Magnolia Week

Our tiny Magnolia stellata flowers at last in week 2010/16, and this is the week when so many other low plants begin to develop green buds. Forsythia is still at the height of bloom. It is handy to have several of them at the back of screens, where it can still be easily admired through the bare twigs in the foreground. Later those bare twigs will fill with growth. The Nipponanthemum nipponicum resembles Hydrangea macrophylla at this stage, with fleshy green buds quickly unfolding on the branches. Lilies have had a lucky start this year, with very little slug damage, but the Tulipa seem a tad late, only beginning to bloom late in this week. On April 19, one of the garden denizens, Flecki the rabbit, dies of a heart attack just after he has been syringed at the vet's. No doubt his odour tags will persist for a few weeks and be noticed by his surviving brother, rabbit Chip.

Forsythia Week

As we enjoy the Forsythia bloom in Week 2010/15, we begin to notice the extreme damage done by two solid months of snow cover. Leptospermum grandiflora, which I tried to bring through without winter protection, has died back almost to the base with only a few green outrunners at ground level. A few daffodils bloom, but those on the street berm seem to be all snatched away by young lovers as soon as they unfold, and there is not much to see. I notice one Pieris in the neighbourhood blooming, but this seems to be a no-show year for ours.

Forsythia Week

This looks to be another early Forsythia year: these shrubs are now well into a great display of yellow blossom in 2010/14. This is our first season with an Abeliophyllum distichum in the garden: it is sometimes called "snow forsythia". It has a very impressive, hard-white blossom. It is giving its name to this week. Some gardens and traffic islands are already showing impressive displays of daffodils, but ours are all holding back. And Pieris, which has flowered in week 14 in the past? This year it seems to be calling a bye.

Lonicera Week

Apart from a display on Lonicera, not a huge amount is happening in Week 2010/13. There is a faint hint of yellow on Forsythia, but the daffodils are not out yet. Perhaps foolishly I am clearing grass from a daffodil bed on public ground outside the garden. One risks a dog rolling on them or soiling the bed, no doubt with a stupid owner staring impassively as the damage is done.

Budding Week

The gardens are changing fast in 2010/12 with daffodil green 15 centimetres out of the ground and tulips coming up almost as high, but neither is yet in bloom. The first flowers are on the Lonicera, the Jasminum nudifolium has resumed its display that broke off before Christmas and buds are evident on many shrubs. The crocus flowers (the field of the at right (photo taken March 18) shows of an area where we grew pumpkins last year) suddenly disappear when heavy rain knocks off the petals late in the week.

After the melt

And suddenly the snow melts, and spring begins in Week 2010/11. With the last piles of shovelled snow still standing after the three-month whiteover of the 2009-2010 winter, the crocuses are up, the white "snowbells" are about to open, the wonderful yellow Eranthis hyemalis are forming a carpet in a neighbour's garden (top) and the Hamamelis rushes into blossom in six bare days (bottom).

The mauve crocus seems to be the the most stubborn of these early bloomers: it grew (from seed?) in a ploughed-over bed, sending up shoots 5-centimetre within two days of the snow briefly melting in 2010/09, and surviving a dumping with 25 centimetres of fresh snow two days later.

Heptacodium Week

In Week 2009/41, October's storms and drizzle are closing in, and only the Aster offers a new display of colour. Eupatorium is still going strong, but Lavatera has long ago finished its run, and the bright red seems to be fading out of the Sedum. Helptacodium is already looking ragged again in the wind and rain, after blooming about two weeks ago.

Sambucus Week

Plenty of Hibiscus syriacus keeps the flowery look of the garden in week 2009/35, while the glow is coming into Pyracantha berries. I have not yet noticed Sambucus nigra berries, but they must be out there somewhere. We have also had a great display over the past 10 days or so from the Symphoricarpos bushes: my wife plucks the white berries and jumps on them to make them pop. In our front garden and in nearby allotments, big red heads of Eupatorium stand out, along with Rudbeckia and sunflowers.

Euonymus Week

These are the true dog days of this summer in week 2009/34: leaves wilt after weeks of heat without much rain. August 20 brings an afternoon with 32 degrees in the shade. The vine on the front of the garage was halved in size this after I neglected to water it. The roots need constant moisture and coolness, and the upper leaves have simply died off. Euonymus europaeus offers a spray of rather puny pink berries. Redness is starting to creep into the Pyracantha berries. Hibiscus are the main sources among the shrubs of garden colour. Among the perennials, the Rudbeckia brings its usual summer storms of yellow. While weeding, one discovers an occasional orange-coloured cape gooseberry, while the Koelreuteria holds up similarly papery fruit, in lanterns high above head level.

Malus Week

Table apples are falling from the trees, but decorative sorts like our Malus Downii are not yet ripe. Roadside blackberry bushes, both in Schleswig-Holstein and in Saxony-Anhalt, offer delicious snacks while we are out walking and cycling in week 2009/33. We found a couple of abandoned bicycles on a lonely road near Rogätz on the left bank of the Elbe: we wondered if it was the scene of a crime: but the riders had slipped behind a bounteous hedge of berries to cram their mouths with the sweet harvest. Euonymus berries are approaching pink. Our white Hortensia are fading, but coloured varieties are working their way into flower.

Koelreuteria Week

Lots of Sorbus vilmorinii berries attracting curious looks from the birds. Koelreuteria is creating attention too in week 2009/32: ours is leaning into the sun to escape the shadow of a big conifer, and I will have to drag it back to vertical with a strong guywire.

Hibiscus Week

Once again, in week 2009/31 there is nothing more than scattering of small buds on our young Hibiscus but older plants in more distant gardens are in full flower. Rudbeckia is coming into flower, the heads of Koelreuteria are gradually turning yellow. On the Aronia, the berries are so heavy that the young branches lean down to the ground.

Olearia Week

The Olearia solandri has worked its way into bright white flowers in Week 2009/30 and a neighbour's Yucca is in most impressive white flower. Ours is a little too shaded and does not seem to be developing as well. The big white heads of mophead hydrangea, which still looked puny two weeks ago, are now at their best. Ligustrum lucidum displays a veil of fine white flowers in the dusk, but there is no sign yet of Aesculus parviflora flowering.

Buddleja Week

Our deep lilac Buddleja keeps up a good display in week 2009/29, but some neglected examples along the street, particularly a white specimen in front of a student hostel, peak with even more staggering flower displays in this week. It may be that older wood does come up with slightly better blooms. Olearia is moving into flower this week. Among perennials, Alcea, day lilies and Phlox offer the most colourful show at this time, while tiger lilies seem to achieve even more perfection as the later buds unfold.

Hydrangea Week

Buddleja comes into bloom in week 2009/28. I left long stalks and old flower heads on this shrub in the winter, because I wanted it to gain height, and that may have helped it to flower a few days earlier than it might have. Hydrangea varieties are in flower. My own white mopheads remain disappointing, whereas the more compact blues and pinks of neighbours are genuinely enviable. Heliopsis helianthoides var. scabra is showing its ox-eye sunflowers, and a few Phlox are in early flower. The first petals are visible on some of the Rudbeckia and its Echinacea relatives. A surprise is a flush of white bloom on one of my two tea-tree bushes which has been planted out only three months ago into one of the dryest spots in the garden, under a fir tree.

Spiraea Week

The early July week, 2009/27, marks a kind of pause in the flowering schedule. The first blooms are on the Spiraea japonica, there is some colour on the Hypericum and the Lavatera is going strong, but perennial plants such as the tiger lilies are really leading the charge now. Flowerheads do seem to be forming on a new arrival in the garden, Romneya, and my son's very late planting of pumpkins has expressed its enormous cotyledons and the shoots are now developing proper leaves. But his climbing strawberries are a disappointment: perhaps they need more moisture or fertilizer. The newly acquired Topaz has flowered, but is still looking very ragged and needs to expand into its new location against its dry and sunny wall. A walk along the street suggests neighbours were right to invest in polyantha roses: they are the dominant new appearance in Zone 8 this week.

Alcea Week

Amid the longest days of the year, the perennials gradually take up the slack in week 2009/26, with Kniphofia beginning to brighten. In a pleasant surprise, two lily bulbs planted at the end of April finally poke out shoots, from the soil at the same time as established lilies are about to break into bloom. The bees have taken all they can absorb from the Deutzia, and it goes quiet as the flowers fade. Alcea has not yet come into flower, but is forming flowerheads. Its cousin Lavatera has finally offered us the first pink flowers - on a newly planted specimen from the nursery. An established and woody specimen appears to be operating too a slower beat. Brachyglottis greyi from New Zealand has survived the past cold winter very well as is now offering its peculiar yellow flowers over the mass of grey-blue leaves.

Hypericum Week

The eye-catcher around town is the rich white of Philadelphus in bloom. Our own plant is still only 2 metres tall and its flower display is modest, but at the start of week 2009/25 we take an evening walk and discover in Am Böhmerwald a mature specimen, about 5 metres, tall covered in these shining flowers in the dusk light. It almost reminds one of optically whitened clothes, which seem to glow when the light becomes low. The delicate pale pink flowers of Kalmia are also there to be admired by the attentive, and Cotoneaster x waterii is also in modest bloom. Throughout the week, Deutzia is at its peak, which is also an auditory experience, since it is full of bumblebees and honeybees. Rain brings clover up in a great rush of flower. The bees in the clover daisies are dangerous to children. My youngest son collects a sting in his bare foot. We quickly pull it out, but the swelling continues for nearly a week. Late in the week, Escallonia achieves pink perfection. But there is also a disappointment: the leaves on a 170-centimetre Idesia suddenly wilt, dry out and die. I suspect it is suffering from competition in the root zone, but a disease or even a predator attack might explain this strange demise. There is no sign yet of either Lavatera or of Hypericum in bloom.

Lavatera Week

The white flowerheads of Hebe are a main eyecatcher in week 2009/24, enhanced by towers of Digitalis blooms nearby, and Pyracantha blooms are at a rich peak. The cream-coloured tufts of Aruncus dioicus create another focus. Aruncus is a native perennial which grows furiously fast in the spring, and many gardeners become fed up with it because it takes up so much space, but I find it useful in difficult spots. There is a sense of gardeners' defeatism that sinks on us about this time every year, with vigorous shrubs, such as Cornus and Forsythia sending up so many shoots that they begin to overgrow narrow paths, while the early perennials fade and begin to look untidy: there are dry tulip stalks to clear, and Papaver orientale is in transition from glory to mess. There is still no sign this week of Lavatera blooming, but Deutzia comes into flower at last.

Phenology

Phenology (or phaenology) is the study of the dates on which seasonal plants alter their appearance (and also of dates on which insects, birds and other animals come into view). The dates vary: by place according to the climate and in time according to the vagaries of the weather. Phenology is obviously of interest to the succession gardener, since it concerns itself with the broad structure of succession, not only of garden plants but also of weeds and dominant tree species. A reading list dealing with phenology topics is a good way to get familiar with the topic.
In Germany, phenology - like most other hobbies - has even developed its own government budget, bureaucracy, periodicals, academic departments, vocational training programmes and textbooks and has thus ceased to be something shared and enjoyed by ordinary folk. News media attention in Japan to the cherry-blossom front is an example of phenology as public enjoyment. In English-speaking lands, phenology continues to be best known as a hierarchy-free hobby, practised for the sheer joy of observing, though it is also a part of the science of agricultural metereology.
The German Weather Service phenological calendar and the Wikipedia article on the topic demonstrate the systematized German approach, with a strict categorization (drawn up back in 1955) of the whole year as follows:

• Pre-spring (end of February and start of March): Galanthus nivalis flowers appear; flowering of Corylus avellana and Alnus glutinosa; peaking of Jasminum nudifolium; flowering of Salix caprea signals the end of the phase.
• Early spring: blossoms of Forsythia suspensa, Ribes uva-crispa, R. nigrum and R. rubrum, followed by Prunus avium, P. domestica, P. spinosa, Pyrus, and some species of Acer on leafless branches; the greening of lawns and fields; appearance of leaves on Aesculus hippocastanum and Betula pendula, followed a week later by slow-to-show leaves of Fagus sylvatica, Tilia cordata und Acer.
• Full-on spring: blossoms of Malus and Syringa x chinensis, later of Rubus idaeus; leaves of Quercus robur, which is among the last deciduous trees to turn green.
• Early summer (June): flowers of grasses including Alopecurus pratensis, of Sambucus nigra, Crataegus monogyna and Aruncus dioicus, and of Papaver orientale.
• Mid-summer: flowers of Tilia platyphyllos and Cichorium intybus; fruit of Ribes rubrum.
• Late summer: this phase is reckoned to begin when the first flowers of Calluna vulgaris appear; ripening of fruits of some varieties of Malus domestica and Prunus domestica, Amelanchier and Sorbus aucuparia; flowering of Anemone japonica.
• Early autumn: flowering of Colchicum autumnale; ripening of fruit of Sambucus nigra, Corylus avellana and Pyrus domestica.
• Mid-autumn: ripening of the fruits of Quercus robur, Aesculus hippocastanum and Juglans regia; leaves of Aesculum hippocastanum, Fagus sylvatica, Quercus, Fraxinus excelsior and Parthenocissus quinquefolia take on autumn colours, while orchard trees lose leaves.
• Late autumn: leaves change colour on Quercus robur and Aesculus hippocastanum, beginning a phase reckoned to last into mid-November.
• Winter: said to begin when the leaves of Quercus robur fall and the needles of Larix deciduaare shed.

Curiously, the Germans have also elaborated a "succession of aspects" which attempts to offer a more rounded ecological approach. "Aspects" are a further example of German scientists' attempts to systematize their observations in the light of late 20th century interest in ecology. The textbook writers have assembled their phenological observations into what they consider to be distinguishable stages in the development of a typical ecosystem. They record data about the plants as communities, often adding in data about the insects and other arthropods that feed on and breed in the plants. Aspects also place more emphasis than phenology does on the dull times of the year, when there are fewer or no garden blooms. The outcome of all this academic data-crunching is a canonical list of six stages in the annual life-cycle of plants and insects in the northern temperate zone of the Earth (just outside the windows of all those German, Austrian and Swiss scientists). Here is the list:

• Hiemal or winter aspect: From November to March, when many plants and insects are dormant, and there is a thick, intact layer of leaf litter on the ground.
• Prevernal aspect: corresponds to phenology's early spring, usually March and April, when early blossoms appear, but main trees are not yet in leaf, and the first arthropods on and in the ground become active.
• Vernal aspect: corresponds to spring, from the start of May to mid-June; a period when leaves return to deciduous trees, evergreens grow new leaves or needles, and birds and insects reproduce.
• Aestival aspect: corresponds to the mid-summer, from mid-June to mid-July, when plants and animals grow fastest.
• Serotinal aspect: the late summer from mid-July to mid-September, when leaves of deciduous trees visibly age and darken, and large populations of insects and migratory birds are evident.
• Autumnal aspect: from September to mid-October, when leaves begin to fall and populations of arthropods in leaf litter soar.

This is one of those curious examples in which a textbook-style prescription seems to remove the fun from one of life's little pleasures, and also divides us all into those who have learned the "proper" way and the merely ignorant.
There are two phenological gardens in close proximity, at Wulfsdorf and Quickborn, and I'll report on them when I have had a chance to visit them.