SIGNS OF SPRING

They really are everywhere. It takes a bit of rooting around-- and a lot of patience. But there you have it, columbine returning from the dead and tulips that even the mule deer haven't found yet. Deer love tulips, and they hasten to eat them right off , bud and all. They like a lot of other things too, but many of those things don't have the blossom right there along with the first leaves. For instance, deer regularly crop off the day lilies, but since day lilies don't bloom until July, they don't get the blossoms. The leaves grow back, and by the time they bloom, most of the deer have retreated up into the woods for the summer. Tulips are pretty risky business though. It's time to get out with the deer netting.

Rose canes are turning green and are beginning to sprout tiny red leaf buds

Forsythia are thinking hard about it

Pussywillows are actually doing it

The first snow drop shows a shy little petal

....... (it doesn't really grow sideways)



















The Forget-Me Nots are ready to go

THE NANDINA

A very special heritage plant for us. Our first nandina were suckers dug from Fred and Helen Trew's plants when we bought our first and mostly unlandscaped house in Charlottesville in 1976. They invited us to civilize our yard- which had very recently been a field- by digging extras of anything at their house. Later, we gave suckers to Grenelle and Peter Delany to landscape their new house. On a visit in 2005, I asked Grenelle if I might take home some of the nandina suckers she was digging out. We laughed at how they had come full circle.

Nandina do not readily grow here, though they do in Oregon. In the east, Charlottesville is just about at their northern limit. Furthermore, the Rockies have alkaline soil, which a lot of things don't like. These plants have been ceaslessly hovered over and protected with love. They are in an eastward facing spot and are protected on 3 sides. In previous winters they have lost most of their leaves and had to begin all over again. They have always been game to hang in there though. This winter, they kept all their leaves (they are not supposed to be deciduous) in spite of weeks sitting under a 3 foot pile of ice from the snowblower. They are happily bouncing in the breezes ready to make new leaves. Perhaps -if it would not be too much to hope for- this will be the year of a few of those most beautiful red berries.

Here are a few sweetwoodruff and a bulb or two for you, St Francis. Thank you for bringing us through!