a piece of what grows wild on the banks of the Santa Monica Freeway (which might be ‘San Diego Yellow’). The foliage that is attached to the various ginger rhizomes is from last year, so is expendable. It is why I was hesitant to send the rhizomes when I did. It would not die back. It would be no loss if it dies back as new foliage emerges, and should likely get pruned out later if it does not die back.
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Yes, I believe it was the Galangal that smelled to wonderful, and I was expecting to find that it was edible. Since there are so many flowering plants out there with beautiful fragrance that are also non-edible, I shouldn’t have been surprised- but normally when the stems, roots, rhizomes and leaves have such a strong fragrance we expect they could be.
I appreciate your offer of more sugarcane, but I will suggest you share that with someone else. I have not yet fallen in love with grasses, and my ‘available space’ in the sun is already limited. I tend to give my sunny areas to herbaceous perennials that make beautiful flowers over a long season or end up giving them to new trees. Thank you for the info about the leaves on the ginger. I will leave them for now to support new root growth, and remember to prune it later when new leaves emerge.
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Galangal is a culinary ginger, although I am unfamiliar with it or its uses. Technically, the sugarcane is useful for culinary application also, but it is so thin. I am unimpressed by it. I will add some to our landscapes only because it is here.
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Well, they will grow. Maybe slowly, but they will grow.
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The package arrived in today’s mail. Thank you! I have put it in the basement to stay cool until I can begin potting up these treasures tomorrow. I am amazed at how many plants you managed to fit into the box. Thank you!!!
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Splendid! There are not very many individual specimens. They are just bulky rhizomes. Some may include only one or two small rhizomes. I initially filled the empty space with paper towels so that the contents would not slosh about in transit, but replaced the paper towels with Canna rhizomes and a few sugarcane cuttings because I figured that I should use all the space available.
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I do exactly the same thing with packages I send west to my daughter- only I don’t fill the space with rhizomes… maybe with rice or socks…?
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Arundo donax supposedly naturalized in the Sacramento and San Joaquin River Deltas because it was packing material that was dumped from ships. At the time, no one considered that it would become such a problem. Cannas might have been more fun, and less invasive.
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Fascinating. That plant looks much like our invasive (though some species are native) Phragmites, which arrived here in much the same way. Folks of that generation seemed to have had no concept of ‘invasive plants.’
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It amazes me that young people do not seem to be any more aware! They want to plant trees everywhere, whether or not they can actually survive without irrigation, and regardless of what they can do to the ecosystem.
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