I know I’m suffering from a pretty awful case of cabin fever. So last Friday, January 22 my Hogging buddy, Elisabeth and I spent a wonderful day at the New York Botanical Gardens in the Bronx, NY.

Snowdrops are put on this planet to bring a smile to your face in winter

Galanthus elwesii in bloom in the Jane Watson Irwin Perennial Garden, NYBG

Walking through the Jane Watson Irwin Perennial Gardens on the way to the Conservatory, what do we see but the heralding of spring. The Galanthus elwesii and Helleborus niger were in bloom. Right out there, smack in the cold misery of January.

If you need a boost to get you through the next few weeks, seeing these in bloom is just the ticket.

Hellebore niger were in bloom as were the less showy Hellebore foetidus

In my own garden I have many cultivars of Hellebore but no Christmas roses

Check your own gardens for what buds are beginning to swell and whether your daffodils are starting to push through the mulch.  When I came home from the NYBG I did just that and found a whole host of growth going on right outside my windows.

Yippee!

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Grape muscari, otherwise known as Grape Hyacinths live close to the ground. For years I never took much notice of them except for the little spots of brilliant purple that bounced so nicely against the bright yellow daffodils they bloomed along with in April.

Then I got down. Hands and knees down.

What a surprise! How intricate the little flowers are. Little bells dance around a central stem forming a small pyramid. This inflorescence changes shape as it ages and can be more and less tightly knit.

The individual purple doesn’t seem to change on each bell but the overall purple varies when viewed at a distance based upon the tightness of the overall flower.

I enjoyed these 4″ bulbs so much in my garden that I bought a bag of them from Costco one year and low and behold the next spring the flowers that bloomed were very different from my originals. They were more blue then purple and had a more rounded then pyramidal over shape.

So I googled Grape Muscari and found a world of cultivars I didn’t previously know existed. That’s one of the things that is so much fun about gardening. You are constantly in a learning mode. You are in for surprises every year and every season. The knowledge and information you acquire just keeps on growing, along with your garden.

So now I know that so far in my garden I have Muscari armeniacum and M. azureaum. Next year I’m sure to have more.

When I made my Digital Mixed Media Painting of my Grape Muscari I was careful to recreate the basal growth of the leaves. It would not have been accurate if I’d placed the leaves higher on the stem. The painting would have looked like a plant Frankenstein. As a Garden Artist, that is not what I’m trying to create.

You can view this Grape Muscari piece in my Store.

Sometimes the most fascinating aspect of a flower is before it even arrives. I love to watch the progressive morphing of the Allium bulgaricum as it pushes through the ground early in my perennial bed, usually before I’ve even managed to clean off the winter debris.

These tall, 36″ stalks are very strong and have never needed staking. These particular bulbs have been living in my garden since 2003 after I bought them at an after-season sale at Home Depot. I always scour the sales in various Home Depot stores in my area to capture the treasures left behind by the undiscerning customers.

As the flower grows you can see it bulging through the paper thin protective membrane covering.

I walk daily through my perennial bed waiting for the first tear in the parchment like shield. I would liken it to the first beak marks I’ve seen when a chick is breaking out of it’s shell. Not that I’ve seen chicks very often since I was raised in Brooklyn, which is not noted for farmland.

The flowers pounce forth in a gleeful display of empowerment and spread their wings in umbel fashion sitting proudly on tall stalks overlooking a still short, unfolding and early season perennial garden. These are not glamorous flowers in my opinion but they always add weeks of drama to my early spring theatre.