Garden Bloggers Bloom Day - Valentine's Day Style

My difficult relationship with the color pink has been pretty well chronicled in this blog over the past couple of years. You can imagine my dismay when I downloaded all of my February Bloom Day pictures of things in bloom and flower, and found that they all contained... pink!

Some are more pink than others, but I'll show them all here anyway. This first is a temporary pink, as the little "lanterns" start out green, change to white and then pink (as you can see on the lower branches of this plant), and finally turn bright red and drop a little yellow "bell" when in full flower. This flowering maple is abutilon megapotamicum and you can click the link to see it in full flower on Plant Delights' website:

Also in dark pink is my fancy poinsettia from Christmas. The green leaves below are splotched with inky variegation, and so I am going to plant it outside in the spring and see what kind of interesting greenery it gives me for the summer and fall:

This is not technically a flower (nor is the color on the poinsettia above) but it fooled me into thinking it was, for a while... because crown of thorns does have salmon-pink flowers when it blooms.
I'm glad to see this plant, euphorbia milii, putting out new leaves whatever the color. It had been stressed over the winter--I had bought it in the fall, pot-bound and on clearance--and so I gave in and repotted it a few weeks ago, even though I had wanted to wait until spring. As you can imagine, moving it to a new pot was an adventure, but one made a whole lot easier with the assistance of basic kitchen tongs.

Last but not least, the promise of flowers to come! I had to scoop away the snow to show this tiny pink bud on my 'Ivory Prince' hellebore, and you can barely make out its existence between my middle and ring fingers. There are eight buds in total on my 3 'Ivory Princes' and they are all probably weeks away from bloom yet. So I covered the plant back up with snow after snapping this shot:
That's all from my NE Ohio garden for now. Got something in flower, bloom, bud, or winter color? Head on over to May Dreams Gardens and share your post with all the rest of us color-starved northern gardeners, please!

Am I Cured? (Cleveland Home & Garden 2008)

Last year, I was enchanted with the annual Cleveland Home & Garden show, as was evidenced by the fact that it inspired three separate posts in February. This year? Well... let's just say that the show left a whole lot to be desired, with a few shining exceptions.

I have no idea what the price tag might have been on this huge potted agave, but suffice it to say that I was drooling over it. Usually, I would want to see it in a dark pot to show off its pale leaves, but here with a white classical statue in attendance it looks perfect in its washed out terracotta pot. Sadly, this was one of the very few nods toward Italianate style in the gardens on display.

Preview articles in The Plain Dealer hyped up the importation of real Italian cypress trees to fit the theme, "Bella Italia," but in reality the vast majority of the display gardens featured plants familiar to most NE Ohio gardeners: Astilbe, hosta, coralbells, and the like. I could have taken this picture of pine-wooded loveliness at last year's show, and it would have been more believable in an Irish garden (except, of course, that thirsty plants would not really thrive in competition with the roots of pines) but it just doesn't say "Italia" to me!

I found myself searching the gardens for a grapevine--or maybe a pot of lavender or rosemary--and one of those extremely formal layouts that I love to admire, just Not In My Garden. But there were none to be found. It was as if this year's show went out to prove ruthlessly what Rick from Whispering Crane Institute pointed out last year, that these display gardens are meant to sell landscaping, not really to cater to gardeners.

And while I realized the truth of his words, I still longed for something to excite me as a gardener. The hyacinths smelled lovely on a cold winter day, and some of the ironwork was beautiful, too, but none of the display gardens really hooked me. Nothing enticed me to walk up some steps or peer into a "watery gateway to hell" like features in last year's gardens. And judging by the fact that it was a busy day and yet people strolled through the displays quite quickly, I'm guessing that I wasn't the only person, gardener or no, who felt this way.

There was one garden, however, that made me stroll through slowly, to better absorb some of the thought that went into it. Petitti Garden Centers put together a wonderful display garden last year, complete with a "moss monster" on an arch, and this year's display was similarly wonderful.

The little vignette here was not very Italian in feel, but it did include some adorable metal garden art, great use of texture, and a fun grouping of bromeliads as living artwork.

Petitti's did give a few nods to the "Bella Italia" theme, however, with large urns, some gorgeous standing columns, and a grape press that was incorporated into one bed. Their piece de resistance, however, IMHO was this wonderful patio.

Okay, the patio itself was nothing all that special, but get a load of that gorgeous green roof! It had everything from peperomia to wandering jew. With those houseplants, you know it wasn't hardy enough to be duplicated outside... but I definitely appreciated the sentiment. (And all of the texture!)

But once we left the Petitti garden, we quickly grew tired of the "As Seen On TV" booths and the hawkers who tried to entice us over to test out their gadgets. These annoyances and the letdown of most of the display gardens convinced us to leave the show after just an hour, in fact. So while I won't go so far as to say, "I will never go to the Home & Garden Show again," especially if I continue to luck out and get free tickets... well, let's just say that I won't necessarily be as eager to attend the next one as I was this one. (Unless, of course, my curiosity gets the better of me yet again!)

Winter Highlights

Normally, my busy time at work is finished by the second weekend of February... but that's not true this year, I'm afraid. It's been a long winter in that way.

Unlike many of my fellow garden bloggers, it seems, I have been lucky enough to escape the "winter blahs," or Seasonal Affective Disorder, or whatever you want to call it. I think that my regular walks, both with and without my four-legged gardening assistant, really help. Winter seems much less oppressive when you do not feel house-bound because of it.

Another thing that helps is the winter garden. I enjoy noticing the little things, like the way the winter sunlight highlights my miscanthus 'Zebrinus' in the mornings. Yesterday, I amused myself by counting the flower buds on my three 'Ivory Prince' hellebores. (Eight!) Today I trudged out to the front garden after work to lay in a few evergreen boughs (Christmas tree recycling) around the base of the Dortmund rose before tonight's temperature drop. Temps have bottomed out before, but this time we have no snowcover so I figured the rose might appreciate some extra protection.

I also enjoy judging the coldness of the day by the angle at which the rhododendron leaves are drooping... and checking to see how many new kinds of birds are visiting my feeders. Unlike certain other people who shall remain nameless, I decided to declare a truce with my own resident squirrel and bought a bag of "squirrel and critter" feed at the store today. I hope that providing him his own chow will keep him from camping out (literally) on top of the platform feeder and gorging on birdseed! We'll see.

Last, but not least, Friday was my birthday... and while Mom acknowledged that this wasn't quite what they had in mind, I am using part of my parents' gift to buy the peach tree that I have been wanting to espalier against the last open section of fence. (Sometimes I'm sure it would be easier on them if their daughter liked to splurge on clothing or earrings instead of plants, and asked for things like designer jeans instead of a circular saw for Christmas. But they love me anyway.)

So while winter hasn't been too bad--and the long hours at work are making it go by quickly anyway--I have at least one fun thing to look forward to this spring: Seeing a Charlie-Brown-looking stick arrive in the mail and imagining it into a full-blown tree, loaded with juicy, sweet peaches, as I plant it.