Winter into Spring

Helleborus x hybridus 'Mardi Gras Black Shades'

Just in time for its namesake festival, a lovely dark perennial bloomed in my front yard.  Helleborus x hybridus 'Mardi Gras Black Shades' is a rare treat in February:  a robust, shade-tolerant perennial showing off its peak bloom when days are just beginning to lengthen.

Like most hellbores, this stunner requires little care in our coastal climate. Its soil and water requirements are modest here (high-organic matter helps hold moisture). 3" blossoms held nodding above shiny broad leaves look almost surreal: silky, dusky purple so deeply colored they verge on black.


A staged planting of spring daffodils provides a backdrop for the hellebore along with a permanent planting of early-blooming primroses, and the whole arrangement happily flanks a mature Japanese maple. Moving into spring and summer, the bulbs fade and are trimmed down, leaving room for a collection of summer flowers including Japanese anemone. 

So just as we were preparing for spring planting in the vegetable garden, after a week of sunny weather encouraged turning the soil and cleaning up over-wintered plants... March reminded us it's still early.


A remarkable 24 hours of winter/spring weather arrived yesterday and didn't let up until this afternoon. First we received high winds, then an amazing downpour of water, followed by an evening of snowfall. Waking up to more than 2 inches of snow on the ground, the finale included lightning and thunder and touch of hail.  


Where last week I had marveled at the arrival of pollinating bees, today we were pruning damaged branches from the Asian pears and hoping the now-blooming peach tree would get some pollinators' attention.


Spring on the Oregon coast has arrived.

Winning Combinations

This is a short post, or rather boast, about some plant combinations I'm enjoying right now.

Lithodora diffusa is a popular groundcover on the coast, probably for its evergreen leaves and cheerful blue flowers.  Frequently it displays blackened, defoliated branches due to some unknown fungus.  The best cure is to cut it severely back, almost as if you are removing it.  The established roots respond with new fresh growth and profuse flowering as seen here.

Allow it to swarm around the base of taller plants, like this weeping Alberta Spruce (Picea abies var. pendula) and even visually striking edibles like the spiky artichoke above, a great vegetable for mild coastal summers.

Planting into the shadow of the spruce, and at the top (drier) edge of my small rain garden, I looked for a spot of shade-tolerant color year round.  Hence this 'Creme Brulee' Heuchera, also known as Coral Bells.  It's just getting ready to flower.

Providing a rosy, but much darker, backdrop for the Heuchera is one of my favorites for the wetter soils of a rain garden or bog area, Ninebark.  This particular selection was chosen for its burgundy foliage, in this case a horticultural variety of Eastern Ninebark (Physocarpus opulifolius), 'Summer Wine.'  The plant will eventually mature much larger, but I plan to keep it restrained with annual pruning.

Finally, the basin of my rain garden sports a bronzy selection of wet-tolerant sedge, which I think is Carex buchanii.  Sometimes I pick up these plants on a whim of late-summer clearance sales or adopt them from the nursery's cull pile, hence I'm not always sure of the exact species or variety.

What combinations are emerging in your spring garden that delight the eye?