Now in bloom at home

I don't know which has been worse: keeping up with the blog or keeping up with the gardens. Work, trips away, and other obligations have prevented me from checking in on the Minton Stable Garden, but using the same varieties of lettuce, spinach, and snap peas growing at home as a guide, I believe that the plot will survive a few more days of neglect. A brief shower on Thursday is better than no water at all. I'm just hoping that the peas are attaching themselves to the supports I fashioned for them and not the strawberries growing nearby.In moments of spare time and dry weather I've been clearing out the perennial beds at home, and it looks like there will be several hours of thinning and digging to do between now and the Perennial Divide, which takes place in a few weeks at the City Natives Nursery in Mattapan. First, I need to scale back the bee balm, seen in the top photo behind my tulips, as it is really starting to take over the front garden, and overcrowding plants may lead to another case of powdery mildew. Until the bee balm come into bloom during the summer, I can get my fix of red from the coral bells.In the shady backyard, the vinca is flowering and spreading, slowly making up for some neglect a few years back (maple seedlings and other unwanted invaders took over).The lamium is spreading outside the raised bed and onto the grass, but it sure is pretty.These last few years I haven't found much for free at the Perennial Divide that I don't already have growing, so I have picked up a native or two from the nursery. This foam flower (tiarella cordifolia) is looking quite at home.

Some of the other perennials in bloom include pulmonaria, lemon balm, and pachysandra, and the hostas, ferns, and lily of the valley are poking out of the ground and starting to unfurl their leaves. After all of the dreary weather and flooding of the early spring, it's nice to see them return. It's too early to tell which diseases or pests will surface from this disruption from the norm, though I've heard we may be visited by an overabundance of winter moths.

The Flower Show lives on--at the mall

Last year's news that the Massachusetts Horticultural Society's annual New England Spring Flower Show would not be held at its usual location came as a disappointment to many.  Under the massive roof of the Bayside Expo Center thousands of gardening enthusiasts have viewed hundreds of exhibits, visited venders to stock up on plants and supplies, taken a lunch or dinner break, picked up some planting tips, and enjoyed other activities.  For many New Englanders, the Flower Show signifies the beginning of spring, but recent financial and management problems threatened to break that 137-year tradition.

Luckily Mass Hort has found a way to continue the tradition on a smaller scale.  The result is BLOOMS!, which is taking place in three malls from March 12 to March 22 and three buildings downtown over the weekend.  Despite my mission to avoid malls as much as possible, I made an exception yesterday and checked out the exhibits at the Chestnut Hill Mall in Newton (a suburb west of Boston).

I found a dozen exhibits, including this one by CMC Designs.  With its hydrangeas, hyacinths, and daffodils, this display earns my unofficial award for the Most Fragrant.

I can't say that I had a favorite exhibit, but they were all appealing in their arrangements, with many containing shade-compatible plants such as ferns, hostas, and astilbe, rhododendrons and other flowering shrubs, bamboo, and small trees.  Moss was the most popular groundcover.  Every display featured some non-living element such as a bench or statuary, though the cage in the background of this creation by Peter Sadeck housed three not-so-happy-looking birds.The exhibit was free--obviously you can't charge anyone to enter a mall--but I gladly made a donation to help Mass Hort achieve their goal of bringing it all together under a large roof again in 2010. I suspect that anyone heading into the area to check out the exhibits will find more happening downtown; I hope to make it there on Sunday.

Prelude to spring

Winter has returned to Boston.  A few inches of snow will coat the ground today and a storm coming through starting around midnight will dump even more.  So much for the sign of spring that I spotted in my backyard as I was taking out the compost on Friday.

Despite a strong indecisive wind, the temperature reached a high of 58 degrees Fahrenheit, so finding snowdrops in bloom did not come as a complete surprise.  Besides, this perennial, which is native to Europe, can bloom as early as January.  The bulbs were given to us about ten years ago by Mitchell, a friend of ours who lives down the street from the MSG, and they have multiplied slowly, benefitting from a sunny south-facing slope.  Their drop-shaped blooms are hardy enough to poke out from underneath snow, perhaps even the several more inches that will cover them by tomorrow.

Snow cover as of this posting