As snowstorms go, this – Nemo, the Blizzard of 2013 – wasn’t a pretty one. Though it was pretty spectacular in some ways… The crazy blue flashes of lightning were pretty scary. Power outages made a lot of our houses pretty chilly. But the snow itself – heavy, wet and icy – and the damage it caused, was really pretty ugly.

Here at Blithewold, about 45 trees were badly damaged and at least 7 are total losses. The grounds are a mess of broken limbs — I would caution against taking a walk here to see for yourself at least until Fred, Dan, and Nick have had a chance to clear trees of dangerous hangers. (They’re called widow-makers for a reason.)

Click on pictures for bigger view and captions.

But It was a relief this morning to see how some of the flattened shrubs and weighted limbs had popped back up after yesterday’s rainy thaw. I know first hand the temptation of knocking heavy snow off tree limbs and shrubs but generally it’s better to let nature handle that. By clearing limbs ourselves, we risk doing the plants – and ourselves – greater injury. That said, if another round of snow had been expected, then gently – so gently!- sweeping what you could off limbs to at least lighten the load would be worth a try. (I’m trying to train myself to think that whatever doesn’t break them makes them stronger.) The pictures below are of our huge chestnut rose (Rosa roxburghii) flattened (taken Sunday) and today after it had bounced back. Its limbs were wired after Hurricane Bob flattened it in 1991.

The gardens will be fine, although here and there – mostly in the Rock Garden – we’ll have to reposition shade lovers out of newly sunny spots. And even though Bristol lost power for days, the plants in the greenhouse were completely safe and warm. This was exactly the storm event that Gail and I used to worry about before the greenhouse generator was installed. It purred like a kitten all the way through and we are beyond grateful.

How was your storm? Pretty or pretty ugly? Did your garden suffer much damage?

The other day friend of mine and Blithewold’s left a bag full of these delicious looking things on my desk with a note suggesting they might make a good blog post. Indeed. I’ve never seen them before and I never can resist finding out more about weird things whether they show up on my desk or not.

They are azalea leaf and flower galls caused by a fungus amongus named Exobasidium vaccinii. It’s a weather-related blight probably brought on by our warm winter and wet late-spring into summer, that turns infected leaf and flower tissue into fleshy aliens. It affects azaleas, rhododendrons and camellias but isn’t usually life-threatening. Just ugly. Treatment involves nothing more than cutting them off the shrubs as my friend did and burying them or burning them. (Leaving them on someone’s desk as a novelty is an optional middle step.) And it’s best to catch the galls before they turn dusty white with spores or into gray knobs that indicate they’ve done their business.

They are called Pinkster apples because the Pinkster (or Pinxter or Pink) azalea (Rhodendron periclymenoides) is particularly susceptible and galls on its flowers turn pinkish. And in case you thought I was kidding about them looking delicious, I was and wasn’t. Some sources (including my own pinkster apple source) say that they’re a delicacy. But I can’t find any recipes to try, only warnings about how rhodies, especially the leaves, are poisonous.

I took a quick walk around to check out Blithewold’s rhododendrons and azaleas and didn’t spot any signs but judging by the contents of the bag, it may be a problem this year for other gardeners. Have you ever spotted anything like this on your azaleas? (Do you have a recipe for them?)

I can’t think of a better way to spend a record-breaking official first day of spring than playing musical plants out in the garden. At home I move plants around usually because I didn’t put them in the right place in the first place. (Left to my own devices, I’m an incurable plunker). But here we move plants to change things up every year – as well as to get them in the right place. Plants’ sweet spots always want finessing even if you’ve given it careful thought.

The trick to playing musical plants this early in the season is to have an excellent memory – or to have taken really good notes – or to have left labels.

I always forget how difficult it is to identify perennials at this stage, as they’re just starting to emerge, or if they’re still just a gnarl of knobby crown at the surface. And it’s like an eye-test to find them under the shredded leaf mulch before stepping on them.

It’s also really important to remember, when you can identify the tiny sprigs emerging from a fist-sized crown, exactly how big the plant is likely to get. We want an intensely planted garden but we also want to make sure plants have room to grow without being sat upon by something else. I’ll freely admit to being guilty of “mis-under-estimating” in order to fit more in. Sometimes combinations work anyway and sometimes we have to move things around again next spring. But if the garden was always the same we’d get bored. Wouldn’t you?

I’m pretty excited about some of the changes in the Display Garden. Today I went from being worried that holding onto our theme of planting for the pollinators would keep the Display Garden looking too much the same, to being sure that it will look fabulously new and different this year. And we probably only moved a dozen plants around in there so far. Sometimes it doesn’t take much to make a garden exciting again. The same is true at home: as soon as I transplant one thing to the right spot I get jazzed about the whole season.

Do you get a move on in the spring too? Do you move plants so the garden will look different every year or to finesse perfection?

Speaking of getting a move on, the daffodils are. I’d hate for you to miss any of the show and it’s just beginning so here’s the first official daff-cam shot.

Even though the mansion won’t be open until April 1, the grounds are open daily (year-round.) Come see for yourself.

One of the most asked about shrubs on the property is the one that nearly hits us all in the nose as we walk towards the North Garden from the mansion. The Harlequin glory bower or Clerodendrum trichotomum stands at the very corner of the top of the North Garden wall and in August it really-truly does pack a wallop. The scent from its clustered white flowers is knock-out strong, even cloying, if it isn’t dissipated by a breeze off the water. But the shrub is almost more noticeable now that the bright blue – a kind of southwestern turquoise – berries have formed. And just so that we won’t miss the berries, they’re surrounded by glossy red calyxes. It’s a stunner of a plant and I’ve never seen a single visitor pass it by without stooping to look for its name.

The harlequin glory bower (also known as the peanut butter shrub because – and I never knew this until this minute and haven’t gone back out to sniff for myself – the foliage smells like raw peanut butter – who knew?!)  is listed as being hardy from zones 7-9 and is supposed to die back to the ground in the colder zones. Ours however, even in this exposed, zone 6 to 7ish location (only its feet are protected by the North Garden wall) has grown over the years into a very elegant specimen.

The species’ one liability is aggressiveness. It suckers like mad and seeds itself around – a bad combination that has earned it the reputation for being invasive. But I believe it isn’t in danger of escaping cultivation because the birds aren’t interested in the berries. Berries simply drop and grow where they fall. And you know me – I think any aggressive plant that can be easily controlled by an attentive gardener with a weeder or a spade (and shared with friends) is a keeper.

I might have already mentioned that the North Garden wall, which not incidentally is celebrating its 100 year birthday this very month, is going to be restored this winter. The shrubs along its edge will have to be removed, along with all of the plants in the beds below, before the project starts. I’m sad to see this one go but my hope is that it will survive the winter in a nursery bed. But if it doesn’t come through, I’m sure one of its pups will take its place, if not in that exact location again, then elsewhere on the property.

Have you met a Harlequin glory bower yet? Do you think it’s more of a menace or a miracle?

It doesn’t take very many days of warm weather (has it been 2? – almost a week?) for me to begin to forget how unpleasant it has been this winter. I can’t help but want to get out to stretch my legs and see if any of the plants are starting to forget about winter too. A good wander through the gardens is still pretty unappealing though – there’s just too much wet, slippery snlosh (that’s snow and slush combined) and mud everywhere else. But for the sake of reporting the season’s progress, I made the wet-footed trek.

A few buds here and there are beginning to look decidedly swollen and in the rose garden some buds against a warm wall have gone so far as to break. Other things are right on schedule – the Salix chaenomeloides ‘Mt Aso’ is beginning to glow, the witch hazels are just beginning to unfurl their quilling paper petals, the snow drops are up! and the hellebores have started to show some bud. For everything else, only time will tell.

Have you been able to get out and about to check for signs of winter’s passing? What have you seen?