This morning , we waken to a Disney wonderland . These scenes remind me of the images one used to see in the vintage Viewmaster ’s , technocolor snowscenes of National Parks and the corresponding . OK … it was 6 below zero , and the ducks needed boiling water work out to their hutch , and the squirrels were starving….but one can not deny the sweetheart of a newfangled , mystifying book binding of flossy snow . Natures mulch of deep snow is precisely what the garden needed , and although it make it latterly , it arrived with perhaps enough prison term to curve the jeopardy for deep freeze which can permeate the grime when it is not covered . I was hoping for a deep snow like we had last year , which never melted until March -the perfect plant winter . Since many of us more intense gardeners like to experiment with flora from more supply ship zones , these deep snow raise the staked that we might be capable to have zone 7 or zona 8 plant get in a zone 5 or 6 garden . Often , the hazard is not cold temperatures for many plants , it ’s the thawing and freezing cycles , or wet . Either direction , my solemnization on successfully winter Agapanthus and Kniphophia last year . Hopefully , the snow will last all wintertime , exactly what occur in the high alps and Rocky Mountains . And exactly what the alpines postulate . Without snow , the troughs of alpine plants that spend the winter exposed to the elements can suffer , not from moth-eaten , but from Methedrine , rain and the thawing and freezing cycles which never happens in their born environment .
Nipponese Ardisia as a Holiday decoration .
One of the many plants which the Japanese are obsessional about is the genus , Ardisia . Difficult to find , one can find two species at Logee ’s greenhouses in Connecticut , and at Barry Yinger ’s mythological aggregator site , Asiatica . At Asiatica Nursery , one can commonly find more rarified cultivar ’s , but the genus is big , with nearly 300 species world astray , some trespassing , some recently launch to have interest as phytopharmaceuticals like ardisin , reportedly a powerful antioxydent ( since I HAD to Google this ! ) and bergenin , plainly sell on every boby construction site as a drug that “ stimulates thermogenisis ” rrrrright . Anyway , do n’t wipe out the berries because I said to , beside , we have Ephedra in the rock candy garden which will do just fine .
Ardisia are sub - stalwart to zone 8 , and we keep ours in stoneware mess outdoors until after Thanksgiving , in mid November since even temperature around 25 degrees F. does not hurt them . Although pricy , the plants are sturdy and spend the summer in ornamental pots on the terrace , where their berries , which they halt most of the twelvemonth are often on display along with the tiny white blossom they produce in July . This is a 24/7 plant , they bet good year round , and some mintage spread enough to fill a pot , whilst others , like rest shrub - like such as Ardisia crenata .
A Holiday arrangement made not from traditional material , but from tender plants from the greenhouse . What looks like motley holly , is actually Osmanthus , and the red berries are Ardisia . WHich gives me an idea . I ’ve been throwing around an idea for a modernistic berrybowl … ……
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