Focus on Flowers

Before long now, some of the earliest flowers to bloom will be stirring in our gardens.  

Many of them are ephemeral, a descriptor that means “short lived” or transitory. In garden-speak, this means that these cold-hardy little plants bloom early and then die down leaving no trace until they return the following year. 

Most grow in woodland settings, where the soil is moist from late snows under deciduous trees and there is weak sunlight, as the trees have not yet leafed out. Some bloom even before al the snow has melted. Their early flowers can be picked and taken into the house for tiny vases. 

When the blooms fade, the plants set seed and then go dormant. They are at their best planted where they are not disturbed after they die down, though they co-exist well with low growing plants that grow up over the bulbs and shade them in the hot dry summers. 

The sunshine-yellow winter aconite is usually the first to bloom, followed by the snow-white snowdrops (Galanthus spp., zones 3-9), hardy cyclamen (Cyclamen coum, zones 5-9), bloodroot (Sanguinaria Canadensis ‘multiplex’, zones 3-9), Dutchmen’s breeches (Dicentra culcullaria, zones 3-7), Virginia bluebells (Mertensia Virginica, zones 3-8), and European wood anemones (Anemone nemorosa, zones 5-8).

Later the red trillium (Trillium erectum, zones 4-9), and Japanese woodland primrose (Primula Sieboldii, zones 3-8) light up our gardens. 

The best way to get these early bloomers in your garden is to acquire starts from another gardener during the early spring, or you can find them listed in catalogs. Their dense root systems help them persist and colonize.

Notes: Source material from Amanda’s Garden, Dansville, New York.

In 1785 William Cowper wrote:

Who loves a garden, loves a greenhouse too.
 Unconscious of a less propitious clime
 There blooms exotic beauty, warm and snug
 While winds whistle and the snows descend.

In 1974 Maya Angelou said, 

And there is a Chinese proverb that makes many of us smile:

If you would be happy for a day, get drunk.
 If you would be happy for a week, take a wife.
 If you would be happy for a month, kill your pig.
 But if you would be happy all your life, plant a garden.

And Jude Patterson wrote, “In winter, when roots and seeds sleep under the crusted snow, the gardener is an artist hatching ideas for the coming season.”  

But my personal advice to you in January is to be careful of all of those tempting offers that arrive in catalogs in the mail this month, as well as all of the seductive offers to order plants online. We are all so eager to have flowers on our gardens again, that we are susceptible to all of the plant offers that bombard us. But it really is too early to start ordering plants—January is too soon!—so try, if possible, to exercise some restraint.

During the middle ages, the Christmas season lasted for 12 days and reached a climax on Jan 6, which is called Twelfth Night. 

 We often wait, nowadays, until Twelfth Night to take down the Christmas tree and holiday decorations. Once everything is put away the house seems suddenly quite bereft, and we long for something natural and fresh. 

 January, of course, is a difficult month for garden flowers. Sometimes, however, one can unearth some long stems of ivy in the winter garden. In the summer, I am always trying to pull it out and get rid of it, but I am glad to see any green leaves in winter. 

 If you ever find any, cut some pieces and hammer the stems and submerge them in a sink of cold water overnight. Next morning, shake the water off and pat them dry with a towel before placing them in a vase. 

 With this background for an arrangement in place, you may be able to find a few other bits and pieces in the garden, for example, bare branches, berries, Bergenia leaves or even a Christmas rose (Helleborus), to add to the ivy. Otherwise, buy a few blooms to combine with the ivy and rationalize the purchase as absolutely necessary food for the soul.  

Buy any color flower but red, as after the holidays red seems passé and our eyes have become tired of it.

Norah Lindsay (1866-1948) lived in the Manor House at Sutton Courtenay in Oxfordshire, England. She was admired for the way that she combined herbaceous perennials in borders, which were so popular during the Edwardian time in England. 

In her obituary in 1948 in the London Times it was described how she would trace out a plan for a whole garden in the dirt with the tip of her umbrella. She was known as one of the first amateur, but not quite professional, garden designers who were active in the years before and after World War I.

Strongly influenced by Italian gardens, she was famous for her parterres. One that she planned is still maintained by the National Trust in England today. It was a formal planting using low plants and repetition of colors around a central fountain. Clipped yews and a Doric Temple in the distance added to its feeling of formality and structure. 

Norah Lindsay was born in Ireland but always admired the classical gardens of Florence and Rome. She created large-scale double borders that stretched down hillsides to create breath-taking vistas. 

Her husband, Harry Lindsay, was a flying hero during World War I, and she was so well-connected that she even advised the Prince of Wales on his gardens at Fort Belvedere. 

Lindsay was the Grande Dame of gardening in a time when ladies did not have professional careers.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson wrote a poem about the garden at the end of the year. This seems to be an appropriate time to share it with you.

 A spirit haunts the year’s last hours
 Dwelling amid these yellowing bowers:
 To himself he talks:
 But at eventide, listening earnestly,
 At his work you may hear him sob and sigh
 In the walks;
 Earthward he boweth the heavy stalks
 Of mouldering flowers:
 Heavily hangs the broad sunflower
 Over its grave in the earth so chilly;
 Heavily hangs the holly hock,
 Heavily hangs the tiger-lily.

 The air is damp and hushed and close,
 As a sick man’s room where he taketh repose
 An hour before death;
 My very heart faints and my whole soul grieves
 At the moist rich smell of the rotting leaves
 And the breath
 Of the fading edges of box beneath,
 And the year’s last rose.
 Heavily hangs the broad sunflower
 Over its grave in the earth so chilly;
 Heavily hangs the hollyhock,
 Heavily hangs the tiger lily.

Oscar Wilde in The Selfish Giant wrote the following words: 

 “He did not hate the winter now, for he knew that it was merely the spring asleep, and that the flowers were resting.” 

 And Anne Bradstreet, who died in 1672, wrote: 

 “If we had no winter the spring would not be so pleasant.” 

 Kathleen Norris sounded a little more impatient about winter when she wrote: 

 “There seems to be so much more winter this year than we need.” 

 Nancy Hutchens in her book A Garden’s Grace described plants that look good in winter. She said, 

 “The wheat-colored blooms of Hydrangea paniculata ‘Grandiflora’ add charm to my backyard—one at its entrance and another next to a red-twigged dogwood.”

 She continued:

 “…the tall black stalks and round heads of Rudbeckia, Echinacea, and bee balm are attractive and fill the bare ground with texture and interesting shapes… The sedum ‘Autumn Joy’ turned out to be another winter jewel. Its faded bronze was spectacular next to the pearly silver of a large Artemisia. As I began to think about how a particular flower or shrub would look in winter, I discovered many choices that enhanced the poor evergreens, who had been doing all the work alone."

The English colonists in Virginia used mistletoe to decorate their homes and their churches during the Christmas season. Mistletoes are evergreen parasitic plants with small leaves, yellowish flowers and waxy white berries.

When sprigs are hung as a Christmas decoration, men are, by custom, privileged to kiss women who stand under it, according to the description of it in Websters Dictionary.

When I consulted Hortus (Third Edition) I found that the type of Mistletoe the colonists probably used was Phoradendron serotinum, which is found on deciduous trees of Eastern North America.

The seeds of this parasite germinate on host trees, and the plants attach themselves so that they can absorb fluids from the host. Since this type of mistletoe grows high up in the tops of hardwood trees, it is hard to gather.

To add to this problem, it only becomes visible when the deciduous leaves have fallen from the trees. Luckily this happens at the right time of the years so that it is visible before the holiday season.

Young colonial boys apparently enjoyed a popular sport known as shooting down the mistletoe.

The mistletoe of literary fame is an old world variety known as Viscum album, and there is also a very showy red tropical variety. The State of Oklahoma adopted mistletoe Phoradendron flavescens, which blooms in the summer, as its floral emblem.

The first day of winter in the Northern Hemisphere is marked by the winter solstice, which for example, in the year 2023 occurs on December 21. For the northern part of the Earth, the winter solstice always occurs annually on either December 21 or 22. This solstice marks the day with the fewest hours of sunshine in the year, which means that it is described as the shortest day. 

 After the winter solstice, the days begin to grow longer until in the following June, we reach the summer solstice, which is the longest day of the year. The summer solstice is the day when many flowers in gardens are in bloom and so many garden-related events in our area are usually scheduled on or near the summer solstice. 

 When the Northern Hemisphere is experiencing the winter solstice in December, the Southern Hemisphere, of course, is experiencing its summer solstice. In Australia, where I grew up, for example, it is high summer in December, and it is winter in June. 

 Depending on where you live in the world, the same plants flower but at different times in the year. Near to the Equator, however, the weather remains warm enough for flowers to grow throughout the entire year. Hence the billion-dollar cut flower industry in South America, which supplies the flowers in our stores for us to buy year-round.

This winter I have been reading some garden writer’s words of wisdom, which now I will share with you. 

In 1899, Gertrude Jekyll wrote: 

“For I hold it that the best purpose of a garden is to give delight and to give refreshment of mind, to soothe, to refine and to lift up the heart.”

And Sara Stein in 1988 wrote:

“January is the best time for gardeners. From the window of the attic where I write, the gardens are bare to their bones, neat and clean, nicely edged, weed free. They are an empty page on which to draw the garden of my dreams.” 

And in 1954 Georgia O’Keefe, who painted so many glorious flowers, wrote the following words that completely surprised me. She said, 

“I hate flowers. I paint them because they’re cheaper than models and they don’t move.” 

More profound are the words spoken by Lydia Child in 1842. She said, 

“Flowers have spoken to me more than I can tell. They are hieroglyphics of angels, loved by all for the beauty of their character. Though few can decipher even fragments of their meaning.”

However, “anonymous” has the last piece of wisdom for us:

“In gardening I have one gift you won’t find in manuals, but I can change perennials into annuals.”

Many tropical plants, and also some temperate zone plants that resemble tropicals, make excellent house plants in cold climates. 

One fairly easy to grow but underused example is the South East Asian native with the common name of jewel orchid. Its botanical name is Ludisia discolor. This is a terrestrial plant that grows in soil in a pot, and it has narrow leaves. The color of the leaves varies from dark red to maroon and there is striking veining. The leaves grow on succulent stems that hang over the sides of the pot. The flowers appear in late winter to mid spring and are white in color and a little like snapdragons in form and are white in color. 

This plant likes cool temperatures at night and soil that stays just slightly moist, so do not over water these beauties. Afternoon shade is best, so they do not like a windowsill on the western side of the house. 

Jewel orchids are available with several different types of patterned leaves with silver-gold veining. This type of foliage guarantees a handsome house plant even when it is not in bloom. The name is a little deceptive because this plant is not like the orchids that grow on trees.