Green Is The New Coffee

In one day we went from minus 5C to plus 20C the snow melted, the ground dried up and I started planting seeds. OK maybe not that fast but it sure feels like it. We’re having a heat wave and I love it.

There’s Narcissus, Crocus, Chionodoxa , Puschkinia, Scilla and snowdrops in bloom. I’m eating chives and succulent baby sorrel leaves for every meal.

I spent hours rehydrating the soil in the greenhouse and in the pots I stored indoors. After 7 months of no plant growth and no water the soil gets drier than a mouse turd cooked at 500 degrees and I sure at that level of heat no one cares if it’s Celsius or Fahrenheit.

The tomatoes have been transplanted into the greenhouse and the onions into the garden. I planted potatoes and the jerusalem artichokes I got from Gayla

Digging around in the soil I found lovely crisp orange carrots and the purple skinned potatoes that had been hibernating all winter under layers and layers of snow and ice.

I’m spending a lot of time looking at the leaves of some flowers and herbs I started from seed a month ago, trying to figure out what they are. Because even if I’ve never grown it before I’m an experienced gardener who doesn’t need to label anything, because I know I’ll recognize it when it sprouts. Ha!

And the leaves on the trees have started to grow painting the landscape around my house green.

UBC Botanical Garden

So last week I was in Vancouver avoiding spring snow storms, revelling in green grass, and leaves and the tail end of the cherry blossoms. I rode the bus out to UBC to visit the botanical gardens. I was there once before too many years ago to count. I remembered the over abundance of rhododendrons, there were still lots only they had grown a lot bigger and were more floweriferous.
The best part was the alpine garden.
They had troughs planted with succulents and this fabulous  Tsuga canadensis 'Minuta'




Delosperma and Opuntia







The Acer palmatum 'Shindeshojo' was beautiful





I loved this vine or is it a tree? growing on the wall.

Seizing Opportunity From The Reluctant Jaws Of Winter

I’m thinking about microclimates and deciding that this patch of lawn where the snow has melted would be an ideal place to plant some perennials. Things like the Jerusalem artichoke (Helianthus tuberosus), I got from Gayla or maybe one of my many rhubarb crowns or some of those asparagus plants I grew from seed, last year.

I’m thinking this area became exposed first because the litter of black fallen sunflower seeds from the bird feeder absorbed enough heat from the sun to melt the snow faster and it's a south facing slope.

The fallen sunflower shells, bird poop and squirrel poop will make a great layer of fertilizer for a sheet mulched garden bed.
Of course I won't be doing anything until the snow has gone.

Perennials like rhubarb, asparagus and jerusalem artichokes start growing under the snow. At this time of year night temperatures are still dropping below zero, snowfall still happens and daytime temperatures rarely rise above 6 degrees C. Despite this cold, spots like these where the snow melts first are the places where things start growing first.

Easter Lily

The other day I bought home a Lilium longiflorum commonly known as The Easter lily. It's a trumpet lily brought into bloom for Easter long before it would naturally bloom outside in mid summer.
Trumpet lilies are my favourite type of lilly. I love their slender elegant flowers and their sweet fragrance. I’ve grown 'Regale', 'Pink Perfection' and 'Golden Splendour' in my garden. They are not reliably hardy in zone 2 and I haven’t found them to be particularly hardy in zone 3 either.
Lilium longiflorum is definitely not hardy up here but I thought I could treat it like my amaryllis and put it outside for the summer so it can soak up the sunshine, laze around with a nice cover of compost and get fat.
Because it is hardier than the amaryllis it needs a cold period before it will flower again, I hoping my fridge or cold room will be cool enough.
if it works I should be able to get it to flower again next summer.

Hardy Lilies For Zone 2 And 3
In my garden I grow ’Conca D’or’, an oriental trumpet lily, that has beautiful large blooms, in shades of creamy and lemon yellow, that get bigger every year.
I’ve been growing tiger lilies, Lilium lancifolium, in my gardens for years. Their unique flowers are spotted and their petals curve backwards.
I also have a couple of unknown varieties of asiatic hybrid lilies that come back every year without any extra care from me.

Growing Lillies
Plant Lilies in the fall, or plant them as soon as you can get into the garden in early spring. Lilies like their roots in the shade and their flowers in the sun. Accomplish this by planting the bulbs between the crowns of perennials and covering them with a mulch of compost or rotted manure.
The leafy growth of the perennials keeps the lilies roots shaded.
After the flowers die cut them off. Leave the stalk and leaves so they wither away helping the bulb to ripen and retain its nutrients for more flowers next year.

I've written more about growing lilies over here and here.

Winter Gardening In Vancouver

I’d never seen Hamamelis, Helleborus or Cyclamen growing outside until a few weeks ago. I’ve seen them in photos of course and I have a potted Cyclamen growing on my kitchen windowsill, as a houseplant.
I'd been looking forward to visiting Vandusan Botanical Garden in Vancouver for months, the last time I was there was late summer. I wanted to see the garden in the spring.
I was thinking April, on par with when spring arrives in the north. But at the end of February when I saw photos of early spring flowers all over the internet, Vancouver is in garden zone 8, and I was going to be down there to ski, I knew I should take advantage.  I took pictures of everything. There were Galanthus, (snowdrops) Crocus, Puschkinia, Iris, Viola, and loads of Helleborus.
Cyclamen grew in masses beneath the trees. I love that the fallen leaves from the trees have been left on the ground, covering up the bare soil, letting the plants grow up through them.



The hamamelis mollis (chinese witch hazel) was in full ethereal bloom.



Cornus sanquinea ‘midwinterfire’ (dogwood) has  eye catching, attractive bark. I need to search out this plant for my garden.




Eranthis (winter aconites) is an unusual spring bulb I used to grow in my zone 2 garden in the Peace. Unreliable in that harsh climate they never came back for more than two years running. I grew them again when I lived in town, in Prince George. It's rated as zone 3, although its much warmer in the city because of the Urban Heat Island Effect, UHIA. It’s the concrete that makes cities warmer than the surrounding countryside. You can grow plants rated for a warmer zone. I had better luck in that garden, they came back every spring for the four years I lived in town.