Hope for the passionate gardeners' garden in winter

By Pat Howell

Without the blessings of the late fall rains, there well might have been tremendous losses among the shrubs, both evergreen and deciduous, as they would not have been able to withstand the cold and drying winds without plenty of water in their woody structure.

With trepidation, we took a survey of the frozen tundra on January 18, finding that all is not the wasteland we feared. Granted, the azaleas and rhododendrons and pieris contract overnight, hugging themselves for warmth, but being hardy souls, they are happy enough with the daylight. How long will the azalea blooms be delayed?

The 5-year-old evergreen shrub, Daphne odora, usually shares her exquisitely fragrant blooms in February. She's in a very protected site, and so the leaves are showing no evidence of cold-burn. They are deep green with handsome yellow margins, and have only a few of the tell-tale brown blotches. Daphne the Younger is planted in a more exposed site, and yet there is no evidence of cold-burn on her leaves. The buds were close to breaking when the cold hit. Will there be blooms this year?

Most bulbs have not shown their heads, except where the cats have scratched the earth as they desperately seek their outhouses.

There is ice on the lower end of the waterfall, but it is thin, and the birds still come to drink. The cats, being wusses, won't spend much time outside, but sit on the window ledges over-looking the waterfall and chatter their little teeth in atavistic fantasies. Do the birds know instinctively that they are safe?

The "bones" of this winter garden are beacons of hope now. The dwarf conifers are positively exhalting in the cold and the snow. In the summer, surrounded by perennials and blooming shrubs, these evergreen needled shrubs take a back seat. But now they are the stars of the show. Their varied colors are exaggerated by the coldÑthe blues are bluer, some of the dull greens have turned to purple, the yellows are brilliant in the winter sun.

The evergreen Mahonia aquifolium (Oregon grapeholly) has turned purple for the winter, its handsomest color of the year. The hardy gardenia is tentatively in bud; this will mark its second spring in this garden and it was floriflorous last year, sensuously perfuming the back garden. Hope springs eternal in the gardener's heart.

There are a number of the winter-blooming Camellia oleifera in different spots, and the largest one, the hot pink "winter's fire," is looking ready to bloom; the others will wait until next November/December. Their leaves are as glossy as ever. Camellia oleifera, from hybridizing work done at the U.S. National Arboretum, is listed as hardy to -45 degrees.

In the yellow garden, the enigmatic evergreen shrub from the honeysuckle family Lonicera, "Baggeson's gold," has never looked happier. It is planted next to the dwarf pine "hillside creeper," which has long been complaining of the lack of rainfall, but has agreed to hang in there for another year. All of the Carex "evergold" are becoming the explosive low fountains they were meant to be. The winter jasmine, always in bloom by now, has decided to wait a bit longer. The buds are pink, offering no hint of the pale butter yellow to come.

All the Aucuba japonicas, "gold spot" and the dark green "crassifolia," appear undeterred; and both of the Osmanthus "Goshiki," still young, seem born to take this weather. The smaller one is in a trough, closer to the house, and gets clucked over more often. All the Nandinas are heavy with red berries and haven't defoliatedÑyet.

There are tight buds on the tree peony, the climbing hydrangea (H. petiolaris), and at the base of Hydrangea variagata "mariesii."

The hardy coral bells, heuchera "plum puddin" and heuchera "autumn bride" are looking only slightly less than perfect; on sunnier days they snap back and fulfill their catalog designation as evergreen.

Other evergreen perennials that are looking fabulous: lavender, planted just before all this weather happened; Campanula poscharskyana "E. H. Frost," a terrific ground-cover in the shade, listed in the Windy Hill catalog as "vigorous," is just that. The bright green leaves appear almost brilliant when surrounded by snow. The hellebores, foetidus and orientalis (Lenten rose) are likewise blissfully happy, though slow in sprouting new blooms.

Some new perennials, still in their pots, that didn't make it into the ground before the first blast, are covered with boughs from pruned Christmas trees, but one wonders if they are going to revive after they and the ground thaw. They will, probably, since they were set on one of the gravel beds of the rock garden, so they never had to deal with over-watering from those welcome rains. Easy Gardener once killed an entire shipment of perennials from a specialty nursery by leaving them sitting on a flagstone patio during 3 days of an early spring monsoon that caused the pots to take up lots of water from the bottom, thus effectively drowning them. That was a very expensive lesson. So, ever after, plants still in their plastic pots are raised well above impervious surfaces.

The hardy banana is under a thick blanket of pine fines. Is it thick enough? Hmm?

Easy Gardener leaves her hoses out every winter, for better or worse. This fall, she decided to keep a small trickle of water running through them to prevent any frozen pipe problems. One of these hoses is dripping near the teenage hemlock, Tsuga canadensis "Cole's Prostrate," which has been struggling with the drought. Since it is planted on a slope, we are hoping that she is appreciating the water and that we are not drowning her.

Pat Howell is a Takoma Park gardener and landscape designer/garden-builder, and welcomes comments, advice, suggestions, complaints. She is available for hand-holding and answering questions through Deephaven Landscapers.