Friday Fabulous Flower - early spring color

 It's actually a Friday and TPP is posting a new blog.  Is this possible?  March was pretty warm, so now April is compensating by being rather cold. This FFF is a really nice shrub for early spring color so as you want pink.  This is a very tough plant, tolerant of midwestern soils, and it flowers at a very small size, but seldom does it grow much more than 4-5' tall.  Yet you seldom see this azalea for sale in a nursery, but it is widely available in catalogues.  It handles spring frosts very well even after the buds begin to show color.  The plant shown handled 23 F without any damage.  However it is  apparently tasty to shrub nibbling bunnies; so mine are caged.  Also oaks don't like it and even if it gets severely damaged by falling oak limbs it grows back pretty fast.  This is the Korean Azalea (R. mucronulatum) and the most common variety is 'Cornell pink'.  These shrubs do nicely in the middle of mixed hedge-row beds, and TPP highly recommends it.

Only the tough (& hardy) survive

This has been a tough spring, following a winter with some very deep cold.  Since the Feb. thaw, the freezing weather with snow has just kept coming back.  It's been very tough on the narcissi that normal have no serious problems. Even the hellebores, which are so tough you think maybe they're made of old tires, are bowed over quite a bit.  So if something comes through all of that and still flowers, it qualifies as tough.  This is without question the toughest and hardiest of the Rhododendrons, R. mucronulatum, Korean azalea.  It isn't too fussy about soil either, so if you think you are too cold for an azalea, try this one.  This image was taken 48 hrs after a snowy mid-20s night.  They are quite early flowering and you never see them in garden shops or nurseries.  They can be gotten via mail order, and while that means small, they do grow pretty quickly, which is good because ours keep getting broken by jealous oaks or eaten by the bunnies (only down side, without protection, the bun-buns will eat them to the ground).  The flowers a very bright pink and these shrubs look great in the middle of a mixed border.  This is a TPP 2 thumbs up plant recommendation.  They are deciduous; the leaves in the background belong to another Rhododendron.

What to do when winter isn't winter

It's the 2nd week of February.  It's winter.  Yet the ground is bare and the high temperatures for the next week will all be above freezing.  This really sucks.  You'd think you should be able to do something garden-wise, but other than pick up the limbs that dropped on the last windy day (a never ending activity on our estate), you're left thumbing through catalogs.  How can it be winter when you've only had to use the shovel once to move about an inch of light fluffy snow just to keep the driveway and sidewalks from getting icy?  Getting out the Nordic skis is just wishful thinking because here we are in February and winter seems to be waning.  February is acting like late March.  And a thoughful neighbor asks what do botanists think about global warming?  Duh.  Still you feel antsy, anxious, eager, the typical gardener reaction to spring, but like the ground hog, we should have seen our shadow and hunkered down for another 6 weeks.  Only one thing to do.  Pass the catalogs; let's order some plants.  High on the list are a few Korean azaleas (R. mucronulatum) for mid-border areas.  If you don't have one of these tough, not too fussy, attractive shrubs, you should seriously consider it, even you zone 4 readers.  See, now you've got something to look up, something to covet, and something to plan for.  No, no, please don't thank me.  It was done for my own mental health.

Friday Fabulous Flower - Blue lawn

A few years ago, quite a few years ago, somebody planted Scilla in the yard currently owned by the Phactors.  And in terms of naturalization, this introduction was more than a little bit successful.  Large portions of our lawns and gardens are now populated by hundreds of Scilla bulbs per square yard.  For a week or so the blue lawnt is quite charming, downright jolly, and a very welcoming sign of spring.  Later as the vegetation matures, these areas have to be avoided especially by the lawn mower or they get slimed by the mucilage in Scilla leaves.  Virtually nothing else grows in some of these areas at least until the Scilla dies back, and fortunately it does so by early summer.  In a fine color counterpoint, the Rhododendron mucronulatum, Korean azalea, also began flowering today displaying their clouds of bright pink flowers. You need this plant.  It's hardy, the easiest species to grow, and the earliest to flower.  The rest of the gardens are basically yellow: forsythia, spice bush, Cornus mas, winter hazel, daffodils, aconite.  And boy, is it all early!