Tangled Branches: Cultivated

happenings in and around my zone 6b gardens in northern Virginia and in central Virginia

Sunday, January 20, 2008

Snowdrop Update and Blog Tinkering

Thought I'd show you how the snowdrops fared after my Bloom Day post.

We got a surprise snowstorm on Thursday - about 4 or 5 inches. Oh well.......it is winter.

Shirl kindly provided a link to a video showing how to plant snowdrops in-the-green, and that got me started snowdrop surfing. I turned up some interesting web pages. Several of these mention Hitch Lyman, who is seemingly the only purveyor of snowdrops in-the-green in the US. If you know of any others, please share.

Cold Climate Kathy's post about snowdrops and Hitch Lyman prompted me to send for his catalog a couple of years ago.
Last March the Washington Post's garden editor wrote about snowdrops, Hitch Lyman, and The March Bank at Winterthur.
The Transatlantic Plantsman has a photo of a very enviable stand of snowdrops - escaped from cultivation. Maybe that's the secret - toss them in a ditch and see what grows.

I've been doing some tinkering around the edges of the blog. My right-column blogroll had gotten very out of sync with my reading habits - I had been using Bloglines but came to prefer Google Reader and so didn't keep the Bloglines list up-to-date. I'm still working on merging the two lists. And I changed the format to try to make it easier to read, but that typeface looks rather small to my aging eyes.

Yesterday while looking for something else, I came across a snippet of Blogger template code to display the name of each commenter on the main page (i.e. you don't have to click the "comment" link to see who has commented). I tried it out, but I'm not sure whether I like it or not. One of the things I don't like is that the commenter's name isn't linked to the comment, but to the commenter's Blogger profile page (or some other web page in the case of non-Blogger commenters). We're getting into the political season here in the US and polls are all the rage everywhere, so how about helping me decide this issue?

Labels: blogroll, snow, snowdrops, template

Wednesday, December 05, 2007

Non-Calamintha Snow

What's the Inuit word for "snow too heavy and wet to make the calamintha look pretty"?

That's the kind we had today. This isn't all that bad, but the Calaminthas need something fluffier and lighter to look their winter best. Maybe we'll get another chance later in the season, if they're not totally flattened by then.

Here's an antique video for the first snow of the season. For you folks who aren't from the Chicago area, have you ever seen it?

Labels: snow

Monday, April 09, 2007

Snowy Easter Weekend

There are more pictures of our central Virginia weekend snow here. Nothing as dramatic as some other places - northeast Ohio, for example - but unusual for the time of year.

Here in northern Virginia, a few plants are looking wilty-like and unhappy, but I didn't see anything really frozen and dead. I think the nighttime low temperatures weren't as cold as predicted. Surprisingly, the epimediums are among the unhappy plants. I thought as wiry as they are, they wouldn't be much affected. The new shoots are very slender - maybe that's why?

Labels: epimediums, snow, weather

Saturday, April 07, 2007

Whine

April 7.
In Virginia.
In central Virginia.
Snow. Snow!
2+ inches of snow.

Labels: snow, weather

Thursday, March 08, 2007

Last Snow

These are positively the last pictures of snow I'm going to post until next winter. Even if it snows another two feet, which it won't, I will not take a picture.

While I was out photographing the narcissus in the snow, a red-bellied woodpecker started drumming on the neighbors' chimney cap. The robins were back today, and so was the pine warbler. The goldfinches are starting to wear their summer feathers. And it's finally going to warm up outside!

Labels: birds, bulbs, snow

Tuesday, March 06, 2007

Spring or Winter?

Every time I declare spring, it snows. I was just thinking of declaring spring after last weekend in the country, so snow is in the forecast.

Last weekend in Central Virginia, the weather was warm enough to open the windows and air out the house. The sound of spring peepers (or something) drifted in on the breeze (more like a gale, actually). I wandered around the woods looking for wildflowers or fiddleheads, but it was still too early. The maple trees are starting to bud out. The birds were singing noticeably more than the previous weekend. Our well-fed suburban birds have been singing for weeks, but I think the rural birds were still just trying to stay alive. Now the bugs are starting to come out and they can think of other activities. I didn't see any deer, but did find their tracks in the mud, however those were nowhere near the recently planted woodies. So far, so good.

Back to those spring peepers for a moment. According to what I've read on the internet, spring peepers are nocturnal. So then, what was I hearing during the daylight? They started about 10:30 in the morning and went until late afternoon. The sound was coming from the brushy side of the stream. I tried to look for the critters, but could see nothing. I found a site with sounds of a dozen frogs and toads, but none of these sound like what I remember. So the identity of the croaking creatures remains to be discovered.

In Northern Virginia, a few more crocus flowers popped open yesterday. I do mean popped open. Sunday I swear there was nothing there - hardly even any leaves; Monday - flowers. And some of the very early narcissus are open. Pictures soon.

A rare bird stopped by this afternoon - a pine warbler. I guess they really aren't all that rare, but this is only the second time I've seen one in the backyard. Not rare at all, but very welcome, a large flock of robins was rummaging through the leaves in the woods late in the afternoon.

Did I mention there's a snow advisory for tomorrow?

Labels: birds, critters, crocus, narcissus, snow

Thursday, February 08, 2007

Flaky

We woke up yesterday to a sparkly coating of snow. The fluffy kind that looks pretty and then fades away by afternoon. So, of course, the schools were closed. I was going to heap some more sarcasm on, but CapitalWeather.com did such a good job that I couldn't possibly improve on it.

I posted a few pictures of some snow-frosted plants, including my favorite - Calamintha. It looks so lacy and delicate in the snow, but you have to wait around for just the right kind of snow. A little bit stickier snow might have been better, but if the predictions come true, the next storm is going to flatten them.

Labels: plants for winter, snow

Subscribe :::

Recent Photos :::

Recent Birds :::

My Other Blogs :::

Archives :::

Garden Blogroll :::