I also made the amateur's mistake of planting two months early. Our average date of last frost here, apparently, is April 15. "Well, hell," I said to the computer screen, and started tucking vintage army blankets around the plants every night.
They're under shelter. I don't think anything has died. They just marked time until the soil warmed up. And they got a nice soaking from our major thunderstorm last week!
In our most sheltered corner, we have a young Japanese maple (a Suminagashi) and three specimens of an apricot-colored viola cultivar. These are an annual, so next year I may replace them with a threatened-endangered Southeastern viola species. This is the corner at the beginning of February:
This is it now:
I've added pots of spinach and basil, moved the ephemerals (the little brown pots, about which more later) to the railing because they seemed to want to be warmer, the creeping phlox has gone from pink to purple, and that ornamental grass is much happier. Up in the corner waiting to be hung, the hummingbird feeder we bought for five dollars at the Mennonite thrift shop, its missing parts replaced with polymer clay and beads.
The tree is promising to bud any ol' time now; it's mulched with Spanish moss and the pot contains one of M's polymer clay fairy doors.
I got my native-woodland spring ephemerals, which, to my shock and delight, are available cheaply, if in limited varieties, at Lowe's of all places. I now have my liverleaf hepatica, a red trillium, and a trout lily in individual pots.
Liverleaf, Hepatica nobilis or H. americana. Photo copyright Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center.
It seems those fuzzy stems have lovely deep red winter foliage.
Trillium, Trillium erectum. Photo copyright Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center.
I'm not sure that's the right species. I thought mine was a T. grandiflorum, but apparently those only come in white aging to pink, and I seem to recall mine will be deep red. These also have the really delightful and ephemeral-appropriate name of "wakerobin." This is one of those moments where my writer's acquisitiveness of names shines through into a jewelry design idea: Expect a Yellow Wakerobin Necklace or similar in my future.
Trout lily, Erythronium americanum. Photo copyright Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center.
The turned-back petals are lovely! Though apparently not actually characteristic.
Apart from this, we have a white astilbe (apparently pronounced "a still bee," not "a steel bay" as I've been), which we purchased because we liked it and it was non-invasive -- but which apparently is a show cultivar of a native Appalachian False Goat's-beard. Accidental success! The astilbe is going mad with delight where it's planted, which is worth recalling for the future. Between the two astilbes is a jack-in-the-pulpit, also a woodland native:
Jack-in-the-Pulpit, Arisaema triphyllum. Photo copyright Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center.
Or rather, this is what I thought. When the sprouts came up a couple weeks ago, the distinctive leaf shapes indicated I had the trillium in the box with the astilbes and the jack-in-the-pulpit on our glass-topped table ... oops. Either way, the jack-in-the-pulpit is in one of the two sunnier spots to encourage those bold burgundy stripes to develop.
There's also a box of lavender and a box of peas, out of sight, and a big pot of "Firecracker" gladiolus, the one with the cool stick in it. Which is native to nowhere. But also noxious nowhere, so I'm still okay. There's one sprout, abruptly and at long last; it liked the thunderstorm.
In addition, there's a non-invasive planting by the railing of cilantro, primrose and English daisy:
Lovely!
All those deep reds and oranges are going to be splendid against the shaded aquas, especially as the plants further mature, so I have high hopes!
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