We did it!

Robert and I signed up for the 24-hour Short Story Contest at writersweekly.com. At 1pm yesterday, we received our "topic" and max word count (which was just 1,000 words - can you imagine, a chatty gal like me?). Just before 1pm today, we emailed our entries. (And just after that, my computer restarted for no reason at all, so right after that Robert was forced into his "tech support for life"role.) Mine was 999 words, R's shorter. We didn't skip meals (as if!) or stay up all night. I didn't know what to make of the topic at first, but working to include its elements made all sorts of things happen in the story that wouldn't otherwise have occurred to me.

It was oddly exhilarating. And then we had lunch.

Can hibernation truly be over?

Oh, blog and kind visitors, thank you for your patience. I was just about to declare that I wasn't going to recite my little tale of upgrade woes and hardware/software issues, when my browser closed in the middle of my unsaved post. But I'm still not going to talk about it. Let's skip right to "plant choices," and hope for the technical best.

Here's a "special" Hamamelis vernalis in my front yard - it's 'Purpurea' (or maybe var. purpurea):

Pretty exciting that something's blooming in chilly late January, but visually, not something that makes us want to do backflips, is it? (No one asked why I was taking pictures of a dead plant, but a couple of passers-by did a double-take that I'm sure meant precisely that.) For one thing, it's looking more like straight-up H. vernalis than like anything purplish. Which is actually a slight improvement, as the purply-brown flowers it bore the last few years used to blend even more completely into the purply-brown stems. This is the first year the leaves have persisted this late. Maybe they're sad the fall foliage display never really happened? My front garden is given over (almost) exclusively to native plants, and increasingly to native plants with uses - preferably edible uses. This plant is native, but I think it would be happier with steadier water than I can provide there, and maybe a little more sun.

If I had more room, our fall-blooming H. virginiana would be a spectacular choice - that's where witchhazel, the stuff you buy in drugstores, comes from. And of course, it does its glory thing late, which is just as exciting as early. And it's arguably showier, though neither is as glamorous as some of the popular hybrids (like 'Arnold's Promise') - they're all descendants of Chinese witchhazel, H. mollis. Here's that flashy thing blooming (on your birthday, Ellen!) last week, at NYBG:

Did I mention all these witchhazels are fragrant, each in a different way? I actually started this post to warn the plant-besotted against getting all sidetracked by "special versions" of plants, and I was thinking it was time for my poor H. vernalis to move on and make room for something else. The container blueberry bushes look far more dramatic, with their bare red stems, than this poor thing in full bloom (and so very edible). But now I'm not so sure. I'll have to give it the scent-test in the next few days, when it warms up a little. And wait till spring, in any case.

And speaking of passing seasons - we are watching our beloved Kozskat's accelerating decline with a loving ache. At 17, she's still herself, if a little more addicted to heat sources, like my desk lamp. Please click on her, and think of her kindly. There's not much to do for her, and we are sad, but surprisingly not afraid.

New foliage, at this time of year...

I've been worrying about this Leucothoe fontanesiana, throwing up this beautiful new foliage at such an iffy time of year (this picture's from the week after Thanksgiving) . The cultivar is 'Scarletta,' but this is the first year I've seen this dramatic color in the new leaves. Laurie bought this plant for its graceful, drooping shape and glossy evergreen leaves. When I told her I thought it would cook in her west-facing front boxes, she gave it to me (thank you, Laurie). I was right that it hates hot afternoons; when our mighty oak came down, I had to move it to a shadier, morning-sun spot. It's spreading and trailing slightly over our stone wall. And the foliage is holding up to the beginnings of wintry weather... so far.

New question: seedheads

Mary's wondering what to do with her Black Eyed Susans:

I love the seed heads, like black q-tips as I look out onto the garden through the winter...must I remove these, 'cuz I sure don't want to. Since I don't remove, is this making for less than FABULOUS flowers? I also think they just need to be thinnned by ripping out some here and there and planting down the street in a wasteland? Yes?

Deadheading during the bloom season may make the plant bloom (even) longer. Cutting off the last of the flowers before seeds form may make it more vigorous next year - it takes plant energy to make seeds. But at this point, they're dormant.

Reasons you might want to remove them: to stop them from seeding in all over the place; for neatness; to do some work now that you don't feel like doing in spring. But you don't want to - for the reason that you want to look at them (this is an even better reason than "don't feel like it," and that's legimate, too).

You can rip some out and throw them in your wasteland down the street - we call that dividing, and it will make your planting more vigorous. Spring or fall would be best, but as you may recall, I took my black-eyed-susans out of your garden in July and left them in my hot car before planting them. They still bloomed till Thanksgiving that same year.

In nature, the only seedhead removal that happens is whatever the birds eat, plus whatever dries up and blows away between now and spring. I hope this makes you feel better about doing nothing - often a fine choice.

p.s. I think it's fine to post questions in comments. I'm pulling them into a new post to answer, for folks who don't read down to the last drop in the land of comments.

What could be more wonderful than an email entitled ‘Propagation question’? Mary asks,

Can we propagate Jack-in-the-Pulpit with the red seeds we have? John is most curious, I'm just hoping for more through some method not involving human intervention.

The answer is: Yes, you can, and be careful with those red berries (the white seeds are inside). Like many fruits, they contain an enzyme to inhibit germination (no point germinating inside the fruit, or inside of an animal or bird who eats the fruit - plants are clever). But Arisaema berries also contain calcium oxalate crystals, which really burn. So wear latex or rubber gloves to clean the seed from the pulp. You can sow outside now or in spring. You'd probably get a lower germination rate than you would if you sow indoors with coddling, but I assume coddling is the sort of human intervention you want to avoid. If you're sowing indoors, soaking them for a day or two might speed germination.

They are slow from seed - the first year you get one leaf (and not the typical leaf). The second year, expect typical foliage, but no bloom. If all goes well, you'll have flowers the next year, but probably no berries (male flowers only). But they will get there. You can also divide them - your patch is pretty established. Divide in fall rather than disturb 'em in spring. I divided by accident, when I dumped out a pot I thought had nothing in it, and found the dormant corm and its little offsets.

The Connecticut Botanical Society has beautiful photos, including one showing off the berries.

More questions, please!

Our anniversary

This would have been a good occasion to learn how to use my camera's timer. But no time! We were off to our fabulous lunch date. Truth is, we go out to dinner pretty often, on our own and socially. Super-premium lunch dates... how often do those come along? We thought of it spontaneously (and simultaneously) this morning, and of course we went to our old friend, the Union Square Cafe. And there we ate some of our favorite things on the menu, and some new wonderful things on the menu, and it was glorious.

The romantic lunch date is just one gem I've learned from Robert in 11 great years of marriage. The collected wisdom could fill a book (if I title it "How Not To Eat Like My Husband," it's a sure self-help bestseller). Back to garden and plant topics tomorrow... and remember, invite your beloved to an exceptionally wonderful lunch, soon.

You think you don’t care about seedheads, I’ll bet. You like flowers, and maybe fragrance, and certainly fall color. (Yes, you’re nodding, you love fall color! Very good.) Here’s Vernonia noveboracensis, many weeks after finishing its long, late bloom. Nice, yes?

I’m not in a hurry to cut this back – it’s still tall and stately, and I haven’t had a lot of seeding in from this plant in my front garden. (I think this is because the seed wants to fly away on the wind, and if it flies more than a few feet it will hit the sidewalk.) So when you read in garden books that you must cut everything back, please remember – it’s a matter of when you prefer your work, and which consequences you’re avoiding. (More on this in spring, when I no doubt will regret at least a few of the chores I’m leaving undone this fall.)

And speaking of other ways to be beautiful at this time of year, would anyone care to hazard a guess what this is? It's a bit of a trick question (that's a hint, and an apology). There will be prizes.

Still-glorious autumn

Oh, sure, you’re tired of me telling you about all the wondrous plants with those end-of-season virtues you don’t care about. Well, how’s your garden, this week after Thanksgiving? True, my Amelanchier foliage display is done, and the Fothergilla gave up all but a few last glowing leaves in Monday’s rain.

But see the plant formerly known as Aster cordifolius,* the one you think too dull for your garden? Still blooming. Don’t those pale blue stars make a spectacular contrast with the wine-red blueberry foliage, and the divine gold of Clethra alnifolia? The Clethra that was so deliciously fragrant for weeks in later summer (note seedheads)?

*Taxonomy alert: they renamed all the North American asters. This is done for good scientific reasons. Not because using the word Aster for both common and scientific names makes life too easy for regular folks. The asters (from Greek, meaning star, via Latin) were a happy oasis in a plant world full of lilies that aren’t lilies, violets that aren’t violets, palms that aren’t palms. Luckily, it’s easy and fun to learn scientific names! And the more names you learn, the more names you can learn. Repeat after me, Tyrannosaurus rex! I knew you could do it. Now try: Symphyotrichum cordifolium. (“Commonly” pronounced blōō wŏŏd ās'tər.)