Daffodil Days culminates this coming Sunday with our annual Fairy Festival and we expect all of Blithewold’s fairies to come out for the party. Conditions should be just right. A warm and sunny day is in the forecast and there will be plenty of believers on the property… I’m pretty sure I know where they’ve been hiding lately too. If I was a fairy I’d probably hang out with the daffodils in the Bosquet (they’re still in peak bloom) probably under the open parasols of the mayapple (Podophyllum peltatum) and kicking back on trout lily leaves.

But there’s really no better fairy camouflage than epimedium. Especially now while it displays tiny blooms that look enough like real fairy wings to earn that as one of its common names. — Or is it the leaves that look like fairies’ wings because, come to think of it, to me the flowers look more like court jester hats. But then the leaves look more like hearts… Maybe on Sunday, when we get a better look at the fairies, we’ll be able to tell what’s what.

In any case, anyone who wants to attract fairies to their garden should definitely consider planting epimedium. And even if you’re allergic to fairy stings, you might fall for epimedium just because it’s one of the prettiest groundcovers of all time for shade. Our biggest colonies are planted in the Rock Garden and just outside the Rose Garden moongate, in a bed we refer to as the “dry shade bed”. The ground under the Pagoda tree (Sophora japonica) is dry and compacted but these dainty and delicate looking plants have been perfectly happy to spread their wings (so to speak — rhizomes, actually) over the last few years to fill in where not much else wants to. They’re a whole lot tougher than they look. If you’re not already a fan, here’s another point in their favor: most are practically evergreen and need no more attention than a once-a-year haircut in late winter/early spring to make way for these spectacular (and sometimes speckled) new leaves and adorable flowers. And if you are already a fan, you know that planting one leads down a slippery slope to craving a whole collection. (There are about 40 species and who knows — I certainly don’t — how many cultivars.) Rarity though, is another point in their favor — despite their willingness to spread, they are not always easy to divide, which makes them a little bit precious and sometimes hard to find to buy. (Our favorite local source is Avant Gardens.)

Do you have fairies or fairy wings in your garden? Any favorites?

Whether or not you got your taxes in on time, spring is sending out huge returns right this minute. As a gardener I have paid close enough attention to spring that I really shouldn’t ever be surprised by it but yet again, I’m feeling amazed at how quickly it’s happening. Tree buds that were still tightly closed (if swollen) last week when I checked them must have opened over the weekend. Mayapple (Podophyllum peltatum) that was tucked under the leaves in the bosquet last week is poking up today like a forest of tiny umbrellas. Ferns that were still tightly knobbed are beginning to lengthen into fiddleheads. Grape hyacinth are out in force; trout lily are displaying their peeled banana blooms; and a close-up look at a red-tinted horizon reveals the most delicate garnet flowers on the red maples (Acer rubrum).

And the daffodils. I knew it was coming (and we predicted that this would be the week) but they’re totally peaking now. I am tempted to say that it doesn’t get any better than this but of course it does. By the day.

So if you’re on vacation with your kids this week, I sure hope you return to Blithewold for Daffodil Days or at least get outside to reap spring’s awesome reward. (Given the weather forecast for the next few days — no hot weather in sight yet — it looks like the daffs will be in peak right through and into next week. And by then there should be a few more tulips too!)

Is spring at its peak in your garden too? For a look at spring’s return all over the country and the world, head over to May Dreams Gardens for April Garden Bloggers Bloom Day.

It doesn’t get any sweeter than s’mores and hot cocoa, and the night is never brighter than a bonfire. Or three. Blithewold’s new event, Christmas Sparkle, kicked off last Friday and as someone who is occasionally accused of being a humbug around the holidays (you might not know that about me…) I have to say it was just the sweetest, brightest, best thing. Maybe ever. And I didn’t even have a chance to hang out by the bonfires in the Enclosed Garden, roasting marshmallows and listening to carolers. Instead, I spent my evening with beaming visitors in the greenhouse, which we lit like a fairy house with tiny lights and tea candles.

Every year “the guys” (Fred – director of horticulture, Dan, and now Nick) create some kind of amazing light display on the grounds, and every year we say they outdid themselves. Well. They placed the bar pretty high this year. The magical icicles in the front lawn ginkgo, and handmade copper and jelly jar lanterns along the path from the mansion all the way to the greenhouse would have won the prize for best ever but there are more lights than that and at least one strand (or ten) in a very high place indeed. So you really should come by for a look. But not just a drive-by. This is the year to take a tour through the house if you haven’t yet — or even if you have — because everyone is saying it’s the prettiest ever. Then, either come back or stick around for a Friday night ramble down the path to the greenhouse for a cup of cocoa, stopping in the Enclosed Garden on the way to warm your fingers and marshmallows by the fire(s). If I love it, you will really love it. For more information about Christmas at Blithewold, click here (or here for concerts in the Living Room, and here for the Christmas Sparkle chorus lineup).

As soon as I published about Stephen Orr speaking at our Garden Design Luncheon, I found out that he couldn’t get out of NYC. We know he would have been here if he possibly could and our thoughts are with him and everyone else whose plans – and lives – have been wrecked by Sandy. We are really counting our blessings, one of which is that at practically the last minute, Tovah Martin very graciously agreed to speak in Stephen’s stead.

Tovah came to our rescue not only by braving a scary, snowy nor’easter herself to get here, but by speaking about infusing the garden with personality, and giving us a reminder that I’d like to have engraved on my hori-hori: don’t worry so much about what other people think about your garden. And then she made a quick and gorgeous terrarium because, “if everybody in the world grew a terrarium, there would be no war.” (It was kismet that we had already made terrariums — temporaryums, actually — for table centerpieces. We’re that much closer to peace.)

Intermixed with practical design advice regarding repetition, textures, and shapes (“You’ve got to have balls. –I do.”) Tovah also told us to “be happy in the garden.” Know who you are and what you love. If, “in your heart of hearts,” you love open spaces and gazing at the horizon, make your garden so. If enclosure is comforting, create it. When speaking about garden art and tsotchkes, she says, “if a miniature golf course moves you, go for it!” Plant orange and pink flowers together if those colors resonate for you (as they do for me) and then don’t worry over what anyone might say about it. All of this advice hits home for me because (at home) I garden with wild abandon in an otherwise well-manicured neighborhood. I do worry a little about getting the hairy eyeball from my neighbors but in actuality, I have noticed returned smiles and what could be interpreted as nods of approval. Perhaps, as different as our gardens are from each other’s, we recognize a kindred passion, just as Tovah does when she visits other gardens. And that’s it right there. Tovah told me she’s never been to a garden that she didn’t think was amazing, just by virtue of it having been created. And the inspiring slides she showed reflected exactly that.

Tovah’s latest book, The Unexpected Houseplant: 220 Extraordinary Choices for Every Spot in Your Home is already one of my faves, as is The New Terrarium (for obvious reasons). Read them and any of her dozens of others and be inspired to be you. And most of all – have fun.

It was a big and busy day yesterday, in more ways than one. We passed another milestone in this year’s garden calendar – the first real killing frost fell finally. And while that marked the official end of the growing season, we were glad for a chilly but sunshiny morning to finish planting — with the assistance of a small group of weather-proof volunteers — a few more ticking time bombs of hope for next year’s growing season. It’s hard to imagine just by looking at this tiny Tulipa clusiana ‘Lady Jane’ bulb, which looks for all the world to me like it has a lit fuse, that come spring it will burst into an exquisitely delicate pink-flamed flower. But that’s the promise so long as the squirrels don’t defuse it first. We also planted 300 wood sorrel (Oxalis adenophylla – I wish I had taken a picture of those hair-coverd fuzzbombs), a few hundred more crocus in the bed just outside the moongate, and 200 tiny winter aconite (Eranthis hyemalis) nuggets for our earliest visitors’ enjoyment. As much as I don’t just love the down-on-all-fours back break of poking narrow holes between the roots and stems of perennials and roses, I got kind of into it yesterday. There was definitely something cathartic in busting through a just-frozen crust of soil, with the sun warm on my back, and thinking about spring.

And now that the bulbs are all in, it’s time for us to think about winter. We took advantage of our volunteers’ extra hands to put the rest of the frost-nipped North Garden to bed. Gail and I feel a very grateful relief for being able to really focus on the next thing. It would be way too soon in real life to start decorating for Christmas but here at Blithewold, the mansion is almost completely gilded already and will be complete after the garden volunteers hang ornaments on the big tree next week. And here at the greenhouse Gail and I will be spending the next week and a half getting ready for the newest Christmas at Blithewold feature event, Christmas Sparkle. Every Friday night until Christmas the path from the mansion through the Enclosed Garden to the greenhouse will be lit with lanterns. There will be fires in the Enclosed Garden for marshmallow roasting (s’mores!) and hot chocolate in the greenhouse, which will be (as we like to think it always is) a welcoming wintery oasis of green growing things.

Has frost fallen on your garden yet? Are you focused now on the end of this season or are you still planting time bombs for the next?