Winter Color... and A Confession

Last week, we were dealt high temps in the 20s and blustery winds that cut right through all but the sturdiest of winter clothes. I am nothing of a clotheshorse, but I am not afraid to shell out money for good, sturdy, long-lasting clothes... and so I have a nice Burton "Toast" snowboarding jacket with a removable down liner, a cute but functional knitted wool cap, and a pair of khaki-colored snowboard pants that work just as well for walking the dog as they do for hitting the slopes.

I needed none of that today, however, as it was a balmy 65 degrees! I've been working 80 hours a week for the past three weeks (with just Christmas Day off) and so I took a much-needed "recovery day" today. Bri, Coco and I went for a long walk in the Metroparks in just jeans and light sweatshirts... and then I took a walk around the garden to see what caught my eye, like these little variegated iris next to a dark heuchera.

A few things caught my eye in a not-so-good way, too. I took some divisions of my Mom's lamium last spring and summer, and they have spread nicely underneath the rhododendron, highlighting the rhodie leaves in a very good way. Look closer at the cluster of rhodie leaves on the left, however, and you'll see the ugly evidence of chlorosis. I am not one for babying plants much, but this rhodie is obviously old and I really like the way it looks against the house. (Evn though it was planted too close to the house in the first place.) So I may have to take some corrective action in the spring.

On the bright side, there are a lot of grasses still showing winter interest. The pinkish winter tones of Little Bluestem, with their white tufts of seedheads, look lovely swaying above 'Fuldaglut' sedum. The bleached-out blades of 'Sioux Blue' sorghastrum nutens provide a great backdrop for the 'Regina' heuchera at its base. Northern sea oats are legendary for their winter interest and show up well against the golden oregano that underplants them...

...but this carex buchanii, with its warm reddish bronze tones, is my current garden favorite. It seems to get a little more lax in the winter, and here you see it sprawled across a variegated lemon thyme. It contrasts nicely with the silvery-blue lavender foliage behind it, and is warmed up by the young clump of 'Purple Knockout' salvia lyrata at the corner of the bed.

Hellebores can be counted on to show some green in the wintertime, but I especially love seeing their fresh foliage--some of which is edged in red--as in the first picture on this post. With little else showing any signs of growth, it makes me admire the toughness of the hellebores even more.

On first sight, I was a little worried about this hellebore, which I transplanted twice in the middle of our summer drought. Yes, I know what all the experts say about transplanting hellebores, much less during a drought. But I've moved my hellebores multiple times with no ill effects so I figured I would take just one more chance. Luckily, there are little green buds hiding beneath the mulch of beech leaves at the crown of the plant... I covered them back up and tucked them in after taking this picture.

Last, but not least, this photo shows part of what I see when I walk down my front steps each morning. The architectural shrub in the foreground is a doublefile viburnum that might be on its way out... frankly, this shrub needs more moisture than my well-drained soil and this low-maintenance gardener is willing to give it. (If my parents are willing to give me the space at their house, it would be much happier there.) I won't pull it until I can decide what to plant in its place, however.

In front of the viburnum, out of the range of this picture, are the 'Ivory Prince' hellebores that I showed in my last post. Behind the viburnum on the left you see small green mounds of digitalis parviflora, almost smothered in leaves. In front of the two Japanese hollies is a small clump of transplanted bergenia in its red winter coat...

...which leads me to my confession. In spite of my admission at the beginning of this post that I am not a clotheshorse, and regardless of the fact that I am relatively anti-consumerism, I am unfortunately not immune to the need for some retail therapy (of the plant variety) every now and then. So yesterday, I placed my first-ever order with Plant Delights, for: 'Solar Flare' bergenia, 'Sparkling Burgundy' eucomis, and 'Hab Grey' sedum telephium ssp. ruprechtii

In my defense, it could have been worse, had I been any more tired--or drinking wine--because there were many, many more things on my PDN wishlist! (Kylee at Our Little Acre might have more houseplants than I do, but my PDN wishlist is quite a bit longer than the one she posted last week.) But I do resolve to be stronger about my winter plant and seed purchases for the rest of this season! (It's not too late for resolutions, is it?!)


Side note: This blog is a true "labor of love" for me, and while I'm not trying to make any money from it (hence the lack of Google ads, etc.) I am trying to keep it from costing me money. I'm already using 25% of my usable picture storage with Google, so I'll be resizing photos from older posts through the next few weeks and reposting them in an effort to "buy" a bit more storage space for the coming year. I share this only because I understand that some people use feeds to keep up with various blogs... and I have no idea whether people subscribe to my feed or not but I don't want to bombard anyone with notifications of my reposts. So I will be disabling my feeds while I'm doing all of this picture resizing work, and will enable them again after the work is completed.