mears garden: January 12, 2014-week 4-How long is January?

Sunday, January 12, 2014

January 12, 2014-week 4-How long is January?

January 12, 2014-week 4-How long is January?

The post for this week’s contest will be short this week. I have had a bad cold this week, one of those adventures into misery that you do not think will end until March.

Let me first get to the contest.

This last week’s voting the purple anemone was the winner.

The full voting was:
Anemone blanda 20
Iris riticulata 15
Bloodroot 14
Winter aconite 9

Here are this week's four contestants-

This first picture is a double hellebore. Hellebores are a real backbone of the early spring garden. They come a many colors. They do not have many pests. They seed themselves. The seedlings take 3-4 years to get to blooming size. They do tend to hand down, making photography a challenge.

The next contestant is Epimedium Alpinum. These tiny spring flowers also challenge the photographers. They bloom early, often dancing with the bluebells in April.

The third contestant is this lovely white hepatica. This flower has been a challenge to me. Much of its beauty comes with its difficulty. As a wildflower it shouldn’t be that hard to grow. I guess we all have to have a few of these challenges to keep us going. No one said everything would be easy.
This picture was taken on March 13, 2012. Please remember spring that year was very early. This along with all the contestants this week are mostly April flowers.

The fourth contestant this week is the purple pasque flower. I can announce that I have succeeded in establishing several clumps of this feathery spring flower. Actually in 2012 it was so very hot in July. The local grocery store had lots of little perennials on sale for not much more than a dollar. No one wanted the purple masque flowers. I bought about a dozen. Now they are all over. I look foreword to seeing if they clump up for me this spring.
Pasque flowers come in several other colors. There is even a white one. See the extra pictures below.