Christmas Blizzard 2010

It’s amazing how quickly a weather forecast can change. On Christmas Eve, the friendly TV weather person was assuring us that the monster storm that was forming in the south would miss us and head out to sea. Instead of being snowed in, I would be able to get to the gym on Sunday to work off all of those Christmas cookies that I’ve been baking.

When I turned the television on Christmas evening, that same weather person was just as confidently predicting that the monster had changed course. A two day blizzard that would bury us in two to three feet of snow was due in town late morning/early afternoon on Sunday. Guess I should get to the gym early.

It was snowing lightly when I entered the gym. An hour and a half later, I could barely make out the parking lot as I walked out the door. My normal short, leisurely drive home became a white knuckle odyssey in near whiteout conditions.

Blogging about my job results in stern emails from HR so we will skip over the reasons why I spent the night in front of my computer remotely tending to (name redacted) network and listening to the wind howl.

It was the wind blowing the snow into giant drifts that made this storm so bad as you can see below.

I had to use my front door since the kitchen door was impassable. There was the predicted two to three feet of snow in my driveway. Two feet on one side and three feet on the other where it had drifted. Worst of all was my poor car which has been hit twice in one week.

You will have to take my word for it that there is a Camry under all of that snow. I think it’s hiding. With good reason. It was after I dug it out and forced it to travel over treacherous roads to (name redacted) so that I could (reason redacted) that it was hit a second time and now has only three working doors in addition to a bent strut from the first accident.

And now for the garden portion of this entry.

Photo of the Day

Those are the tops of the Grosso and Provence lavenders growing in front of my house. They are about two feet tall when not buried in snow. I like this photo so much that I’m using it as the wallpaper on my PC.

You can see more photos of my yard buried in snow on Flickr

Blowin' in the Wind

Rutgers Gardens is sponsoring a photo contest this fall. It’s limited to amateur photographers. Photos must be taken between January 1 and September 10, 2010. Only one entry can be submitted in each of the three categories: plants, wildlife and people. I don’t do anything with a heartbeat, so I may only be able to enter one photo if I don’t get a good butterfly or bee photo.

I have been so busy in the greenhouse so far this year that I haven’t had time to take any photos at the Gardens. Yesterday, I found myself with some time, so I took a quick walk around. Quick, because the wind was blowing so hard that taking photos was nearly impossible.

I can compensate for a little bit of movement, but when my subjects are being blown completely out of the frame, there’s nothing I can do.

In spite of the dire conditions, I did manage to get two decent photos.

The sky was a gorgeous blue. I took a lot of pictures of plants silhouetted against it. Just for fun, I turned my camera upwards and took a picture of just the sky.

When I downloaded it at home, I burst out laughing. It screams "Windows98", doesn’t it?

This is the first photo that I took yesterday.

I love how it came out. The flower is past its prime but has such an interesting shape.

Next weekend is Rutgers Day . Rutgers Gardens will be selling plants at the event. Look for me between noon and 4 pm. I’ll be the one in the straw hat selling herbs.

See you there!

Saturdays in the Greenhouse

The Flower House

The Vegetable House

The Cold Frame

The two new greenhouses at Rutgers Gardens went into production this year. Gone are the days of not enough room to work, not enough room on the mist table, not enough room for all the plants. The old, small greenhouse is now used to house tropicals being overwintered while the new, larger greenhouses are used to raise plants for sale or for use in the various beds around the Gardens.

With more space available, we are able to grow more plants. This year’s Spring Flower Fair will be our biggest plant sale ever.

Photos taken with my Blackberry Storm

Bronze Fennel

This is why I grow fennel

Spring Surprise

I started out my wintersowing with a lot of containers, a lot of seeds and a lot of good intentions. But life has a way of happening and I always seemed to be too busy to plant containers. I finally threw in the towel during the last week in February. I had planted a grand total of “only” 56 containers.

March came in like a lion and we had snow last week. This week has been much warmer but still too early for anything to have sprouted. Or so I thought. Just for fun, I peeked into the containers. And saw green! I got out my spreadsheet (no one is surprised that I have a spreadsheet, right?) to see what was coming up:

Tall Fernleaf Fiddleneck

Heirloom Poppy

Valerian

German Chamomile

Verbena bonariensis

Wallflower

Stock

My Garden in Winter

The frigid weather ended with a light snowfall. I hurried outside to take some pictures knowing that snow does not last long in New Jersey. All of what you are about to see was gone before the sun went down.

The sun became the Photo of the Day:


The sky was much brighter than it appears here but I like the gray moodiness of this shot.

I started out with the obligatory photos of snow-capped echinacea.





This is what drew me out of the house initially.


These hydrangeas are right outside my bedroom window.


This leaf was in the running for Photo of the Day. I find it strangely attractive.

Very soon, I moved on to foliage. Common Sage, my favorite of the foliage photos:


I love the colors in this shot:


Moody lavender to go with the moody sun:


Can you guess what this is?


Click here to see what it looked like in June.

This post was inspired by the Green Thumb Sunday Day post at A Journey of Grace & Whimsy. Thanks, Brenda!

Plants For Shade

Hush! Don’t tell my boss, but while I spent six nights at work with no lights and no heat, I kept myself awake by writing about plants that grow in the shade. I published the results on Hub Pages.

Chanticleer

I have a new favorite garden. Chanticleer. Not sure what to expect from a “pleasure garden”, it was love at first sight. The gardens were enchanting despite the gray skies and intermittent downpours. If the gardens are this lovely this late in the season, then I can’t wait to see them in the spring and summer.

Photo of the Day
Dahlia in the Cutting Garden

I’m slowly being won over to dahlias. For many years, I’ve resisted them because of the work involved digging them up each fall and replanting them in the spring. The more I see of them on blogs and in person, the more tempted I am to try them.

I just loved this little spring house, photographing it from every conceivable angle and distance. It’s what I’ve been trying to do for years with the ugly shed in my backyard. The advantage here is full sun. My yard has mainly shade.

There were so many gorgeous trees.

Two views of the same garden.

You can see all of my photos of Chanticleer on Flickr.

Blooming in My Garden

Aster
Asters
Cosmos
Cosmos
Viola
Zinnia
Zinnia
Spider on Lavender

Blooming in My Garden

Three different views of the same cosmos blossom.

Tri-color Sage
I love the patterns of the colors on the leaves and of the leaves themselves.

Blooming in My Garden

Asters
I'm having difficulty photographing asters. I can't seem to get the focus and depth of field quite right.

Bronze Fennel
The LCD screen on my camera can be deceptive. I thought I had this focused correctly but when I uploaded it to the computer, I saw that I hadn't.

Heirloom Marigold
I'm going to be growing more marigolds. They provide bright color in the garden and positively glow in photos.

Zinnia 'Envy'
I'm experimenting with different camera angles in an effort to get away from my usual dead center, straight on compositions.