Hyacinth Delft Blau

My guess is, this hyacinth probably got its name Delft Blau from the Delphinium blue, due to the similarity in the colourings.

The colour is not really outstanding during these early days of spring due to overcast sky but the fragrance is really powerful sweet and wafting in the air even when the temperature is very cool in the early morning.


It is so top heavy that it bend to the ground even before the last snow hit us last week.

One of those that got cut away, fill up the vase and perfume the indoor!

Harbinger of Spring - Helleborus

Phonetically, the name may sounds like a "hell-of-a-bore-rose" but in reality, this is a very interesting plant and a joy to behold when they are in bloom, especially after many months of winter boredom. Even though the 5 petals strongly resemble the wild roses, and its common name being Lenten Rose or Christmas Rose, Helleborus is not at all a rose. They belonged to the family of Buttercup or Ranunculaceae, usually blooming in-sync with the snowdrops and the crocus.

This is another one of those easy care, very well behave plant and requires almost no maintenance. When given the right growing conditions, they will be there forever, slowly multiplying over the years. Some are very cold hardy and able to survive my freezing cold alpine winter climate. The leathery leaves remain evergreen during winter months, though sometimes can look a little bit savaged after getting buried under the snow blanket, and all the freeze and thaw, but that does not affect their ability to produce many beautiful blooms that made me smile even on grouchy grey and dull mornings.
There are so many attractive interesting colours being created by hybridizers.
Some are plain looking, others are with darker streaks of green, yummy creamy pink undertones, reddish brown, purplish spots and tinge, ....or simple plain white like this Helleborus Niger or Christmas rose below. In my garden, this white one is the first one to appear ahead of the other cultivars. This white is the most common one here. Sometimes during mild winter, they started blooming around Christmas or around that time. Unlike many flowers with true petals, the hellebore flowers are actually made of 5 sepals which do not fall off . They turn green and stay on the plant, holding on to the seeds pods and remain very decorative for months.

These are very short plants, a little over 12 inches tall, making it a perfect ground cover plants. The blooms faces outward with a tendency to nod as if very shy. I found them most suitable and effective for my upper slope garden as I could see the face of the nodding flowers by looking up from the patio without having to get down on my hands and knees to enjoy their beauty.

Harbinger of Spring - It's Electrifying!!

When weatherman said sleet over the weekend, I was disappointed. Wet soggy spring snow are very heavy and will definitly foul up lots of those lovely harbingers that are low growing plants.

Lo and behold!

Weather gods decided to send spring snow to other parts of the country.

Isn't that a tiny bit of blessing to be joyous about?

I'm certainly counting my blessings.

Though a bit cold, 1° celcius, partial cloudy and the wind chill factor made it even colder, I can't stay curled up late. The dog must go out, and its always urgent in the morning.

I tried to catch the light whenever the sun peeked out from behind the clouds, and took pictures of this lovely furry Pulsatilla. Long time ago, this flowering plant was called Anemone Pulsatilla, but now the taxonomist decided it should be called Pulsatilla Vulgaris. Don't know what made them change the name, but I think I like the old name much better.

After 30 minutes not moving much behind the camera, and waiting for the wind to kind of calm down a bit, my fingers turned numbed and I can't feel the camera button, ran into the house, put my hands in the toasty warm oven gloves and try to sip a warm ovomaltine while sifting through the pictures.

The wind was also extremely dry with charged atoms, that static electricity built up in my body similar to during the time in the depth of winter when the air in the house used to be very dry. Actually, I really shouldn't be complaining even though my hair is standing on its end. Pulsatilla Vulgaris Papageno having its hair standing on end.

Everything I touched became an electrifying experience. The dog jumped nervously when I tried to fix his leash. The camera goes a bit haywire when I switched it on. A simple pecking kiss to my husband and we both were electrified.



When the clouds moved away, and the sun shine brightly....
.......there, you can see my smiles are reflected right here in that fully opened flowers.

Ooinunofuguri - Dog's Scrotum Major

Few days after I published Seeing Heaven in Wild Flowers http://rosesarerae.blogspot.com/2009/03/seeing-heaven-in-wild-flowers.html

Maki wrote me an e-mail;

"Hi Rae,
That tiny blue flower is flowering in my garden too. In Japan, it is called Ooinunofuguri.
It means dog's scrotum major !! haha. I've no idea who gave such strange name to this cute weed or why??"

Thank you for sharing this with me Maki. What a name! I burst into long train of giggles when I read your lines.....was a good mail to start the day. The people who gave this plant such a name like this, surely have got a good sense of humour.

When I think again about it, that name actually fits well to the tough surviving qualities of this plant. They really can take all kinds of abuse. This is the kind of weed which will not shrivelled and die from heavy foot traffic and don’t even burn and turn brown when dogs peed on them.

Luckily it is a low ground hugging weed and not invasive bushy type, or otherwise would be a nightmare to get rid off from cultivated areas of the garden.

If that blue weed wild flower belonged to the dog, here's another one blooming at this time of year in the garden, commonly known as Dog’s tooth or Erythronium Revolutum





There are many varieties of Dog's tooth and this one is called White Beauty.
Now I wonder if there are other wild flowers called dog’s droppings, which I’ve yet to discover…..

The Harbinger of spring

Happy Spring greetings to all my gardening friends whom I missed so much back in PBrose forum. I wanted to go in the other day to get Rachel's mail as I missed her, but the moment I saw Mr.H name queueing up the page, I made a u-turn click and hope one day Rachel will just google me up and find this blog.
Sometimes I hated myself for being so bleeding straight and unable to act. I will never make it to Hollywood, I can tell you that. Not even as a lamp post. Forget about getting all dressed up for the glitzy oscar night!!

I hope you all are getting very excited with the harbingers of spring that's popping up everywhere in our northern hemisphere. My pot proliferation has increased over the winter months but those bareroots roses will soon go into the big planter and the pots will go back to hosting annuals and sweet basil which the slugs will come by the bus load and feast on them.

I haven't done anything in the garden so far, other than walking around and enjoying the signs of life coming back after the winter hibernation. We have had a couple hours of sun but it is so windy and still quite cold. The upper layer of the ground is crumbly and nice but half way the spade it is still frozen. The next couple of days will be bad weather. Sleet is forecasted. Yikes.
Last autumn, Mrs. Spade had worked so hard trying to uproot a very stubborn clump of wild dogwood and bramble roots.
There are some hair line cracks in the handle, so...before I break another one I decided to get Miss Spade joining the garden assault team line-up. Miss spade is really feminine, light weight and definitely will put less strain on my upper body but it is a little short for my height.

The typical late winter/early spring up and down temperatures made me a bit confused how many layers of clothings I have to put on every morning, but the usual percursors to spring seemed oblivious to the uncertainties. For someone like me, after a long winter wait, bored and tense, the arrival of Viburnum Bodnantense Schneeball blooms was welcomed with cutting bunches of them to perfume the indoor.

I thought about Maribel as I circle the shrub with the secateurs.

The sky changes from hour to hour. Some times cloudy, then its blue sky, then its sunny...... then its cloudy again

Winter Jasmin Nudiflorum. So sunny bright yellow against blue sky. That should give you a rough idea how it can get when the clouds are moved away......

My page format has gone a bit skew-whiff.....must be the weather.... blown about in the strong wind...

OK you girls, whatever the weather, enjoy your spring!!

Seeing Heaven in Wild Flowers - Part II

There are plenty of garden origins plants which had gone wild and naturalise in the open space where the dog usually do his run. This is quite some steps away from the cultivated areas of the garden, but I don't think they sprout out from the dog poo because pooch don't eat seed heads or bulbs. Besides, I usually picked up after the dog.

Most of those naturalised in the weedy wild areas started their life neck in neck with each others like the picture above. A few years later the same plants can be found growing everywhere in the garden and within a certain perimeters outside the garden. I can only think of a few reasons why they decided to leave the colony;

1-They don't like their lifestyle crammed by the others.
2-They are in similar case like "the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow"
3-They don't like their neighbouring plants
4-They think the grass is greener on the other side
5-They're trying to tell me that I should consider buying my neighbour's land
6-ha ha ha

Here are a few that escaped the garden and decided to go their own way,

Anemone blanda, left the garden bed, probably travel underground and prefering the border of the grassy field areasViola Palustris - prefers the dry impoverished bank instead of the rich flower bedViola Odorata - decided to do the same with similar preference as V.PalustrisMuscari - popped up by themselves in the middle of the garden path
crocus - a solo act popping up in a middle of nowhere and everywherePrimroses - had spread out like wild fire
This one even decided to take up cracks (of walls and pavement)
Snowdrops - multiply like rabbits. I don't have the heart to trample on them because they look really pretty during their rather short blooming period.

Really wild flowers Seeing Heaven in Wild Flowers

Seeing Heaven in Wild Flowers

As spring pushes in, and the warm air coming up from the south, the snow on the north facing hill slowly disappearing. I hope that’s the end of winter.

Right now, I am bespangled dizzy with excitement by the wonderful things popping up and moving about in the garden. Featherbrained for words. I had to turn to William Blake for his beautiful poem;

To see a world in a grain of sand,
and a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour.

A robin redbreast in a cage,
Puts all heaven in a rage.

(Excerpt from Auguries of Innocence – William Blake )


There is no cage and no heaven’s rage here. The redbreast robin is free to come and go anytime, anyday. The choice is theirs. The nuthatch already found the nesting box

Some people may say, “there are more to life than just getting excited about flowers and life in the garden,” but for me, gardening is one of those little yet important fundamentals in my life.

An hour spent in the garden, made me bowed down in humbleness to the great mother nature. This is the place I learned to appreciate simplicity and if “a” heaven is seen in “a” wild flower, right now I am seeing hundreds of heavens.
I don’t know the name of this tiny blue wild flowers but they are the first one to bloom on the south facing slope. Thousands of them tiny little flowers, yards and yards of them, right into the vineyards, turning the whole slope into a floral carpet.

Lamium Maculatum, the wild type is also making the ground looking purple and cheerful.

More heavenly wild flowers Part II

Spring in here!!

We have had a l-o-n-g winter, starting with the first snow storm that hit us on the last day of October 2008. In my region, that snow fall caught many people by surprise. There was a great deal of damage to those unprepared for an unusually early snow blanket. The heavy snow broke branches, knocked down several trees and flattened part of my garden. It was a big shock when I came home and saw several of my few years old standard rose trees snapped in half.

After months of restless wait, and not able to do anything in the garden, finally I woke up to be greeted by a weak sunshine with a clear blue sky, a typical day of early spring . The air was crispy fresh and the quicksilver rised up for the first time to 12degrees celcius by mid noon.

There are still snow on the north facing shadow side of the opposite hill, but our south aspect sunny exposed garden are now beginning to show some colours and signs of life waking up from a long winter hibernation.

Abracadabra! ....and the winter spell in my garden is officially broken. The whole south facing slope is now covered with nodding white blooms of snowdrops.
Crocusus are popping up all over the place enriching the joy of spring arrival with patches of colours, ....even in unexpected placesThis white Heleborus Niger also known as Christmas Rose, seemed to be ahead of Foetidus and the others cultivars.
Miss Spade and Mr. Fork are still waiting for the ground to fully thaw before they can start getting into gardening action, digging new planting holes and uprooting weedy resprouting brambles but Unermüdliche rose, which arrived from Italy in late February, though still living in a small pot, surprisingly made an impatient jumpstart ahead of others.
These are just small signs of new beginning to the gardening year with so many more exciting and promising days ahead. It is the time of year to celebrate growth, to be out and about enjoying the outdoors, the fresh air and a good dose of natural vitamin D from the sun.

Of course, the joy of spring can be a different story for those with seasonal allergic reactions.
http://rae-dogblog.blogspot.com/2009/03/dog-spring-allergy.html

Hamamelis Diane

This Witch Hazel is a fascinating plant that bloom in late winter. It glows like fire warming the souls when there's nothing else happening in the garden. They have a spicy fragrant which I can't quite connect. The petals resemble tiny strips of ribbons decorating the bare twigs. The strips of ribbons petals unfurl on warm days, and curl up when the temperature drops only to unfurl again on another favourable warm day.The leaves are green and boring all summer but this shrub puts up a marvellous show in autumn turning into an eye catching golden red. First bug I saw this year, maybe a night moth or something. Very tiny and skinny. Must be hungry after a long winter sleep.

The truth will always rise to the surface

How would you feel when you’re just getting into the swing of it, putting every available minutes you can find from your hectic lifestyle, working and polishing your articles, researched and enriched your writings with informative engaging details in your effort to build up your blog, then suddenly you found out that some scumbags had taken your published thoughts, word by word, including your name and used it in their scamming activities?

How would you react to such a situation?

On my part, I was flabbergasted, felt victimized, exploited and my rights violated. They stole my work, my enthusiasm and almost killed my interest to keep this blog alive. The worst part is the mess they created which took days and possibly weeks to come, filling up more forms after forms for the authorities to conduct the investigation. Even though a case such as this is so common and happened to a lot of people, I can't help it but also felt as if it is a personal attack.

Just imagine how many articles I could have published from all the minutes and hours they stole from me. Those scumbags can really take away a lot of your time with the mess they created.


Is there a fair justice in such a case like this?

….being an optimist, I really hope so.

The hands of time is so foolproof efficient, just like the nature's clock. The crocus is nature's clock and they never fail to rise up to the surface.

When its time for them to announce the Spring, they appear from under the grounds, even when the climate conditions is unfavourable.

The truth will always rise to the surface. It is only a matter of time…..... Law of relativity ruled.

Time never lie.