More Wet February

Rinse and repeat. Rain, snow, cold. Then rain, snow, cold. That is already looking like the plan for next week. I will say the wet of rain makes the colors of the Under Garden stand out.

It needs to stop. I need some dry.

It is more pleasant to visit crocus in the dry.

Not yet. That last step off the front porch is one step too far. Solly is not ready for a walk in the garden. Some dry might help.

The colors are nice.

Then it snowed. It started with wet and heavy half dollar sized flakes.

Then it got cold and turned to powder.

The crocus were blanketed yet again.

And it snowed some more.

The cold never left.

"My brother and I stand like the fences
of abandoned farms, changed times
too loosely webbed against
deicide homicide
A really powerful blow
would bring us down like scarecrows.
Nature, knowing this, finding us mildly useful
indulging also
her backhanded love of freakishness
allows us to stand."
       Daniel J. Berrigan

Think dry. Soon.

To And Fro

I tried to go to work this morning because rinse and repeat is on tap again for this week so help me God, but the snow had not melted. I came back home.

Niwaki. The cloud pruning of the bottom skirts was done. I like the more open look. I'm not liking the overall conical shape. For now I am leaving plenty of options. In time more branches can be removed to change the outline. Now is the time for bondage.

This is perfectly fine weather for a slow motion Stinze.

The bulbs are rising.

I just need to get out there and make some money. You just can't garden much in wet slop.

To and fro. This next door house kitty business gets a bit old. A solution has so far proven elusive.

Rinse. Repeat. There was a suggestion I could wake up to more snow. Snow is fine. It is the melted dry in between that is lacking.

After A Crocus High Snow

Snowdrops return to sunshine mode.

The witch hazel 'Diane' hangs on. Soon it will be done.

There is a defining melt line based on the tilt of the earth.

Down there with 'Arnold'

The crocus emerge from a snow that was piled right to their tops.

It was a perfect protecting, crocus high snow.

Solly Kitty wants nothing to do with it. That is a far as she is willing to go.

Trudging Through The Snow

Click on a picture for the slide show. It snowed all day long.

The Day Before Snow

Bulbs are blooming.

That's the way it works. There is always an element of risk.

The Hellebore have joined in.

But these are the cold hardy. They are adapted to snow.

The risk comes in the quality and duration of the cold and the snow. The deep cold is what matters the most.

Today before snow, the short running bamboo by the chimney was named. If I put the name here I'll know where to find it.

Meet Sasha veitchii. It is a cold hardy variegated bamboo that makes a nice evergreen groundcover in the shade. Sister #1 didn't like it and said it didn't go with the chimney. I told her her father planted it there. I like it. My father had good taste in plants.

There is another colony of it below her mother's house next door.

I travel to and fro. Tomorrow it will be in the snow.

In the land of Snowdrops, Solly Kitty's digestion has resumed the normal direction of flow. That is a good thing. I might be raising an indoor cat. A walk in the garden failed when she didn't want to leave the front decks or wander too far from the front door. Solly likes her warm winter den.

All the beasts do.

I am hoping the snow will be crocus high.

Cloud Pruning

The 'Gold Mop' Chamaecyparis pisifera got cloud pruning training session #3 today.
Before.

After.

Before.

It happened after Solly and I went for a short walk in the garden this morning. The little bit of vomit this morning was all hair, no food. That's a good sign.

I'm having a major urge to dispense with the emergency backup bottom skirts on my Niwaki kind bushes. It may be time to cloud prune the bottom and aim for a more tree like form. Some bondage will be required to pull this off. I need to think about how to do that.

This training session might not be quite finished.