I was not expecting snow in the garden on Tuesday, there being none remaining in the West End where I live. I'm glad it was so cold that I wore my warm boots anyway. It was not deep snow, and the paths were either clear or not slippery, but it provided a beautiful backdrop. Douglas Justice's February in the Garden | UBC Botanical Garden blog featured the currently blooming Rhododendron 'Cornubia' with its deep red flowers, and there were lots of these flowers that did not seem to be suffering from the effects of the cold and snow. I don't know what the additional cold and snow from yesterday has done to them. My favourite, though, is the Rhododendron barbatum, mentioned in the blog as an ancestor, though not direct parent, of R. 'Cornubia'. This has the nice red colouring, but what could beat these awesome barbs! Not many flowers were open on these.
The highlight of my visit last week was Sycopsis sinensis, Chinese fighazel, which I thought was new to me. It turns out that I posted fully open flowers of this in April, 2014 at April 1, 2014 - not pink. Well, I don't remember people I haven't seen for four years either. These buds, maybe a bit more than 1cm across, looked like fairy lights. What's visible here are just anthers. I just learned the term andromonoecious, meaning having male flowers and bisexual flowers on the same plant, which is what is supposed to be the case here, though I can't understand how I would distinguish one from the other. Hamamelidaceae, same family as witch hazel.
As Douglas Justice mentioned in December 2017 in the Garden | UBC Botanical Garden, the Nandina domestica is looking very nice, and the snowy background didn't hurt it one bit. Viburnum x bodnantense appeared in the January 2018 in the Garden | UBC Botanical Garden blog. It was still looking great last week, maybe more flowers than ever. I liked the snow pattern on the Polystichum polyblepharum. I don't know whether I was more excited about just seeing the sun or the Melliodendron xylocarpum buds that were shining in it.
