Six on Saturday – 08/02/2020 – February, Indoors and Out

Every Saturday, The Propagator encourages gardeners around the world to share six things that are happening in their garden. Here in south eastern Ontario, it’s minus 17 degrees this morning, and there’s a nice blanket of insulating snow covering the gardens and yard, so no pretty pictures of snowdrops or Hellebores! Instead, I’m happy to report that indoors there is colour and outdoors there are small intriguing details to pique interest.

First, indoors:

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The final two Hyacinth jars. I pulled the one on the left from the fridge yesterday; interesting how it has so few roots compared to all the others. The Hyacinth is ‘Woodstock’ – a gorgeous and mildly fragrant variety.

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Two varieties of globe artichoke planted. I start them a lot earlier than any other veggie or flower seed – hopefully I’ll get a bunch of flower stalks late summer; I’ll eat some flower buds but leave a lot to flower – such a gorgeous huge thistle flower!

It’s the second year for this Amaryllis – an unknown variety given to me in a box. The bulb produced two tall stalks this year – I’ll need to transplant it to a larger pot in the spring before putting it outside for the summer.

Next, outdoors:

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I’m often ambivalent about this small cedar – Thuja occidentalis ‘Rheingold.’ Most of the time it’s just a yellow-green blob in the garden. Occasionally; however, it appears as a witty interlude to an otherwise flat or dreary landscape.

This small corkscrew hazel – Corylus avellana ‘Contorta’ – is one of the first transplants from my Toronto garden when we moved to the County eons ago. It’s in the back garden, and has stayed small, thanks to both rabbits nibbling the tips in winter and drought stunting growth in the summer. Every year I think about transplanting it to a more visible and fertile spot in the front garden…perhaps this is the year.

And Number Six – last years flower stalks sticking up through the snow -stonecrop Sedum