Favorite Winter Combinations

Wallflower.

New one not planted yet but love the colors, Euonymus Moonshadow.

Silene, Heuchera's Purple Palace and Silver Scrolls

New Zealand Hair Sedge

Euphorbia...Spring is coming!

This plant is always just there, but this time of year it is beautiful and comands a lot of attention. In the spring and summer it just fades into the background.

Last one for tonight...the side garden, it still has a lot of life.

Oh, nice pictures! I love the rock and moss too. Everything looks nice and healthy and getting ready for spring.

Thanks Rach, Heidi and Sue,

I love the rock and moss too, it kind of represents the PNW!

That was the perfect "fix" for a winter day!!!! Fabulous photos, everyone.

OOh, nice ones! I , too, love the rock and moss. It simply shouts 'Pacific Northwest', doesn't it? Those wallflowers are amazing. They just keep going. Mine has a little orange bloom on it, even in the cold weather.

No photos of the David yet, but I'm working on it. Too many people there today.
Here are a couple more winter photos. I moved some little snowdrops today ('In the green', as they say) and found some layered Skimmia that was ready to cut off and transplant. That's always fun.

Here's a delicate combination: a hellebore with the little black berries of Disporum cantoniense. The berries are so small I almost didn't see them.

A little cheating here. Pots of succulents under lights in my warm greenhouse. I love it in there. And yes, Rachel, I made room for seedflats. LOL!

another cheat. The hippeastrum in bloom. I'm crazy about that striped one in the back. Papillo improved, it's called. Now if I can get them to bloom again next year, I'll be thrilled.

Nice photos everyone! Cocoa, I had to chuckle at the photo of the plant marker! So true - I was planting out some asphodel yesterday - and just wishing I could find the bl#@*y markers of the the tulips that are just coming through - now what were they!

Pix, Disporum Cantoniense! I have night heron - in love.

Sorry, can't find the troubled hellebore - so I'll add this here. Wondering if it may be this root problem,
http://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profiles0501/hellebore_leafspot.asp

This message was edited Jan 27, 2008 11:41 PM

Wow Pixy love the cacti, I really miss them...I tried growing some in the house and they just croaked within a 6 month period. The air inside my house had to be too moist, maybe I should try again, I do not have kids and their friends running in and out now...(sigh) would rather have the kids than cacti!

I send my mother amaryllis every year she so loves them and had never seen one until I planted one in her front garden in 1990, now she gets new colors every year. You would not believe how fast they multiply in Phoenix. I think when I go down this time I will bring some back...lol Yours are lovely, your greenhouse must be nicely heated to have all those nice looking plants!

Keep the pictures coming!

Forgot what I came here to post...lol

What a difference a day makes, gotta love the beauty of the snow!

Can you pick out the Rock-n-Moss from yesterday!

I actually thought the news was wrong again because everything was thawing out and drippy yesterday...

When I was in Pixy's greenhouse the other day (I was delivering her seeds from the Dragonfly seed booty) I asked her where in the world she was going to start her seed flats? We discussed how to suspend shelving from the ceiling, etc, etc. We gardeners are a crafty bunch! Glad that you found room for the new babies.

lol cocoa, totally different look with the snow, but still very beautiful !!! Loved all your pictures, you can smell the spring in them.

Pixy, - your Papillo Improved is to die for, lovely !

Carla,
Do you want a chunk of a Duvallia that I picked up at the Desert Botanical garden in Phoenix? It's working pretty decently for me as a house plant. I guess it's more of a succulent and it hasn't bloomed, but it grows well.

I love the Papillo improved, too!

So far, less than an inch of snow for me (I'm on the flat plains) and a clearing sky. Love bright sunny snowy days.

edit-can't spell-or type today

This message was edited Jan 28, 2008 2:53 PM

Sue, I would love to try it, if it starts getting puny you will have to recover it...lol

lol, Carla, probably not much danger of that. I just have it sitting in a pot with a fairly lean soil mix in an east-facing window. I water it once in a while, about as often as I water my jade plants, I guess. It's interesting that it does most of its growth at this time of year.

OK, I'll pop it in the mail to you. I have to go to the PO today anyhow.

I was the crazy lady outside in her bathrobe and slippers, camera in hand at daybreak! Here is my favorite pic of the day. Yes, that is a bowling ball, I have several!

I love the open structure of the beaked hazelnut in comparision to the madrona and evergreens. That is Cinder, "clearing the yard" she's one tough doggie!

Had to take one of my "cocoa" bunny with the cedar log and moss.

Have thorns ever looked this good?!

Birdbath with Celeste the Flower Fairy.

Rachel, absolutely delightful photos!!!

Thanks!

Awesome Rach.

great pictures. what a pretty day. It was so nice and quite until my favorite ##### kid, dirt biked most of the afternoon. loud 2 stroke with no muffler. Sucks

Beautiful, Rach. Is that the hazelnut in the center of the picture? It's small - is it young? Love the way it looks with the ice on it.

Such fun in the snow, Rachel I love the pictures, especially the thorns...so fun!

Katie- The hazelnut is in the middle. It's 9 or 10 feet tall at it's highest point. It was here when we bought the property three years ago. Here is a pic of another one that was here also, it's about 12 or 13 feet at it's highest point. The hazelnut is just to the left of Cinder.

Heidi, I had a dirt biker going up and down our little hill early this afternoon - made me crazy from the noise. I took DH for a haircut after the kid had been doing that and it had made it a wee bit slick. When we came back and I carefully slid my way up the hill, the county truck was just coming back down from the cul de sac with sand. Cosmic joke.

Rachel, your property is beautiful - you will have nothing but fun as time goes on and you do more and more!!!

I know it is such a small thing in the skope of life. Such a pretty day and oh so quite. The road by out house is usally noisy but today was silent them waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa he even took off the muffler. I am our neighbor rep and all the neighbors are sick of it. we had up to 12 dirtbikers going at one time here last year it was awful. Kistap county has no real rules for noise and dirt bikes. Last fall it was the npa open and I had it and called the cops so here come 2 up my driveway. A little explaining to customers but they agreed that the noise was bad. It is a 11 year old boy with no parents home that is the worst. I'm on him next year. I talked to our county commishiner about it and hopefully some laws can be made.

I had the neighbors ask how I'd feel about them cutting up a huge deadfall than ran on one edge of my property. I told them that they were welcome to ride their horses there, but that I liked the tree where it was because it prevented ATVs. Fortunately, their regular trail wasn't destroyed, so it's not an issue. They both have horses, but they both have teenagers who, as I understand it from others in the neighborhood, were the source of the ATV noise.

Is it possible to "accidentally" fell a tree over their route?

Our property is fenced so they aren't on our property just right next to it. We have talked to another neighbor whos grandkids come over and dirt bike and we have know him for years and he pretty much told us all to take a hike. Dave talkede to his wife who was working in the yard and told her how bad it was getting and she agreesed. She was going through chemotherapy and looked very tired and frail and as they were talking the little ##### zipped by 100 miles an hour 10 feet from them. They both have had cancer on and off and have come up with this attitude don't sweat the small stuff. There place used to be a park and now the dirt bikes have trashed it and they don't care. Their grandkids are happy but there are17 pissed off neighbors. I finally got a woman sherrif who had been back to the trouble house for domestic violence and a dui. The guy cops didn't think too much about the dirtbikes because both of their kids have them but the lady sherriff was on it.

Wow. Tough situation. Sad that their grandkids are so insensitive. Hope they can resolve it.

They don't care that their grandkids dirt bike there. They love their grandkids and you know how boys are the more noise they can make the happier. The other neighbor kid is the worst and a single dad is never home and the kid is 11 and up to no good. It is only going to get worse. The grandparent just care about themselves and not that is is bothering anyone else. We all have property out here and I think some of the people think that gives them the right to be rude and noisy,.

Heidi,
I understand exactly how you feel. That's how it was on my parents farm. They lived there for 20+ years, in a wonderful, peaceful farming valley. Then people bought the undeveloped property nextdoor, built a mega mansion with a big fancy swimming pool, never mind the fact that the Green River ran the entire backside of thier property (that was to far to walk for the kids!) It was only 2.5 acres! Then they bought thier kid a dirtbike. That is one of the reasons my parents moved. The other big reason was that our road "Green Valley Road" had been written up in so many motorcycle magazines over the past few years that every motorcyclist this side of the Missisippi knew that it was one of the best roads to ride in the state. All we heard all weekend was the sports bikes shifting gears from a mile up the road. They usually took the road (speed limit 35 lots of twists and turns) at about 75-90 mph. My parents and I where on the local fire department and we would peel up and put back together about 15 motorcyclists a year off that road. The sad part is the road is only 14 miles long! So now you know how I feel about that subject!