There was a lot of it.
An interesting couple of days here with freezing rain, heavy rain, high winds, power outtage overnight, a little snow and then some sun with everything still iced over. Page on down and you’ll actually see my first flowers of the year, too.
Frozen bittersweet berries. (Click images for larger view.)
Get up close and personal with the 2200-pixel version.
Heavy rains Saturday pushed our little stream over it’s banks.
I was worried about how the beaver dam would hold up during snow melt. I should have more confidence in their construction skills.
Fog over the ridge provided some drama.
Frozen aconite flower bud ready to pop.
Cyclamen in bud, but they’ve been in bud for about three months now.
Some sun on Sunday morning.
Gratuitous doggie pix, Fred:
And Jade:
Close up of the willow in the background above to give you an idea of how much ice is coating things.
Snow-capped monarda and some more bittersweet.
I know the weather is wicked but the photos are lovely! Really breath-taking. Love the pups too!
Sitting here with warm, dry feet, I can honestly say that those photos are quite lovely. And Fred goes nicely with your blue bottle trees.
Duuuude! You’re actually making me miss my first real upstate winter (and that’s sayin somethin)! It’s gorgeous. Glad to hear the dam-builders were thinking ahead and that it’s staying strong. Those aconite and cyclamen looking hardy under the ice make me excited to build up our garden when we get back. Do you know that song, “Acony Bell,” by Gillian Welch? I wonder if it’s the same thing. Thanks for the lovely shots of winter.
We must have been just a tad warmer, because we mostly got rain, and then snow after nightfall. Lynn, there’s a wildflower called Oconee Bells (Shortia galacifolia).
Gorgeous pictures… you had harsher weather than my ton o’ snow, but you also got prettier pictures out of it. 🙂
By the way, I love the gratuitous picture of Fred. He looks very cool against the snow–kind of lightly camouflaged.
Glad to see that you are tolerant of beavers, many people I know would be ready to apply a little TNT to their construction effort.
Are you sure you are not in a northern part of Mississippi with that blue bottle tree?
I almost missed Fred because my eye was drawn to the blue bottle tree. Those poor frozen winter aconites. They are trying so hard to bloom. I have tried growing cyclamen before without luck. Do you have any suggestions? Do they like or dislike certain conditions?
Hi Lisa:
Mine haven’t really formed the kind of colony that I’m looking for yet. But I haven’t given up.
This looks like good advice to me, especially when I’m thinking I should be pushing them in deeper for their own good:
Many home gardeners get a bit queasy when you mention Hardy Cyclamen. There are usually two reasons for this. The first is that they’ve purchased shriveled up bulbs that were wild collected in Turkey, shipped to Holland and exported to the US for sale in garden centers. Well, duh! What do you expect? The other reason is cultural. They were planted too deeply or planted in too moist an area. If you only remember two words when it comes to growing these plants, it’s DRY SHADE!!! And please don’t completely bury the tuber. I know…….everything you’ve learned up to this point in your gardening lives, your gut feelings and intuitions point you toward burying bulbs, corms and tubers as deeply as possible for their protection from the freezing blasts of Winter, but this is not the case with Cyclamen.
From this page at the Sunshine Farm and Garden website http://www.sunfarm.com/picks/cyclamencoum-083629.phtml
As I remember my bulbs came up but didn’t last long. Thank you for the tips. I will try again. There is also a hardy begonia I want to try. They look good in big clusters, if you like them, and I do.
I found this photo of your flower. It is beautiful and descriptive. I hope you don’t mind, but I used it as an image to my poem. If this is a problem I would be happy to remove it.
http://onelovelexy.wordpress.com/2011/01/09/springs-first-breath/
One Love,
LEXY