December 2021 in the Northern Hemisphere

[shelagh]

It never ceases to amaze me just how knowledgeable Forumists are.

[Hoy]

Trond

Here's where I purchased my weeping Mulberry from.

http://ediblelandscaping.com/products/trees/Mulberries/

They state hardy in our zone 7-9.

I'm a bit colder than 7 at times.

Arnold,

We rarely have colder than Z7 here, neither at my summer house nor at home. But we lack the warm summers you have. It's warmer at my summer house though than at home.

I don't think I can import plants from USA, I need a phyto and most companies don't provide it.

[brianw]

My Mulberry tree is covered in Christmas lights at present. We used a number of this years fruit to make Mulberry Vodka. About 3 litres (vodka) from memory; and you can still eat the fruit after drinking it ;-) It's great with ice cream.

[Akke]

Nice to see some snow. Here we have typical dutch weather, first a warm, grey week, followed by a few freezing, but sunny days and now it’s autumn again. Pretty standard dutch weather, flowering seems a little less standard.

1 ‘The garden’ Crocus laevigatus fontenayi, Narcissus cantabricus nylon group and a late Galanthus reginae-olgae.

2 Colchicum Harlekijn ?Speciosum? Never noticed it before in the park and now there’s about twenty. Spot (my dog) and I come here nearly everyday, very beautiful and she’s allowed unleashed. A friend reminded me of the work that has been done there, it might have come with earth they used. Late?

3/4 looks like Scilla Mischtschenkoana blown away in an effort to clean up the autumn leaves. Found just one (and more leaves), a bit early. Some snowdrops (Elwesii) around as well and a lot to come. It’s in an old churchyard (northside) known for very early Eranthis, just started visiting it april last year.

5 Muscari in a small garden, ok it’s growing almost against the house, but still a bit early.

In my pots got Colchicums almost ready to open up, at least they’ve read the timetable.
So far, winter is pretty good.
Proost on the Mulberry wodka and a merry christmas.

Akke

[Robert]

Yesterday, between rainstorms, I cleaned up the beds along the path out to our compost pile.



There were some common old-fashioned Paper-white Narcissus that grew by our back fence. I rarely saw them when they bloomed, nor was I out to enjoy their fragrance. Yesterday, I moved them along this path to the compost. Now I can enjoy their fragrance and flowers every time I go out into the garden, but first they need to recover from transplanting.

I also used this opportunity to plant out a few other items along the path – Sisyrinchium idahoense and Allium validium. I have spent time removing the weedy Sisyrinchium species and hybrids from our garden. These days I grow only our local California native species, Sisyrinchium bellum, S. elmeri, and S. idahoense. They all do quite well in our garden and are not weedy. Allium validium, Swamp Onion, likes summer moisture. It is easy-to-grow in our garden and provides pink flowers in the late spring-early summer. I do grow some of our local native dryland Allium species. They too do well in our garden; however they need to be kept 100% dry during the summer.



I was very surprised to see the first Galanthus flowers emerging. The weather has been stormy with below average temperatures. Jasmin was wary of any Galanthus in the garden, but just these few have not received her wrath.



The weather has been very wintery for the last few weeks (relative to our climatic conditions!) [Jasmin says, it is like when she was a child]. The rainy weather continues with abundant snowfall in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. We may have a big weather related surprise in a few days. The NWS is forecasting a slight chance of snow for Sacramento! Yes, Sacramento, California. It has been over 40 years since it last snowed in Sacramento. I remembered walking to college classes over a lawn covered with snow. That was a long time ago! [Jasmin remembers she was ill and her parents brought the snow in a dish for her to play with.  Her mother would put it in the freezer just long enough to keep its consistency.  Snow was so very common back then, even in California. Maybe not like in the state of New York, or Vienna or Mariazell, Austria, but plenty deep in the foothills and mountains.] Stay tuned. I will keep you posted.

[ian mcdonald]

Good to see you have had some rain, Robert. Best wishes for Christmas and the New Year.

[Stefan B.]

Happy Christmas!

[Leena]

[Jasmin adds:  You mentioned you could not have so many trees, as it would diminish what sun you do receive.  ---- We had to remove a number of trees because we had not been able to tend them during our years of caregiving.  Some grew too large.  A number of beloved plants were lost, not just to climate, including the horrible fires and their smothering fog of smoke, but to neglect. 

My garden is quite big, our whole property is 4 hectares (mostly trees and bushes), and about one hectare is now inside the fence. The actual garden is much smaller (yet too big). There has been too much (real) work so that I haven't been able to take care of it properly and so many plants have died from being smothered by weeds and such. There are a lot of trees, native trees and also apple trees and plum trees (which I don't like so much because they spread underground, and are very difficult to get rid of), and they have grown faster than we have been able to control them. There was a time about 20 years ago when I got interested in bush roses, and thought that they are easy and don't need so much time from me. That was true partly, and the ones which were most tough and hardy survived, but many also died.
However most of the garden is shady or semi-shady and roses don't like that much, so they are not ideal plants in my garden, but some wild roses do well, and I like especially ones like Rosa pendula, Rosa majalis and such, only the hardiest roses. 
The only part of the garden which gets sun all day is our vegetable garden and polytunnel, but I kind of wished there was more sunny places to grow more strawberries and such. It is very difficult for me to cut down mature trees, they are older than me, and cut down, I will never have such big trees any more. So it is either trees, or big rose bushes or vegetables. Maybe some rose bushes have to go...

In the past ten years I have found out that woodland plants grow best in my garden, and especially bulbs (snowdrops!), and Helleborus, Epimediums and such. They give me so much joy in spring!!
And so the woodland beds areas have gone bigger every year, and those are plants which I will concentrate most. Next year I will retire from work (actually in the end of January so only a month until that) and then there will be all the time for the garden! I can't wait next spring:).

It has been cold again, last night -18C and forecast says the beginning of January will be 6-10C colder than average for this time of year. Yesterday we got 5cm snow and more will come next week, so it is now white Christmas. Here are two pictures taken yesterday. The first shows my vegetable beds and the second is from the woodland part of the garden.

[Leena]

Nice to see some snow. Here we have typical dutch weather, first a warm, grey week, followed by a few freezing, but sunny days and now it’s autumn again. Pretty standard dutch weather, flowering seems a little less standard.

Akke, it is so nice to see your flowering plants! I wouldn't mind if it was autumn here again:).

It is also nice to see plants from California, I hope coming cold doesn't damage them too much.

[Leena]

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from Finland to all forumists.

[Gabriela]

Beautiful winter-like and also spring-like pictures shown here for December.

In SW Ontario the weather remained mild, with few, short plunges in temp., a bit of snow and always back to rain.
For Christmas day: 6C and rain. We will see what the New Year brings.

Happy Holidays for all forumists with Androsace villosa ssp. taurica. May all your seeds germinate in 2022!

[Diane Whitehead]

What a clever idea, Stefan.

Your wooden form and glass Christmas balls look as though they are decorating
the big evergreen tree outside your window.

[Akke]

In the past ten years I have found out that woodland plants grow best in my garden, and especially bulbs (snowdrops!)

There are a lot of nice bulbs that don’t mind or even like the shade, so I imagine you have a very nice woodland garden.

My own ‘garden’ as I call it is just a big tub, got most in of the plants in pots (at least easy to give shelter if frost gets a bit more serious like this weekend, they just skated the first marathon on natural ice). Happily I can share in big public and small private gardens nearby, including a very pleasant woodland glacier of Galanthus nivalis and a woodland carpet of Corydalis cava and Allium ursinum.

Merry christmas

[Leena]

Thank you Akke. You are right, that there are so many wonderful woodland plants and bulbs which do well here, and which I have "found" only in the past 10 years. I'm a fan of Ian's Bulb Log, and try to grow many plants from seeds so that they would better acclimatize here .
I envy the natural snowdrops in European countries, it is so nice that you can see them in the nature over there.
Also growing in pots is easier over there, and you can have so many in a small space. Here if I have something in pots, I have to move them to root cellar for the winter because left outside (even in the ground in pots), I have lost many plants.  Maybe I haven't just found the right way to overwinter them outside, because plants which grow in woodland beds come through winters mostly fine. The problem with root cellar (besides having to cart pots in and out) is that even if the temperature is there close to zero celsius, some plants tend to start to grow too early.

Gabriela, I hope winter will be mild this year over there while ours seem to colder than usual.
It seems that weather is almost always opposite than ours. If you have mild winter, we have colder one, or the opposite:).

[Robert]

Cold weather (for us) has set in and is forecasted to persist into the first part of the New Year. We grow a few frost tender species, and they are well protected from the cold weather. Our remaining garden plants are cold hardy. This winter our garden has entered a true sleepy dormancy with few plants blooming at this time.

Leena,

Thank you for taking the time to elaborate on your gardening situation and endeavors. I [we] now have a much better understanding of your garden. For you, spring and new growth must be months away; however I find beauty in the snow-covered garden and the frosted plants. Hopefully no harm will come to them.