by Leslie Cox; Saturday; March 18, 2017

Berberis thunbergii 'Aurea'Bonus this week! No snow! What a relief. However, the alternative has been rain…but it is still better than snow! Now, if only the wind would die down a bit. It has had a biting force this last week. So much for spring coming in two days as it really does not feel like it yet. But I am ever the optimist. Aren’t most gardeners? Warm weather and blue skies are sure to arrive at some point.

In the meantime, the plants are showing they know more about when spring is coming than we do. I am noticing many shrubs in the garden are showing fresh new buds…even if they are still quite tiny. The deciduous Berberis thunbergii (Japanese barberry) is one.

I love this shrub for its dependable performance in the garden. It is helpful to the busy gardener to have some no-fuss no-muss plants…ones which only require a quick prune in the spring to spruce them up for the entire season. And this particular species of Berberis comes in a few leaf colour variations which will add punch to pretty much any landscape design.

Berberis thunbergiss f. atropurpureaIn our garden, we have Berberis thunbergii f. atropurpurea which has reddish-purple leaves, as you might expect from its name. The more sun you give this one, the more intense its purple colouring. We also have the variegated B. t. f. atropurpurea ‘Rose Glow’, a delightful barberry with its splashes of purple, red, pink, and white on every leaf. Its colour also stands out more in full sun than in partial shade. B. t. ‘Aurea’ with its delectable golden yellow leaves is another favourite…and while its colour fades a bit in partial shade, it will still light up that part of the garden bed.

We also have two dwarf barberry shrubs: Berberis thunbergii ‘Monry’ (syn. Sunsation) and B. t. ‘Monbomb’ (syn. Cherry Bomb). As you can guess…the first one is yellow-leaved and the second has reddish-purple leaves. These two are useful in a smaller garden for their more refined size.

Iris reticulata 'Harmony'Carrying on with my garden walkabout news for this week…I was pleased to see my Iris reticulata ‘Harmony’ were up. Such a vibrant shade of blue on its leaf petals, which truly show off the colours of its “beard” to great advantage. And the blue also looks smashing up against the variegated leaves on Aucuba japonica ‘Crotonifolia’ (Japanese laurel)…as do the newly opened pale yellow flowers on my Primula vulgaris subsp. vulgaris. The muted yellow works very well as an accent plant in early spring…adding a bit of punch to other plants in its vicinity. Ringed around the aucuba, the primulas lend their yellow to the bright green / deep yellow variegation of the aucuba leaves.

Aquilegia vulgaris 'Woodside Gold'Next to the primulas, I noticed my golden-leaved columbine, Aquilegia vulgaris ‘Woodside Gold’ are popping up. The newly emerging leaves can be a little hard to spot against damp, dark soil because they are mostly red at this stage…and tightly furled. But as they unfurl, the gold colour starts to come through. This particular Aquilegia cultivar is great…bright yellow-gold leaves and pink flowers. But what John and I have noticed with ‘Woodside Gold’, the more sunlight it gets throughout the day, the darker the pink in the flowers. My plants are largely shaded throughout the day so the flowers on mine are a lovely pale pink. John’s plants get much more sun, so the flowers on his plants lean more towards a dark rose-pink hue.

On another gardening slant…cold, damp, windy weather gives me a really good excuse to leave off the outdoor clean-up chores and spend time with my seedlings coming up under the grow lights. Everything I sowed on Feb. 28th and Mar. 5th has sprouted…some way better than others, though.

I have had really good success with the asparagus, dinosaur kale, ‘Red Russian’ kale, dwarf Scottish blue curled kale, and ‘Red Komatsuna’ Japanese mustard. There is moderate success with the Portuguese kale and ‘Deep Purple’ mustard, so far. But the ‘Bloomingdale Long Standing’ spinach and ‘Prizehead’ lettuce are sadly lagging at this point. Not sure what their beef is…other than perhaps they do not being on a heat mat. Could be the soil temp is too warm for them, although lettuce is supposed to be okay from 4.5 °C to 13.5 °C (40 – 80 °F) and spinach will tolerate 7 °C to 18 °C (45 – 65 °F). Maybe their tardiness is because I am using up seed which is two years old. Ah well.

I sowed more seeds on the 12th…two more lettuce varieties, two Swiss chard, a deep scarlet-coloured variety of curled leaf kale, some onions, ‘Forest Green’ parsley and Nicotiana alata…an annual fragrant species of flowering tobacco. Already, there has been good sprouting progress with the Swiss chard, ‘Scarlet’ kale, and nicotiana this week.

Feeling good about the sprouting successes…and because the rain and wind was still putting a damper on outside work…I did some more seed sowing on the 15th. Two more lettuce varieties, chives, coriander, chervil, borage, fern-leaf fennel, lemon balm, summer savory, and English thyme are all under the lights. Next on the seed sowing list are peppers, tomatoes, and eggplants. But that will be a chore for the coming week.

Epimedium x versicolor 'Sulphureum'In the meantime, I should explain it was not all grousing about the weather this week. There were a few sunny breaks…albeit the wind was a tad sharp…when I did get some work done in the garden. Most of the hellebores are now divested of their ratty leaves (into the garbage!) and the old leaves on the numerous clumps of European wild ginger have been pruned off to allow the new leaves…just forming now…to shine. Also managed to remove all the old leaves on the two epimedium (bishop’s hat) clumps so their spring flowers can play a star role and did the same on the Hepatica nobilis clumps for the same floral reason.

There is still lots to do, but it was progress this week! Here’s hoping there will be better weather this coming week.