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Sunny Skies Signify Spring

A trio of all-season anchor plants in my front yard garden: Pieris japonica 'Little Heath', Lagerstroemia 'Zuni', and Cephalotaxus harringtonia 'Fastigiata'.

Though the weather remains unsettled, I'm confident that we're turning the corner and will start seeing sunny days and blue skies more frequently in the coming weeks.

Lately, I've been spending quite a bit of time in the garden, getting started on my spring chores. However, I'm exercising patience and taking a "wait and see" approach with evergreen plants whose foliage was damaged by the extreme and prolonged cold snap earlier this year. I will wait a bit longer to make final determinations.

For some of my semi-hardy plants (Abutilon and Dahlia, for instance), I won't know how they fared until later in the season, after the weather truly warms.

In the meantime, there's plenty of entertainment to be had by reveling in the daily changes that come with this time of year in the garden. Swelling buds declare: "I'm here and I'm A-Ok." As the garden wakes, crowns breaking ground hint at the fantastic foliage and abundant flowers to come. Whew! I'm happy to see the change of seasons on the horizon!

SPOTLIGHT ON PLANTS

Colorful and Fragrant Plants from My Garden

Corylopsis pauciflora is a wonderful spring-blooming shrub with buttery-yellow, pendulous flowers that decorate bare branches in early spring. C. pauciflora is my favorite species of winter hazel because it is the smallest of those routinely available. It's a good choice for adding winter interest to small gardens.

Sempervivum 'Gold Nugget' is a delightful detail in my sunny front garden. This unusual hens and chicks cultivar is especially colorful early in the growing season.

I couldn't choose which Edgeworthia to feature, so I included them both! The red-flowering 'Akebono' is a relatively new addition to my garden and a current fave. Both Edgeworthia plants are a bit hard to find in the Portland area lately, but keep your eyes out and grab it when you can.

Sturdy and Reliable Evergreen Shrubs

I'm especially appreciative of the resilience shown by the four evergreens pictured above. Compared to some of my other shrubs, these deserve to be singled out for their ability to stand up to the weather extremes we had earlier this month. 

I count on dwarf conifers and evergreen shrubs with interesting and/or colorful foliage to be the consistent and persistent anchors of my garden. So knowing that I don't have to worry about losing them during bouts of extreme weather is a big plus.

TIPS FOR ADDING EARLY BLOOMERS

Among the most visible signs of spring in my garden are the many early bulbs and spring ephemerals that grace my garden with flowers from early winter through late spring—when we're desperate for color and looking for signals of the new season to come. In the video above I share design tips for how to add these early bloomers to your own garden.

TIMELY GARDEN MAINTENANCE TIP

This Simple Task Yields a Big Payoff

Watch the video above to learn how to bring out the best in the ferns that you're growing in your garden. Even though some of the ferns featured in this video are evergreen, a few carefully-timed cuts can make a huge difference in terms of how fresh and pretty your ferns will look for the rest of the year.

PLANT COMBOS TO INSPIRE

The foundation of every great plant combination is using plants selected for their individual merits. These plant combinations from the eGardenGo site include several of the plants that I've spotlighted above. 

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