Thawing Out

The snow is still here, though not so much in town, as we found out this morning.  Still ice on some paths, but it is certainly melting and it is once again safe to walk and enjoy the garden. That means new photos of the progression from winter to spring, though probably temporary progression as more cold weather is predicted after our nice warm spell.

As you can see, the creek, though still frozen, is starting to run nicely again.  At least visibly nicely.  It was running all along under the ice.  Very cold water right now.

Another spot on the creek with very fast water.  Tiny creek with rapids.

Shady spots still have a lot of snow.  This ivy doesn't seem bothered by it, though.

Lake Amanda, the large pond in one of our shady gardens looks like it has ice bergs floating right now.  Too late to save the yew foliage as the deer took care of it while the pond was still frozen and they could just walk out and get to it.

On of the pots of iris that grow in Lake Amanda.  I think they're in a bit too much of a hurry.

And you can't forget the Snowdrops. Tiny buds are showing already.

The Tibetan Hellebores are also in a bit of a hurry.  No snow on them as they have been covered by an insulated box to protect them.  They are just in too much of a hurry this year.  They are always early, the first ones to bloom, but this is just a bit much.  They will be covered again when the cold returns.

The Creek

I've always thought it was grossly unfair that having been blessed with a creek, and just loving the flowing water, both the sounds and sight of it, we have also been blessed with what is a sort of seasonal creek.  On damp years we get a trickle all summer, but most years, about the time it warms up enough to want to go wading, there is no water in which to wade.  While I love all of God's creations, there are a few places where I think S/he could have put a little more thought into things, as in a creek that runs all summer, the time when we need it most for enjoyment, watering plants, for the birds and animals to drink and a whole list of things.
I could play in the creek for hours, looking at rocks, watching the tiny fish that swim in the deep puddles (and which sort of mysteriously disappear in the summer drought, only to reappear with the fall rains).  Every heavy rain brings us new rocks, the most unusual and prettiest of which get carried up into the gardens for edges or accents. There is a piece of cut stone down there right now that I would love to bring up, but which is way to heave to lift.  Maybe a couple of strong guys will volunteer for that job.  There could be some free plants in it for you.
As a child I was fascinated by the little spiders (are they actually spiders?) that walk on the surface of the water, as if they had little floats on their feet to keep them from sinking.  Lazily moving across the water.  I could watch them for hours.  Still can.  They seem to inhabit the same pools where the tiny fish live.
A creek is not a static thing. It is continually changing.  In the last 20 years, ours has dug itself a much deeper channel. It used to be only about a 1 foot step down to it, but now it is at least 4.  It keeps it from flooding the gardens, but the banks crumble with heavy rains or floods, so I expect it will at some point be more level with the surface of the gardens.  That's a log time away, though, so I probably won't live long enough to see that change.  Across the road, it becomes very wide and flat, probably at least 12 feet wide.  It's lazy and slow compared with our narrow one near the house.  I don't walk there much as it is hard to get to sometimes, but its banks shelter ferns, yellow violets and trilliuims so it is well worth the trek.
Here are some photos from the many seasons of our creek, which travels from it's source above our back pasture and joins others to enter the Hocking River at White's Mill which then heads on the the Ohio River.

This is between our wooden bridge and the bridge down on the road.  What you see on the left of the photo is where the road used to go.  The 'new' bridge was a WPA project, so it is getting pretty old too.  The road used to go almost right in front of the house.

It's amazing how we can have rapids in our little creek when the water gets high and fast.

And 2 photos of different floods.  Only once has the water come high enough to get near the house and that was during a hurricane where we got 9 inches of rain in not too many hours.  I think that had more to do with the rain than the creek.

The water here is at least 4 feet deep and would wash me all the way to White's Mill is I was silly enough to venture into it.

Ice and Kitties

There comes a time when slipping on the ice isn't nearly as funny as it was when you were eight or ten.  Ice is downright scary.  That said,  I don't think I ventured outside at all yesterday. The little bit of melting just added to the ice.  Less snow, more ice.  Not a good thing.  It gave me time to play with kitties, though I'm sure there were any number of things I should have been doing.  The kitties get their own post today so they can all introduce themselves.  Not plants, but the Hollow wouldn't be the Hollow without them.  So, in alphabetical order so as not to offend anyone, especially Princess Fanny who probably thinks we shouldn't bother putting anyone else's photo up anyway, other than hers.

First is Alexander. He arrived as a group of 8 that someone dropped off on the road in front of the house.  He was quite the charmer, even as a small kitten, and he got to stay.  Wish I could have kept all 8, but the others had to go to other homes.  He now weighs almost 18 pounds.  Kind of like picking up a cinder block.

Next is Ammimal.  He arrived here as a young cat, probably under a year old, and lived in the yard for about six months before we could get close enough to really make friends.  He hung around and seemed to want to get closer, but he was, and still is, terribly shy.  Makes you wonder what he ran away from.   Glad he's here now.  Another of the 'boys' and very silly when he plays.

Fanny is one of the sisters.  We rescued them from the cat shelter the last day that it was open.  She and her sister Maude, pictured next, are lucky if they weigh in at 5 pounds apiece.  Tiny little ladies, bur don't let their size fool you. Fanny has a vocabulary like a drunken sailor.  She is in charge and the boys do as she says.  Size isn't everything

And Maude, the other of the sisters.  She loves being on the enclosed porch.  She is attached to me and Fanny is attached to Hank.  Funny how kitties pick their people  Occasionally they will acknowledge their other 'parent', but not often.  She especially likes sitting in the wagon that was Hanks when he was a little kid.

Muffin, or Mister Muffin as he prefers to be called, arrived as an adult.  Just came up to the door and expected to be let in.  He's been here ever since and has never shown any inclination to go back out the door.  All of our kitties are inside only cats.  Too many dangers out there between coyotes and crazy neighbors with guns who like to shoot at pets.  Sad.  I used to love gardening with them.  Oh, the  stories I could tell.  Another kitty who has a story to tell, and probably not a happy one, from before he found and adopted us.

Seigfried is the closest thing we have to a dog.  He runs like a dog, used to almost bark when he was little and just doesn't act very cat-like.  The kitties have told us that no dogs are allowed in this house, so we will have to make due with Siggy.   He is my cat, plain and simple.  I seem to attract the  misfits.  Not sure what that means or if I even want to contemplate what it might mean.  Another one who just wandered into the yard, though I expect most don't actually wander from anywhere, given that we're not exactly near anywhere.  Always was funny how strays seem to show up at the end of semesters.

Spook is our feral cat.  He mother, Ms. Kitty, appeared at our door when she was pregnant.  She lived in the root cellar with her kittens Petunia and Spook.  Ms. Kitty and Petunia are long gone.  Spook is our oldest cat right now, almost 13.  It took at least 6 or 7 years before I could even pet her without risking needing bandages for my fingers.  She has been living in my sewing room and studio since she was pretty small, after her mother died.  Another of the odd ones, so of course she is all mine. She runs under the furniture if anyone else appears in her kingdom.  A sweet, tiny lady cat.

   

Last, but not least, is Thomas.  He is the baby, though he is now 5.  He will tell you he is still the baby and should be spoiled as such.  He arrived as a very tiny kitten, just walking down the road all by himself very early in the morning.  Hank was out, as is his habit, almost before the sun is up.  Barely awake, I was suddenly aware of a tiny kitten who was looking me right in the eye.  He is very frustrated with the older kitties since they don't have nearly the energy that he does.  He has been known to wake the big guys up so that they can run quickly from one end of the house to the other.

So, that's the family.  Back to plants tomorrow.

Galanthus

Almost a month of posts and I'm still enjoying the discipline of writing every day.  Makes me think about the garden in a different way; what's there right now, what do I want to share, where do I want to go with the garden changes in the spring (and spring will get here - many years of living tell me that).  Just before all of this snow and cold started the Galanthus (Snowdrops) were starting to poke foliage through the earth.  I told them to wait.  Experience told me that it was way too early, though we have had years when they showed up in January with no problems. The advantage to that, if we don't have too much snow and horrible cold, is that we have a very long season to enjoy them, before the heat  flattens them and they give way to crocuses and daffodils which are followed all too quickly by everything else rushing to be part of the show.  Late winter and early spring are different.  Slow, small changes every day. One step forward and two steps back.  Tentative small steps to be savored.  That said, I give you a taste of spring with Galanthus of various sorts from years past.

This first one is Galanthus nivea, just the common single flowered form.  We don't have too many of these, strangely as we have many more of the doubles, which we keep dividing and replanting.

The double one is much fancier, though not always appreciated for its delicate petals as you pretty much have to be lying on the ground looking up to see them well.

This on was obliged to turn over so you could see it better.

January Snowdrops

On of the select forms, this on Galanthus nivea 'Sam Arnott'.  We have looked at several others to add to the collection, but at $25 a bulb for the fancy new ones, we aren't likely to be buying a lot of them any time soon.

Yews

I posted yesterday a photo of the poor little Yew in the front yard that had been ravaged by deer.  They love them and strip the needles from them any time there is snow on the ground and they can't graze on grass.  Ones overhanging the ponds (with a bit of fencing) are safe until the surface of ponds freeze and then the deer just walk over the pond to get to them.  It's frustrating.  We are fortunate to have at least one Yew that is large enough to be safe from nibbling.  It was here when Hank bought the land in 1971 and pretty large even at that point.  I love the way the trunks get so interesting with age.  And age they do.  I've heard that 400-600 years old isn't all that unusual in England, where they are called, unsurprisingly, English Yews.

I tried to get a photo of the whole bush, but no luck.  It is tucked in amongst lots of other shrubs, Hamamelis, some Cornus and other things and was just hard to see.  Here's the best I could do.

When I was growing up Taxus baccata was a sort of nondescript green shrub planted by the foundation of the house.  Some of our are so much more than that.

The deer, unfortunately, seem to like the yellow ones even more than the plain green ones.

A Rant on Deer

Sooner or later, if you garden, it always comes around to deer, at least when you live in the woods.  For years we had them around, and through the garden, especially at dayliliy bloom time, but they pretty much avoided the front yard.  Not any more.  Either they are super hungry (probably) or this is a new bunch who didn't read the rules (probably) or we're very overpopulated with deer despite our best efforts to fix that. (surely).
Here's what happened to one of the Yews that is just a couple of feet from the front door.

We do spray, especially in the summer with Liquid Fence or any of a number of other sprays and spread Milorganite around everywhere both as deterrent and fertilizer, but once there is a deep layer of snow on the ground, they just eat anything they see.  Why they can't just make do with the grass that is now popping out where we've shoveled (and looks invitingly green) is beyond me.

I'm not sure how many are running around here, though I did chase a young doe who was about to nibble a Rhododendron over by the greenhouse.  That was just at suppertime.  We rarely have them down by the house in daylight.  She seemed very surprised to see me. Not sure just how many we have and it's either a lot of them or one that runs around in circles a lot.  Here are some tracks from over in the parking lot.

And speaking of snow, we always think about the country being so nice and clean, not traffic, less pollution.  Well, it was a rude awakening when I looked at our snow which had been so nice and white looking like I was back in Philadelphia.  Depressing.  No snow ice cream for supper tonight.

Lavender Phenomenal

There is the occasional plant that just stands out in the garden.  Maybe not the most showy or most fragrant or most anything, but sort of all of those.  An online friend developed this cultivar and I added it to the garden in the fall of 2014.  Probably should have been planted in the spring, but didn't find one until then.  Lavender here in SE Ohio is an iffy proposition.  Some will do well sometimes.  Most don't do well at all.  We're too damp, too cold, soil is too heavy.  Any number of problems.  People were raving about Lavender 'Phenomenal' and how it would take just about anything, even in zone 6 which is at the edge of the range, despite what the plant catalogs will try and tell you.  The wonderfully hardy (and pretty and fragrant) plant made it through 20 below zero with no protections.  I thought about covering it, but wanted to really put it to the test.  No more Lavenders that I fall in love with only to have them die rather quickly.  It came through with flying colors and grew and bloomed prolifically this past summer.  Given last year, this winter should be easy.  Here is a photo of it last week, before the snow, and one taken with our 8 inches of white fluff.  Let's just say I'm impressed with this one.  I hope to have some to sell at the nursery this summer if you want to give it a try too.