So what happened??

Maybe I have tested the rain gods with this blog. Maybe I shouldn't have said anything! We've gotten so sensitized to drought here that any little superstition can somehow explain why it has stopped raining. I think the answer is pretty simple.....sometimes it rains, sometimes a lot. Sometimes it doesn't, sometimes a lot.

Meanwhile, the spring here continues to be a blockbuster. Oakleaf Hydrangeas (Hydrangea quercifolia) are budded up and ready to explode. Here's a photo (right) of the faded flower color on Hydrangea quercifolia 'Amethyst'. It opens as a huge white panicle, then fades to THIS! WOW. As I have been saying for two years that this species, and the other native Hydrangea (arborescens) are both well adapted to the vagaries of the SE weather, and do perform regardless.

Other natives extend the spring show, some with an exhibitionsitic flareFothergilla major 'Mt Airy'
some with quiet seduction. Asimina triloba

Viburnums are also showing off this month. Too many to list here, but a few notable that I have come to love. Viburnum sargentii 'Onondaga' is rarely seen in the trade but is a real beauty.
The red is deep and rich, the leaves unfold in lovely patterns of creases and color. The flower is more like a lacecap hydrangea than you might guess. White sterile flowers, maroon lace. This plant will get tall, but it is not such a space hog like the doublefiles and others.

Hosta 'Vanilla Creme'I took some Hostas to a customer this morning. I don't know many cultivars, but I do know what I like, and this little fella is one-

TS Eliot wrote "April is the cruelest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
The Waste Land, 1922"

On this last day of April, I am hoping that May will continue to stir.

April Fool

Picea abies Crusita

It's 2:30 am and I can't sleep. My plants are waking up and they're keeping me awake. So much to do. So afraid I'll miss something. Like yesterday, when I was cleaning out in the "my special stash" conifer house. I'm pulling weeds. I'm moving pots. I'm raking and sweeping dead leaves. I'm on my hands and knees scooping up the last of the piles and I come nose to nose with Picea abies 'Crusita'. My goodness, what a fabulous plant from my conifer buddy Duane. I've seen plenty of conifers whose new foliage is yellow or chartreuse and they are all great. But this baby has deep maroon little paintbrushes covering it. WOW. But look....now that I'm down here at ground level, there's the first pink cone on my Picea abies 'Acrocona' along with the little lightbulb yellow foliage at the tips.
Juniperus x media 'Holger' Picea abies 'Acrocona' Acer palmatum 'Higasayama'


And this Pinus parviflora 'Iri Fukin'. Little did I know when I ordered it that those cones would be purple! The Juniperus rigida 'Akebono' has candleflame yellow tips covering it's blue-green stiff nedles. The Juniperus x media 'Holger' mirrors the flametips with creamy yellow ones of it's own. And that's just the conifers!!

What about the Japanese maples, whose ranges and combinations of colors surpass all the available color words I know in English. 'Beni Maiko', 'Higasayama','Orange Dream', Koto-No-Ito'.....the words just
go round and round in my head. I'm too excited to sleep. But if I don't sleep, then I'll be too tired when it's light to get everything done. Get up and work.....go back to sleep! April Fool! The joke's on me.

But I sure am smiling.

Hypericum inodorum 'Summer Gold'

Maybe our great American humorist Mark Twain had the best line....
"The first of April is the day we remember what we are the other 364 days of the year." 

And apparently I'm going to remember all 24 hours of it.

Nierembergia gracilis 'Starry Eyes'

RAIN!

Second straight day of computer stuff. But hey- I'm not complaining. This is the kind of rain I remember from springs past. In fact, I am so old that I can remember a spring or two when I just gazed out of the window day after day thinking that it just couldn't rain anymore! Now, at least this week, that kind of rain pattern is back. And aren't we thrilled! As they say.....what a difference a few years makes.
Meanwhile, the warmer temps creeping in along with the rains have turned the dreary winter days into exciting peeks at spring. The Japanese Maples are magic every year.

They change from day to day- hairy silver leaves, red dangles of flower buds, leaf colors from chartreuse to green, oranges, reds, maroons, finely dissected to broad hands. You should come see! Even Boxwoods look luscious right now. Pretty soon my lovely colorful conifers will have to take a back seat to Fothergilla, Illicium floridanum, Viburnums, Redbuds. And while the blast of spring continues, we're planning the vegetable garden full of heirloom veggies. Tomatoes for sure, in ornamental colors, along with peppers in all sorts of colors, shapes, sizes, and heats. Lettuces and other greens. Beans and peas. (Can you tell I spent too much time indoors in January with the plant catalogs??) Come take a look at the nursery, and keep coming back to watch to plants embrace spring and the nursery fill up with show offs.
I got an email from my daughter with a little snippet of a poem that seems to fit my mood today...

"And who will care, who will chide you if you wander away 

from wherever you are to look for your soul?

from wherever you are, to look for your soul?

Quickly, then, get up, put on your coat, leave your desk!"

-Mary Oliver

from Have You Ever Tried to Enter the Long Black Branches by Mary Oliver

Sounds like good advice....