2024 Virtual Garden Tour - welcome!

I am taking @Margot lead from a couple of years ago. Her wonderful idea.

I think that in my experience BC has had 3 seasons in 3 weeks so far (Jan 21st 2024)

please post your photos of landscape including hardscape projects so we can tour & enjoy your garden from a distance - successes & « failures » welcome!

here is our jumping off point of virtual garden tour 2023 https://forums.botanicalgarden.ubc....-than-never-edition.103490/page-2#post-440491

I am attaching photos

the first is brave yellow botanical crocus … then it froze … then it snowed a foot 12 inches (yay it melted )

acer circinatum twigs in frozen snow at night

some generic roses (mediland?) in ice snow - I leave them for the Anna’s Hummingbirds who live at coast all winter - I was worried about them

sword fern in snow — sword fern is a reliable all season low height placeholder — once established, it does well in wet, shade, cold, summer heat and drought and is relatively FireSmart planting.

Looking forward to your garden tour photos !

 

Lets start the year off with snow! Here are some of my hardier plants slugging it out as pretty much everything else is buried....


Trifoliate orange


Trachy (windmill) palm


Sabal minor palm


Yuzu lemon and Fatsia (paperplant)

 

Today 99% of coast snow has melted as it’s been above 40F outside for a few days — rain and grey skies

The snow melt revealed this little harbinger of spring —- snowdrops! (Galanthus)

These came with the garden

I have tried to establish more (plant bulbs in fall) but they seem particular and I have no luck :(

Any advice ?

 

Snow is now gone from the south coast as well and I noticed that everything that had to started to appear - snowdrops, tulips, crocuses etc. - are picking up where they left off prior to the -13C temps and 20cm of snow. Its like it never happened....

 

I would expect any flowers that were developing at the time of the freeze will be stunted or misshapen, at least ones that had started to open.

 

You make a valid point — did that snow and extreme cold happen?

i think our hydro electric invoice will prove it :)

NATURE in the garden here

at the Coast we have a few huge Douglas fir trees

plus typical lovely red cedars

arbutus (broadleaf evergreen)

and in the animal kingdom,

I’ve been hearing a tree frog croak for a few months —- the croak moves around in various trees —- up to perhaps 150 feet away some days

how do they travel?

Douglas squirrel - native - leap around … I don’t know where they go in extreme cold temps like last week

Deer - families of them - they are pretty

Bears - they are snoozing right now tho will show up soon

Birds:
Currently include the buzzing call of Oregon Thrush (varied thrush) - cousin of our robin

towhees of course - busy birds!

Annas hummingbirds — oh dear, I was worried in the extreme temps tho I have seen a couple out and about this week

wrens / kinglets / chickadees —- they’ve gone somewhere this week

we always have bald eagles / seagulls / crows / Stellar’s jay — i saw 5 jays having coffee in my maple tree this morning :) so noisy!

i saw a couple of red tail Hawk last week in the cold and snow circling above my garden

I haven’t seen a great blue heron in a while - they usually stand / sleep in a huge tree close to us

In my mind, a garden isn’t a garden without nature included (ok yes they prune my lilies just the day before bloom :)

 

Hello @Margot - what’s happening in your garden ? Do you have any photos?

you started a great idea (virtual tour thread) what seems like long time ago 2020

i admit - it’s hard to bundle up in rain clothing and get out there !

I wonder how @Keith Elliott and family are doing in snow cold interior BC, too

 

I think we can all agree this has been quite the range of weather we've experienced here in the Lower Mainland so far in January. In the early part of the month there were many spring favourites poking up with some hardy ones even in early bloom, such as this primrose.



And of course hellebores, such as this ruddy coloured one I got from my youngest brother years ago. Interesting factoid is that in years gone by it was not unheard of for it to be in flower well before Christmas, not this year and neither was my Helleborus 'Mahogany Snow', which I've seen in flower as early as December 9th in 2021 whereas this season I didn't see it open up until around Dec. 26th or so. Obviously there was something going on weather wise that caused them to break much later this year. After the deep-freeze and the snow all of the hellebores that were in flower have all turned to mush!

These are the remnants of the flowers you see above, very disappointing.... But, at least the old late winter standby's like Galanthus, Crocus and Iris -both reticulata and tuberosa- are well on their way, although the I. tuberosa leaves are mostly creased a couple of inches above the soil from the snow load they endured but they are firm and not mushy.

Even these Galanthus elwisii were kind late this season although I put that off to the major disturbance of this bed in February with the removal of a Western Red Cedar...

Yes, it was purty while it lasted, but I'm glad it's over and done with!

 

With those relatively warm temps we've been having it only stands to reason some things would welcome the stimulation!

Of all the Iris' this one's always the first one in bloom: Iris histiroides 'Katharine Hodgkin'. Glad to see it back this year, we'd done a fair bit of digging over of the beds it's in (dug out all the bearded iris), it was topped up with a layer of compost and a fair number of new spring bulbs were planted in the fall and all are leafing out nicely but I was afraid these might have gotten a little deeper than they'd like to be, so it's a welcome sight!

 

its exciting to think we escaped winter tho …

@Pieter - remind me - do you have lots of Hosta plants? Someone locally does (I recall @Acerholic showing us many diff hostas in their English UK garden)

have any hostas started to sprout ?

meanwhile official info from Environment Canada today

Sechelt ?!

 

No hostas yet but I did notice some peonies starting to poke through yesterday.

The weather is so weird right now, yesterday's hot spot was 18.2C in Abbotsford....next week the temps are predicted to be around 7C for a high.
But I do have one plant that does not seem to be affected and is flowering right on time; witch hazel, hamamelis mollis.

 

Nice to know something is right on time.

 

Seasonal commencement of flowering varies with the kind of plant - it is not always in response to temperature changes.

 

Wendy - when you do you walk around a these days - how do cherry buds look? Are they progressing as expected?

here’s my fav parking lot tree Jan 15/24 near Super Valu - bare branches with lots of potential leaves or flowers (compared to APRIL 21/23)

 

GS, don't think we've escaped winter as yet, but, hope springs eternal.... Yes indeed, I do have a hosta collection, around 100 or so, mostly in pots. The first to break in spring for me typically is H. clausa var normalis but it's usually NOT the first to fully unfurl its leaves, that honour goes to H. 'Chinese Sunrise'. I've seen clausa pipping as early as Feb 7th but haven't seen anything poking up as of this morning.

 

I have been walking in Hawai'i for the last three weeks, cannot answer any of your questions. I'm back now, but am catching up with stuff. You'll have to report on how the cherries are doing.

 

Another Iris showed its face today: Iris reticulata 'Frozen Planet'.

After a bit of digging I've come to the conclusion that what I have is more than likely 'Clairette'!

 

If you do a web search for the variety, you will find the material you are showing as 'Frozen Planet' does not fit the bill. With yours being light blue with white-and-dark blue standards. Instead of palest blue, often appearing nearly white with standards largely soft blue.

 

Ron, that's kinda what I thought as well. It's a new variety to me, planted last fall. Being new to me I was hoping it would lighten up as the flower matures but there's no sign of that happening as yet, if ever. I will follow-up with the supplier and see what they have to say.

 

Two problems end consumers can encounter with horticultural selections of plants are variable seed raised stock being offered using the naming of uniform clonal cultivars and material supplied being incorrect simply due to mix-ups at production facilities. Including a percentage of material generated by the trade never having been correctly identified from the time involved growers first got it, used it as the basis for building up their own contributions to the supply. With any randomly selected operation too often having perhaps nobody on staff who actually checks that their stock is true to name. So that when I once ordered one each of various musk roses from a Canadian supplier known for a large offering of old and other non-mainstream roses not one of them proved correct when flowering subsequently in my garden. This was a field production operation located in a cold province where I would not be surprised if the entire crop each year was dug and warehoused through the winter. With each new set of specimens being grown from cuttings or scions taken from the current. Rather than dedicated stock plants being maintained for extended periods on the property. And maybe even the developing plants being sheared back during the growing season also. Resulting in fully developed individuals giving complete displays of characteristic flowers not having been seen there with any regularity.

 

Today the sun is shining and it feels warm so I thought I'd take a few photos....

IMG 2024 - witch hazel and dried zebra grass.
IMG 2025 - cornelian cherry, aka edible dogwood, is starting to flower now.
IMG 2033 - unknown hellebore cultivar is starting to flower (I've had this one for about 15 years).
IMG 2038 - Italian arum; leaves appear in late fall/early winter and then then disappear when the flowers emerge in summer.
IMG 2041 - Autumn crocus; leaves normally appear in early spring and then the plant will go dormant until fall when the flowers will appear.

 

Kind in last shot is Colchicum botanically.

 

Ron, I did a bit of digging and I think what I have is likely Iris reticulata 'Clairette', I'll have to change my labels....

 

A viburnum that started to bloom - then severe cold

it’s the Welsh viburnum

approx 9 feet tall and maybe 6 feet across

it’s leggy for sure

is it a good one for pruning back ? (old or new wood bloomer?) - I don’t know

The Christmas Cheer Rhodo next to it has buds but they frosted and are brown

the viburnum has interesting heritage and was RHS choice one year

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viburnum_×_bodnantense

 

Try this website.....

https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/ornamental/shrubs/viburnum/viburnum-pruning.htm

I did a quick scan but it seems similar to the rejuvenating pruning given to quince.