A spring shade bed can look as if it has learned to blush and cool at the same time. Lungwort opens with little pink bells, then the older flowers nearby settle into violet and blue. The spotted leaves are pretty enough on their own, but the flowers make the plant look like a small calendar. One cluster can hold yesterday,…
On a mild March day, the woodland floor can seem to wake before the trees have heard the news. The canopy is still a gray net overhead. Last year’s leaves are flattened and wet. Then, almost at ankle height, small flowers begin taking possession of the light: bloodroot opening like white paper, trout lily lifting yellow bells above mottled leaves,…
February is not a generous month in most gardens. It gives you mud, flattened leaves, and a few green shoots that may or may not mean spring is serious. Then a hellebore opens, and the whole scene becomes more interesting. It is not an easy flower in the theatrical sense. Hellebores make you stoop. Their blooms tilt toward the soil…
