Garden in winter

My last post was mid-October, when we experienced an unusual cold snap.  It stuck around for a couple of weeks or more - there was snow on the ground at Halloween.  That's not normal.  But since then, until now (January 3, 2020), it's been more like fall than winter. 

After the snow melted, everything looked about the same as before the cold spell.  Even the supertunias and marigolds were still blooming.  I wasn't terribly suprised by the marigolds, but the supertunias amazed me.  They're so delicate.  I thought they were strictly warm weather flowers.

I tried to lay my tomato plants down and cover them so the dozens of large green tomatoes might be able to go ahead and ripen, but they never did.  It was a sad year for tomatoes, because it got too  hot too early for them to set much fruit, and then when they started producing well, it started to get cold.

I ended up with exactly one cabbage for the entire year.  

Violaceo di Vernoa

What was left stayed green for all of November and much of December.

Arugula gone crazy

The roses held out longer than other years.  They didn't bloom much, but the leaves stayed on and green.

When the weather turned half-way decent again, I got the chance to finish digging, turning, and mulching my perennial bed.  I also managed to plant some roses and alliums in it, so I'm excited to see how it looks in the spring.

   

Eventually, some time in December, most everything died back,and I had the opportunity to mulch the rose, tulip and cut flower beds.  I covered the rose bed with chopped up maple leaves and then tossed a thin layer of shredded cypress bark on top to keep them from blowing away.  Hopefully that will be enough to keep the shrubs alive.  If the rest of the winter is as mild as December was and January is starting, I have no doubt they'll be fine.

I planted two beds' worth of tulip and daffodil bulbs the first week of October.  Dozens and dozens and dozens.  I know I took pictures, but I have no idea what became of them.  At any rate, I put white markers everywhere I planted bulbs so I'll know whether anything fails to come up and can get replacements.  I also overplanted the beds with crimson clover for a green manure and then put down a light cypress bark mulch.  The clover is still green and growing, so I'll have to decide how to deal with that when the flowers start emerging.  I may be sorry I planted it.

The perennial volunteer red-veined sorrel is also still green and growing.

As are - amazingly to me - some of the California poppies.

Other things that are still green (if scrappy) are yarrow...

Gaura...

 

Perennial salvia, believe it or not...

Lisianthus...

...and one oiental poppy.  

 

It's not that the other oriental poppies I planted from seed aren't still green and growing, it's that they never germinated.  I spread some more seed from a different supplier last month, and I'll try putting out some more next month.  Hopefully I'll get some more plants.

Those are all in the perennial garden.  Overall, though, the garden looks like this right now:

 Background: vegetable garden (with crimson clover groundcover); foreground: (l) rose garden, and (r) cut flower garden

Even the rose on the southeast corner of the house has some new supple leaves.  I don't think that's a good thing.

I've already started some seeds in my cellar set-up: celery, because in my past experience, it's extremely slow to get big enough to transplant; and craspedia (aka Sun Balls), because in my one year of previous experience, the germination rate was poor and growth was slow once I transplanted them to the garden.  I got my seed from a different company this time, and the days to germination was listed as two to three weeks. So I planted several 6-packs with lots of seeds early.  They came up in four days, at about a 100% germination rate!  And they seem to be growing rather quickly. 

I had to separate them out to have no more than three per cell, and now I have fifteen 6-packs of them! I'm going to be in trouble if they get very large before the weather allows me to transplant them to the garden.  But if the winter stays mild and spring doesn't go haywire, maybe I can put them out early.  The ones I planted last year grew right through fall until that hard freeze at the end of October, so maybe they can handle cool weather.  Fingers crossed.

I also have some little spruce sprigs potted up that I got for donating a few dollars to the Arbor Day Foundation.  I guess I'll be nursing these along for some years before they're big enough to plant out.  But, if I get them going well, some day they'll be a welcome windbreak on this property.

The Foundation also sent two bare-root crape myrtles.  I have no idea if they'll live, but if they do, they're big enough I can put them in the ground next fall.

And, having nothing to do with gardening, I saw a Northern flicker in the bald cypress tree outside my window the other day.  My reference guide says they're year-round residents in most all parts of the mainland USA, but I've never seen one before in my life.  At least not that I noticed.  And I think I would have noticed.  It was gorgeous.  I couldn't get a picture of it, but here's a nice one from the internet:

Is that not fantastic?

Keep your eyes peeled.