Odds and Ends

First of all, I've been meaning to give a big shout-out to my international readers.  Greetings to (in order of number of visits) my readers in Germany, the U.K., the Netherlands, Poland, Canada, Finland, Mexico, Spain, and Ireland.  I'm so glad you've visited.

My U.S. readers are welcome too, of course, but I have a better idea who you might be.

Second, I stopped by the Greenmarket on Sunday - they were giving away a free (very small) bag of compost to anyone who dropped off kitchen scraps.  We have some fabulous Greenmarkets in NYC - the best is the one at Union Square Park - but I went to the one closer to home, near the Museum of Natural History.  Right across from the composting stand was the plant stand - so, of course, I bought three new plants.  I didn't really need three new plants, but they were only ten dollars total, so what the heck.

The first is a New Guinea impatiens (Impatiens hawkeri).  Impatiens has traditionally been one of the go-to ground covers for shade, but over the last few years, apparently, something called downy mildew has been wiping out impatiens all over the country.  Who knew?  (Well, gardeners knew, and even the New York Times reported it, but the news passed me right by.)  But the New Guinea variety of impatiens is not affected by downy mildew.

I thought Mr. Bowling Ball looked lonesome, so I planted the New Guinea impatiens  by him.

The second is a succulent, of the variety known familiarly as hens-and-chicks (Sempervivum tectorum).  I'm dubious about the prospect of a succulent overwintering outdoors, but I'm giving it a try.  I planted the succulent with the Dwarf Alberta Spruce.

The third is a Victory hosta.  Victory is a giant hosta, which I did not realize until I got it home - it can grow to three feet wide and four feet high.  (I feel a little like I just adopted a St. Bernard puppy without knowing how big it would grow.)  It was named Hosta of the Year for 2015.  I think it eventually will need its own pot, but for now, it's in with the Jim Dandy holly., the English ivy, and the Raspberry Sundae hosta.

Third, I wanted to give you an update on how some of my plants survived the unexpected low temperatures of last week and the week before - basically, two separate cold snaps.  The good news is that everything is still alive, though as you can see from the photo above, the Dwarf Alberta Spruce is still doing whatever the opposite of "perking up" is.

The Bleeding Heart looked just terrible after it got frosted - all of its flowers and leaves were dead.  The hellebore too - dead, dead, dead.  So I took the pot inside to avoid the second cold snap, and both plants immediately put out new growth.  The pot's been back outside since mid-last week.  Here's the Bleeding Heart, with plenty of new growth.

The hellebore has only one new shoot, the little one in between the two dead stalks.

And then there's Dwarf Alberta Spruce, who really needs a nickname.  It would be mean to call it "Dead Al," though.  I told you the buds were opening, and that was true - but because the buds were so dry and brown, the needles inside came out very pale green and dry, and they haven't been gaining any bright green color.  Now, I don't claim to be an expert on botany, but I do know that you need chlorophyll for photosynthesis, and those sparse, pale needles don't seem to have much in the way of chlorophyll. So I'm not wildly optimistic.  Maybe I should just declare the Dwarf Alberta Spruce dead and give its planter to the giant hosta!