Cupid’s dart hit a bull’s-eye this morning. Another snowfall – a sugar dusting this time – helped me realize something that I’ve known all along without knowing it. I am capable of becoming every bit as attached to places as I am to people. It’s so obvious: I am in love. Blithewold, will you be my Valentine?

Happy Valentine’s Day!

I can’t imagine any other plant that embodies the abundance and exuberant excess of the holidays quite like a Schlumbergera. Blithewold’s recently gifted Thanksgiving/Christmas cactus in particular maybe — though I did hear that it was a good year for Schlumbergera all around. My two at home bloomed their little arms off too – but not like this one. It’s been going non-stop since our first Friday Sparkle right after Thanksgiving and shows no signs of quitting. And every Friday, as it stops visitors in their tracks, they’ve asked me and Gail the age-old questions of why theirs isn’t blooming/why it does some years and not others/why one plant will bloom while another doesn’t?

We all know they are day-length sensitive, needing a period of darkness to set their buds. But this does not mean they should be locked in a closet for weeks at a time. Bad idea, actually, to deprive them of daylight altogether like that. Better to give them natural nights, at least 13 hours long, unpolluted by lamplight. (I use that advice as a good excuse to go to bed at a reasonable hour.)

They also need cool nights in combination with long ones and that right there might be why some refuse to bloom. As soon as we turn the heat on in the house — unless we program the thermostat for night dips into the 50s — our modern, efficient, weather-sealed houses may be too evenly modulated to toggle the temperature trigger. Leaving plants outside at least until the forecast threatens dips into the 40s will probably give them the requisite weeks of cool, dark nights.

Although my favorite tropical plant reference book, the weighty Exotica by A. F. Graf, recommends temperatures that swing only down into the low 60s, we have used this Christmas cactus to decorate the “cold” end greenhouse where night temps dip into the 40s, and I would bet that’s partly why it has held its blooms so long. As if its been preserved in the refrigerator. By contrast, my plants at home, after the first and fast glorious bloom, dropped most of their follow-up buds. It could be they’re too warm but also maybe too wet. Although the soil shouldn’t be allowed to completely dry out, it shouldn’t stay overly moist either, especially through the winter.

The schlumbergera’s popularity among even non-gardeners belies their evident finickiness and difficulty as houseplants. If they didn’t bloom more often than not and survive for years to outgrow their holiday pedestals and mantels, they wouldn’t have become the passalong favorites that they are.

Can you count on yours to bloom for the holidays? Does it stay in bloom for ages too — or at least for the 12 days of Christmas? What’s your secret of success?

I never much liked the idea that the world might end today. It’s so much better that it’s simply the start of a whole new cycle. Just like every other day that rolls into another in a constant unending loop. But I’m all for acknowledging the passage of time every so often. In a way it makes sense here at Blithewold to mark the new year on January first like everyone else. Even though the grounds remain open, our season officially wraps up when the mansion closes for the winter. But as a gardener, I’m inclined to celebrate the new year on the Winter Solstice instead. The day the sun sets to climb a little higher the next. We might have a few long, quiet, cold months ahead before the sun breaks out over the bamboo and before we see much evidence of renewal but, like every other day of the year, there are signs pointing to the next.

Granted, right now it’s hard to tell if some of the signs I’m seeing are renewal or last gasps. Some are simply promises, like the cottony seeds of Anemone tomentosa ‘Robustissima’. I suspect that the Daphne transatlantica ‘Summer Ice’ just doesn’t know when to quit but doesn’t it masquerade beautifully as a sign of spring? And the Helleborus foetidus blooming out of sequence seems to be celebrating its new year a couple months early. Why not?

Are you celebrating the new year, a new cycle, and a new era today too?

Why buy something when you can make it? Especially when you can make it so much more interesting and unique? Our wreath classes sell out every year to people who want to hang something on their front door that will be unlike anyone else’s. A handmade wreath is as special as a snowflake. And so much prettier than anything store-bought.

The greens this year came almost exclusively from Blithewold trees (all but the balsam) and were an unusual assortment that included Moss cypress (Chamaecyparis picifera ‘Squarrosa’), Hinoki cypress (C. obtusa), yew (Taxus baccata), and Japanese umbrella pine (Sciadopitys verticillata). And the method we teach is easy – just wind a continuous loop of wire (we use 22 gauge florist wire) around the frame attaching small bundles of greens as you go. All in the same direction, covering the stems bundle by bundle until the last stems tuck under the first. Piece of cake!

The trick is finding greens. If you don’t have an interesting assortment in your own garden, you might consider that as you peruse the plant catalogs this winter and shop the nurseries next spring. In the meantime, do not be tempted to pick anything without permission, no matter where you are. Rhode Island actually has a Christmas Greens Law (State of R.I. & Providence Plantations, Chapter 15, General Laws 1956, 2-15-12 through 2-15-17) prohibiting picking anything on state property. (For a list of protected plants, click here.)  And for goodness sake, don’t use bittersweet berries because you’ll end up with that junk coming up in walkway and foundation cracks. If you or your generous neighbors don’t have evergreens in need of a trim, buy some from your favorite local nursery. (We always buy balsam for its Christmasy fragrance and because it’s stiff enough to use a backbone for each otherwise floppy bundle.) Even if you have to spend a little to make your wreath, it will be more amazing and special than anything mass produced by strangers. And if you’re like me and not particularly crafty on a daily basis, you might find that it’s also a great way to stretch your creative muscles and generate ideas for what else can be made for Christmas rather than bought.

Do you make your own wreaths or roping? How about Christmas gifts? Would you be willing to share your ideas and/or methods? (I’m still casting around for what to make this year as gifts – I can’t do terrariums again…)

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).