Carolyn’s Shade Gardens is a retail nursery located in Bryn Mawr, PA, specializing in showy, colorful, and unusual plants for shade. The only plants that we ship are snowdrops and miniature hostas. For catalogues and announcements of events, please send your full name, location, and phone number (for back up use only) to carolyn@carolynsshadegardens.com. Click here to get to the home page of our website for catalogues and information about our nursery and to subscribe to our blog.
It is time to walk around your garden again and assess what you need to add to make the beginning of spring an exciting time in your landscape. Do you need more early-blooming hellebores, to give you a reason to go outside? Could your garden benefit from flowers that bloom in early March like hardy cyclamen, snow crocus, or snowdrops to relieve the gray?
Make a list and take photographs so that when you are shopping this spring you know what you need and where it should go. I know it’s still pretty cold outside, but you never know what you might find to end the winter doldrums like the beautiful double-flowered hellebore (pictured above), which I discovered during my own inventory. More photos of my blooming plants are included at the end.
As you entered the 2011 Philadelphia International Flower Show, you walked under a very large replica of the lower half of the Eiffel Tower
If you need ideas, there is no better place to go in the mid-Atlantic this time of year than the 2011 Philadelphia International Flower Show. It is the largest indoor flower show in the world. This year’s theme was “Springtime in Paris”, and the designers went all out. I sent photos of some of the weirder stuff to Cheri at Along Life’s Highway The Yard Art Game, and you can see them by clicking here. But I found the following displays and entries inspirational for my own garden:
There is nothing more beautiful than an individual well grown plant
A new idea for my sedum displays, which are fantastic in containers
Inspiration to upgrade my troughs
I need an elegant metal gate for my walled compost area
Simple can be very beautiful
Today is Garden Blogger’s Bloom Day for March when gardeners around the world show photos of what’s blooming in their gardens (follow the link to see photographs from other garden bloggers assembled by Carol at May Dreams Gardens). Here are some more highlights from my mid-March stroll through Carolyn’s Shade Gardens:
Winter aconite, Eranthis hyemalis
Very early-blooming Tubergen squill, Scilla mischtschenkoana
My original snow crocus, Crocus tommasinianus, which is rodent resistant, has multiplied into thousands of plants
Winter jasmine, Jasminum nudiflorum, has no scent but makes up for it by blooming so early
Winter-blooming hardy cyclamen, Cyclamen coum ‘Rose’
I want to include hundreds of hellebore photos but am limiting myself to some really special plants:
The rare species Helleborus purpurascens
The flower of Helleborus purpurascens
Another even rarer species Helleborus viridis: inspired by Laura at PatioPatch, I am dedicating this flower to the people of Japan because green is the color for hope
A cross between Corsican hellebore and Christmas rose, Helleborus x nigercors ‘Honeyhill Joy’
A very beautiful anemone-centered hybrid hellebore where the nectaries have become petal-like (petaloid)
Another petaloid hybrid hellebore
‘Blue Lady’ hybrid hellebore
Hybrid hellebore with picotee markings (darker edges, veins, and nectaries)
A very good yellow hybrid hellebore with maroon nectaries
Some of the thousands of common snowdrops, Galanthus nivalis, which have multiplied on my property since the 1800s:
Common snowdrop with Italian arum, Arum italicum ‘Pictum’
Common snowdrop with Heuchera ‘Creme Brulee’ displaying its winter color
Some of my very special snowdrop cultivars:
Double-flowered Galanthus ‘Ophelia’
The unusual species with pleated leaves, Galanthus plicatus subsp. byzantinus
Galanthus ‘Lady Beatrix Stanley’
The crazy upward facing double, Galanthus nivalis ‘Blewbury Tart’
The double-flowered common snowdrop, Galanthus nivalis ‘Flore Pleno’
The only yellow-flowered double, Galanthus nivalis ‘Lady Elphinstone’
A beautiful yellow snowdrop, Galanthus plicatus ‘Wendy’s Gold’
Please let me know in a comment/reply what flowers are blooming in your early spring garden. If you participated in GBBD, please provide a link so my nursery customers can read your post.
Carolyn
Notes: Every word that appears in orange on my blog is a link that you can click for more information. If you want to return to my blog’s homepage to access the sidebar information (catalogues, previous articles, etc.), just click here.
Nursery Happenings: I have five spaces left for my March 19 Hellebore Seminar (March 18 is sold out). For the brochure and registration information, click here. My first open house sale is Saturday, March 26, from 10 am to 3 pm, featuring hellebores and other winter-blooming plants.
CAROLYN'S SHADE GARDENS 