Fine catkins

This week's genus, Corylus, has been eradicated from our garden as too boisterous, but fortunately there's one to admire just a couple of metres over the back boundary:

After close attention to the twigs in the image above you will rightly guess that this is a corkscrew hazel, the cultivar 'Contorta'. Its fine catkins show up before the spring foliage appears.

Our photographer carefully angled the shot to also include the neighbour's full-sized Corylus avellana, which has catkins of a much browner color.

The main species, also known in English as the European filbert, grows into a 6-metre tree, but Contorta usually minds its place. The catkins are a nuisance to us allergy sufferers, but one tree more or less makes no difference among the millions of hazels flourishing in northern Europe.

Urgent bloomer

In March, when the spring flush shyly hangs back, the most urgent of the bloomers is Abeliophyllum distichum, which sometimes is called white or Korean forsythia.

The close-up in week 2019/10 shows why people might see a forsythia resemblance in the flowers, though the name literally means that this Asian species has leaves like the abelia!

This bush has taken an enormously long time to establish itself: 10 years. We planted Abeliophyllum  in May 2009 and it first grew in a thin, loose mound. Staking it up did not help. It was not yet 1 metre tall in 2017; but last year it put up this cane, and we finally have a sparse but pretty bush:

Mad praecox

In this unusually mild winter, Chimonanthus praecox is in full bloom in week 2019/07. In colder winters, it may not blossom until April.

Chimonanthus flowers on 2-year-old wood, so the best time to clip it would have been just after the yellow flower buds appeared, and to have used the twigs for indoor decoration. But then we would not have had so much to admire from the panorama windows of our lounge.

From the kitchen, we sip drinks and gaze at the second mad praecox of our garden, Viburnum farreri, which usually starts shooting out pink blossoms around Christmas:

The last of our trio of early blossomers is Prunus subhirtella 'Autumnalis', a cherry which for some reason is refusing to play praecox and taking its time with us this year.

Furry buds

In winter (2019/06), the Magnolia stellata flags its approaching spring glories with furry grey-white buds.

We planted this on the west side of the house both to please the street and to protect it from frosts, which can damage the grey furry buds and open flowers if they are exposed to morning sunshine.

Garden advisors say a position with early shade and sun later in the day is best for this species.

Camelia bud

Deer do not molest our city garden, so the buds on our shrubs remain entire: little bundles of protein and tightly packed leaves waiting to turn into blooms or twigs. Here is a tough little bud of the Lady Campbell variety of Camellia japonica. Camelias can be sensitive, but Lady C is doughty and defying the frosts in week 2019/05.

Also in play despite the frosts is the honeysuckle Lonicera x purpusii. Some of its buds have bloomed, and others are in wait:

Our inquisitive photographer also spotted buds which I had not noticed in the humble laurel Prunus laurocerasus.

Riotous

In the darkness and cold of winter, our photographer has stayed indoors and instead passed on a snatch of verse from her colleague Christiane:

„Und glaube ja nicht,
dass der Garten im Winter
seine Ekstase verliert.
Er ist still.
Aber die Wurzeln sind aufrührerisch
ganz tief da unten.“

The attributed author is the Afghan-born, Persian-language poet Rumi (1207 - 1273, full name Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī). I wanted to offer you the original Persian, but it seems this will prove unfindable. Rumi's mystical love poetry has been heavily quarried by transcendentalists for non-scholarly "best of" collections, but the translations are neither referenced nor faithful (Naficy).

The writer of the verse above is in fact the American poet Coleman Barks (1937 - ), who neither speaks nor reads Persian. Rumi inspired Barks. The collections in German bookshops sold under the Rumi "inspirational" brand are apparently translations of Barks's English, not of Rumi's Persian (Weidner). So here's the original: “And don't think the garden loses its ecstasy in winter. It's quiet, but the roots are down there riotous.”

Iced berries

The moment we wait for every winter is the sunny morning after an overnight fall of fat, airy snowflakes. Here the snow is stacked up on bunches of still-fresh berries of Cotoneaster bullatus.

Photinia davidiana is the other great berry producer of the winter, outshining holly. Not only does it feature iced berries, but its leaves form stiff, close finger, able to pack their own little snowballs:

Hats of snow on dried flowers of Sedum telephium 'Matrona' suggest flying saucers.

Our photographic artist took a step back from the Cotoneaster to capture this wonderfully framed vision of the shaded ground reflecting the blue of the sky. The garden takes on an other-worldly look:

After the snow melted off the Cotoneaster (top right), our visiting flock of fieldfares (Turdus pilaris, German: Wacholderdrossel) descended on the shrub to feast on the berries.

Narrow view

Bare branches encourage the narrow view, inviting the eye to enjoy single flowers and single berries. Our photographic artist caught this wonderful bloom of Jasminum nudifolium glistening in the sunlight the other day:

Week 2019/02 also provides singletons, like these delicate berries of Symphoricarpos x chenaultii. which we grow as cover next to a path:

This coralberry is less fulsome in its production than Symphoricarpos albus, the American snowberry, which is a favourite of municipal garden teams because it keeps out invasive brambles. Snowberry is a common planting in the streets hereabouts and in winter really does look like a flurry of snow falling:

Frost on abelia

The frost is late this winter, waiting until the first week of January. Tiny crystals form on the red new growth of the abelia (Linnaea x grandiflora), which is still lush, green and shiny after the long hot summer of 2018.

Ruta graveolens 'Jackman's Blue' is a hardy little shrub. The species is native to southern Europe, but it is supposed to be evergreen in these parts, though I start to wonder when I see it in a jacket of ice:

In 2019/01 Callicarpa bodinieri pays no mind to cold. Birds pass its berries by, as they are non-native tucker and look bilious to boot.

And thanks to the lovely lady who took these brilliant photographs.

Too big for its boots

This wonderful bush of Cornus mas, here photographed at the start of Week 12 in 2012, proved too big for its boots. The plant grows into a little tree, but with space so tight in this screen it was outgrowing its assigned role and had to be culled.

What fragrance?

In our garden, the Lonicera is in fine flower in 2012/02. I am told this has a honeysuckle odour, but I can never smell it, because its flowering coincides with my hay fever.

Week 2012/02 features some remarkable fireworks in the next street: some Hamamelis is flowering in the next street (pictured January 13, 2012), and of course planting it in front of a red brick house was the perfect way to show it to be best advantage:

Kerria Week

In English, some wag named Kerria plenifora "bachelor's buttons". Some people seem to have Kerria plenifora in full flower in Week 2011/17, but ours has only just been planted and is a little late. It is the blur of yellow at the bottom of the picture. The white behind it is Spiraea 'Arguta' and a John Downie apple tree. The main dash of yellow is of course Forsythia.

At left is a Berberis x stenophylla which seems to resent having been moved a few weeks ago: it is going smoky. Perhaps it is just the shock. It should be able to handle full sun. [It did: it survived.]

The grey trunk in the distance is the neighbour's walnut tree. The red is an azalea which I have not yet typed [and which later succumbed to sickness]. There is also a small white-pink rhododendron next to it, planted last week.

Here is the new growth of Pieris 'Red Mill' at the start of the week. Pieris flowers are not big eye-catchers: the new leaves in red are.

Amelanchier Week

A little earlier than other years, the Amelanchier rotundifolia attracts attention on Monday of 2011/16, seems to peak on Tuesday and Wednesday, and by Friday has already faded in the midst of the plant's new green leaves. A plan to plant Amelanchier ovalis has been held up by a lack of supply: my understanding is that this does not flower till much later in the cycle. By the end of the week, the Magnolia stellata has also lost all its flowers: just watering with the hose knocks them off. The brevity of these shows contrasts with the sturdy endurance of the daffodils. Spiraea 'Arguta' is a fine mass of hard white flowers. But Halimiocistus sahucii, which always has such a fine display of white flowers, looks all but dead after the winter.

Magnolia Week

I almost want to call week 2011/15 "moss week": the garden work has focussed on scratching a mountain of moss (about 400 litres of the stuff, hard packed in the bins) out of the lawn. The daffodils are looking fine on the street side and various cultivars of Forsythia are peaking. All along Stockflethweg, the big Crataegus are in glorious white flower (picture), which looks great now before the leaf canopy above them has re-established. The reference books say Crataegus monogyna never flowers till May, but the type that grows almost wild around here always blooms in April and is quickly spent . It certainly does not seem to be C. laevigata: this is the common European hawthorn. Very few branches of it are actually thorny, but the ones that are well defended have brutal splines about 5 centimetres long. The blossoms generally have six petals (pictured above). A Prunus on the other side of the street bursts into pink late in the week, but none of the Tulipa are up yet. Ribes sanguineum 'Atrorubens' has finally made it into bloom after long promise. Late in the week, our little Magnolia stellata comes into bloom. There are several of these in Stockflethweg, the biggest about 4 metres tall. Some tulip magnolias are blooming by the end of the week.

Forsythia Week

Thanks to a very warm weekend with temperatures topping out at 24 degrees on Saturday afternoon as we took part in Hamburg räumt auf, a city-wide spring-cleaning tidy-up campaign on the streets and in parks, the Forsythia has got away to an early start in week 2011/14. The purebred F. 'Linwood' was a couple of days earlier off the mark this year than the mongrel types we adopted from surrounding gardens. By contrast, the Abeliophyllum distichum seems slower to blossom. It is in any case much smaller than the vigorous Forsythia shrubs. The daffodils are also in full bloom.

Lonicera Week

When I planted the Lonicera, part of the promise was that it would delight passers-by with its scent. Now that it is blooming in Week 2011/13 I have to admit that it is at a fairly windy spot where only the most sensitive noses could catch its perfume. But the sight of the bush in blossom is a very attractive one. I have just planted a Daphne mezereum close to it, and its crimson-purple blossoms make a great contrast at this time. It is interesting that the giant Allium is already shooting up leaves. The slugs are not active yet, so I am able to protect it in due time with a plastic anti-slug fence. We are doing lots of work this week, slicing moss out of the lawn and hacking back the Pyracantha hard while there is space available in the "green refuse" bin for its nasty thorns.

Budding Week

At the end of Week 2011/12, I go out with the camera and capture some fine close-up shots of what I cannot actually see with the naked eye: the new blossoms. This has been a picture-book spring, with nothing bursting through the gate in December because of five weeks of snow cover, but a mild first quarter nudging bloom times up to the earliest possible point. That means a great display of Jasminum nudifolium with big fat blossoms on its green strands: Chimonanthus praecox is also doing its display nice and early this year. It tends to be pale, and in a forest of bare twigs you may not see it at first, but the display is worth searching for:

Then there is the fine display this year on Cornus mas. We were impressed at big groves of this in the royal gardens at Potsdam, and our example seems to be coming up well. It flowers on the more mature wood: the newest tips do not have any blossoms:

And finally there are the buds of Ribes. Even before it comes into blossom, this fine little bush usually pinkens up over a period lasting about two weeks with these incredibly coloured shoots:

Hamamelis Week

With the Hamamelis back in flower in week 2011/10, we are reflecting on how it and its like can be better situated. In the bleak, washed-out colours of a winter landscape, it really needs a background of dark or saturated colour to stand out. In the midst of a motley, moss-addled lawn, it looks like more of the same. Hamamelis looks effective against a clear blue sky, and against a background of lush green yew. We may plant one in front of the Thuja on the front boundary, where it would at least cheer pedestrians as they pass, and perhaps an underplanting of Eranthis hyemalis, now coming out, would add to the delight.

Plants Database

Another very appealing plants database has come online: The Plant List. It offers 298,900 accepted names of plants, 477,601 synonyms and 263,925 other names described as unresolved. Handy features include autocompletes and direct links to 14 other plant databases. One can enjoy exploring here. Who named Kniphofia zombensis, for heaven's sake? It is a synonym for Kniphofia grantii.

Evergreen Week

The first snow of the winter comes swirling down on the Thursday of week 2010/47 and night temperatures dive to minus five. By Friday afternoon the grass is mostly covered, with only the long blades peeping out, and wildlife is looking for winter food. On the Saturday night or Sunday morning we have a visit from a fox.
Back on October 30, we lost the friendly spirit of our garden, a lonely white dwarf rabbit named Chip, which died of either a broken heart or a distemper. Chip, the last of our two rabbits (the other died of a facial abcess and heart failure in the spring), was much wept over and was buried by the boys in a shallow grave.
Four weeks later, smart Mr Fox is hunting for food in the snow and catches the scent of carrion. The dig leaves soil strewn over a band of snow almost two metres across. A hunter neighbour visits and confirms that the tracks in the snow are those of a fox. We can see where the carcass has been dragged across the ground for seven or eight metres. A paper covering has fallen off. The fox has finally managed to grab the meal and carry it. He wobbled a little at first, then managed to walk away in a straight line with it to who knows where.
The low temperatures have made the last foliage droop in the garden and only the evergreens remain strong. We have had an invasion of birds since the snow fell: they are picking off the remaining grapes and the red berries of the Photinia davidiana.