Re: perennial winter/ winter garden

Hello Claire,
    Bit of a difference between your zone 4 garden and mine here in zone 6/5. Here
there is a winter garden perking along just fine in spite of our weather. I was
out taking photos of plants in the snow yesterday afternoon.
    Hellebore foetidus has bloom stalks covered in buds. The old foliage at the
base of the plants has already turned olive-green-black. The new stems are almost
chartreuse. H. f. 'Wesker Fisk' is the same but has beet-red in all the stems. The
new fall leaves of the H. x garden hybrids are a bright granny smith green
sticking up through the snow.
    The Christmas ferns and the Autumn Ferns are still looking about as good as in
late summer. Arum italicum looks as though it had been polished during the night.
Glossy-green arrowhead shaped leaves above the snow with the bark of an old tree
behind them.
    My favorite ground cover is a waxy deep green and a few red berries remain
that the birds have not found as yet. Mitchella repens is a green pancake hugging
the rocks along the edge of the path, peeking through the snow.
    Hardy cyclamen foliage has pewter-patterned ivy leaves beneath the deciduous
holly that should have had red berries ... but the birds have cleaned that one
already.
    You should see the gold oriental spruce right now with the snow covering the
top layers of branches and the green and gold .......
    Gene Bush     Southern Indiana    Zone 6a     Munchkin Nursery
          around the woods - around the world
genebush@otherside.com     http://www.munchkinnursery.com
----- Original Message -----
From: <ECPep@aol.com>
Subject: perennial winter


> Hello Group,
>
> Since winter has stifled the perennial fun, what are all of you doing to keep
> the thumbs green?
>
> Claire Peplowski
> NYS z4


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