Mid-winter garden status report

So far the winter of 2014-2015 has been fairly mild.  Some unseasonal cold during the late fall to winter transition. Some snow, but nothing unusual. A night or two of deep cold, around 0 F, but not prolonged or severe cold. And now following some a couple of modest snow events, a mid-winter thaw. This provided an opportunity to have a look around at the gardens, an inspection of sorts. There be lots of limbs and twigs to pick up, the result of having had a couple of fairly wet, heavy snows. It'll take a couple of hours to gather all that dead wood, but fortunately nothing got smashed in the process. The Rhododendron-hating oak missed; probably didn't factor the wind correctly. Evergreens in general look OK including a new Cephalotaxus, plum yew. Nothing looks dry or brown, or both. Hard to tell if a Helleborus foetidus is going to flower or not, even zero degrees, which is way below freezing in F, is pretty cold for it. No obvious bunny damage although a couple of bunny barriers has to be repaired. Bunny population is not quite so high as last year, but as soon as it gets dark they appear and will visit the area around our bird/squirrel feeders to see if they find any food. Evidence indicates that the Cooper's hawks have been foraging OK and that the Phactors have a couple less cardinals than they used to have. Must be their protective coloration. Tiny sprouts can be seen where the Scilla is poking up promising a blue lawn (here and here) will follow. A few other early spring bulbs are also showing up, and yes, those have been nibbled. Bunnies got to eat. So the general status report is good for this time of year. Hard to know as variable as the weather has been what the next 4-5 weeks will be like. But what the heck, TPP planted some parsley seed in some Jiffy-7s just to get things going.

Spring flower wish list

Here's an early spring flower that the Phactor doesn't have, the stinking hellebore (also dungwort or bear's claw hellebore because of the highly divided leaf)(Helleborus foetidus). What a charmer! But maybe our climate is a bit too severe for this species. First try at this species resulted in winter kill, and it was a tough winter, but supposedly this is hardy in zone 5, just maybe not in our nasty zone 5 with its radical temperature swings often without the benefit of snow cover. In spite of its various common names, it doesn't actually seem to smell bad, and a cluster of plants on a hillside, as shown here, can make quite an early display even though the flowers are not as large as other hellebores and are mostly green. Any feedback from other zone 4-5 gardeners?