Category Archives: garden plant lists

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attracting birds, bulbs, months 01-03: winter, months 10-12: fall, perrennials

Cyclamen Coum – February Romance

02/20/2012 svseekins 8 Comments

I think February is sleeping in. The days are getting longer, but it seems so slow. Standing at the kitchen sink, staring out the window at the drizzle, I let out a squeal. Hot pink blooms at the base of the apple tree! I’m saved! Happy dance.

cyclamen coum - full bloom — photo by SVSeekins

Cyclamen coum shouts for me to come outside and play. I drop everything to grab the camera. Kneeling down on the soggy lawn, I fumble for the Close-Up setting. The rain dribbles down my neck, but I don’t care. Blooms! I see blooms!

For such a tiny flower, it packs a punch.

I mean, snowdrops are lovely, but they’re demure, unassuming white flowers. Cyclamen coum are bright, exotic, FEISTY flowers. Round 1 goes to C. coum.

In round 2 C. coum throws a low blow to my gut. It’s a little pricier than my usual comfort zone, especially considering that it comes in such a tiny pot. But determined to have real colour in the winter garden, I stayed strong & paid the price.

cyclamen coum - debris — photo by SVSeekins

In round 3, I struggled with where to showcase the winter bloomer. I keep the little bed under the apple tree empty – mostly because I read somewhere that certain bugs climb up tall plants as a way to get high into the apple tree & infect the fruit. I don’t know whether that’s really true, but it gives me a clear spot, visible from inside, for the cyclamen to show off. Good thinking, eh?

C. coum are so small that they could easily be lost under a pile of leaf debris, so in round 4 I get busy & do the winter clean up chores.

cyclamen coum - January — photo by SVSeekins

Their speckled, round leaves started to show in October. By mid-January, C. coum had minuscule, bright fuchsia buds. I often found myself outside cheering them on. It took a few extra weeks for their flowers to open. That entertainment value wins them round 5.

So now, I’m on my knees with the camera, looking a bit foolish, but happy. I’m head over heels. How many more rounds to go? None, round 6 is a simple knockout.

Cyclamen coum has got to be my all-time favourite – EVER. 🙂

cyclamen hederifolium - February - leaf only — photo by SVSeekins

Hardy Cyclamen is more often known as a fall bloomer. Most varieties start in August, and some continue through November. There are lovely examples growing in Abkhazi Garden.

Cyclamen hederifolium (with ivy-shaped leaves) is a bully, overrunning many other varieties. There are several small patches around our yard, but I’m being ever so careful about placing each variety separately and not too close together.

cyclamen hederifolium - September bloom only — photo by SVSeekins

On a positive note, C. hederifolium’s flowers seem to appear magically out of nowhere, and the leaves show up weeks later. That’s kind of cool for a bully.

cyclamen hederifolium - February - rock crevices — photo by SVSeekins

Cyclamen are well-suited as a rockery plant, too. I’m happy to have success with some rooting well into the steep mossy rock in our side yard. My hope is that it’s tough to mix varieties when they’re each growing in their own crevice.

Garden gurus Carole & Bill Dancer have lovely masses of hardy cyclamen flowering throughout their garden beds at this time of year. Bill says the cyclamen spread effortlessly. He chuckles that the ants do the work. They happily move the sticky seeds around for him. My guess is the ants are just as susceptible to this February romance as I am.

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attracting birds, bulbs, months 01-03: winter

Snowdrops – January Gems

02/16/2012 svseekins 13 Comments

The first year at Richmond House I was ecstatic to see snowdrops blooming on January 11. Months earlier I’d planted some & the early pay off was thrilling. Happily more were proving that they’d previously been naturalizing around the yard.

The following year, having a better idea of where to seek out the delightful little blossoms: January 1 – discovery!

Another winter it was December 27.

But this year, even searching vigilantly through the Christmas & New Year holidays, it took until January 11 for my first snowdrop encounter.

With West Coast’s winter being dull and drizzly, a promise of the spring to come is like a ray of sunshine. So even though white flowers are not usually near the top of my list, I celebrate January snowdrops.

These plants are treasures. When hit with snow for a few days in the middle of the month they barely twitched. If anything, by the time I went back outside, more were blooming! In the cool days of our winter snowdrop blooms last for weeks & weeks – well through February.

I like to get down close to the earth & take a close look at them. It’s fun to discover the little green tatoo on each petal. And who knew there were so many varieties?

Clusters in my garden haven’t yet become abundant enough to divide, but now is the time to do it. Usually the recommendation is to wait until a plant is in dormancy before moving it. With snowdrops that rule doesn’t hold true apparently. That’s pretty handy, because once they die back I can never really remember where they are.

I’ve used this time of year to shift snowdrops into different locations, as it was a mistake for me to attempt growing them in a spring-flowering meadow. Although they bloom before the grasses start to grow, their leaves are still busy storing up for next year’s flowers when C has the uncontrollable urge to dust off lawn mower in late February. Zip, there goes the meadow.

Shorter bulbs, like crocus, might stand half a chance in our lawn, but not snowdrops – – nor daffodils. Those are best left to naturalize in our beds & borders.

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© copyright 2012 SVSeekins

attracting birds, months 01-03: winter, months 10-12: fall, perrennials, urban deer

Winter Winner: Viburnum Pink Dawn

12/28/2011 svseekins 9 Comments

Viburnum bodnantense, Viburnum pink dawn garden Victoria BC Pacific Northwest — photo by SVSeekins

Just when it seems all the trees are bare & the skies will be permanently grey, these small pink flower clusters catch my attention & bring on a smile. They even offer a sweet scent! For these 2 reasons alone the Viburnum Pink Dawn wins prime Real Estate at the edge of the shrub border of our short driveway.

Forsythia & Viburnum bodnantense in sept. — photo by SVSeekins

Right through to late summer it’s just another green shrub earning space in the garden by working as a privacy screen. As there’s so much else urging me to explore the garden, this shrub blends right into the background. Through autumn its green leaves take on a coppery tinge offering seasonal interest. Like many other deciduous shrubs in our garden, that’s nice… and counts as another reason to keep it around.

fall color of Viburnum pink dawn garden Victoria BC Pacific Northwest — photo by SVSeekins

But in winter, especially at Christmas, when we come & go between the dry vehicle & the warm house, we hardly enter the garden at all. At the driveway’s edge, Viburnum bodnantense gets all the attention & appreciation. The rest of the garden is pretty much ignored.

Viburnum Pink Dawn in December garden Victoria BC Pacific Northwest — photo by SVSeekins

It will hold its own for several more months, sharing the spotlight with a sequence of spring bulbs: the early snowdrops in January, the crocus in February, and daffodils in March. What a winning strategy. I’m not likely to question its value to the garden or reconsider its highly visible position near the driveway.

The first time I noticed one of these winter flowering treasures was when I moved to the property on Cedar Hill. (I’m sure the shrub is still there today)

It had maxed out at 10 feet tall.
In the summer I enjoyed the privacy it gave us as we sipped wine under the front porch.
In the rainy winter, I held off the blues with its promises of spring.
Birds nested in it, even though it was right beside the house.
The deer left it alone.
It grew slowly, so required very little maintenance.

Viburnum bodnantense, Viburnum pink dawn, Viburnum spring dawn, garden Victoria BC Pacific Northwestiburnum pink dawn garden Victoria BC Pacific Northwest — photo by SVSeekins

It was definitely a keeper. Even the Royal Horticultural Society in Britain had given it their Award of Garden Excellence. When we started our search for a new property, it was right near the top of our ‘want’ list for the new garden. I tried taking cuttings several times with no success.

Viburnum bodnantense, Viburnum pink dawn, Viburnum spring dawn, garden Victoria BC Pacific Northwest — photo by SVSeekins

After we moved to our new home with no viburnum, D.Smart gave us one as a house-warming gift. What a wonderful way to start a Friendship Garden.

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Other January gems in the Pacific Northwest:

© SVSeekins and Garden Variety Life, 2011. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to SVSeekins and Garden Variety Life with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.