Much of the six-inches of snow that fell on Christmas Eve has melted. The walkways are clear and dry except for occasional patches of ice dulled by sprinklings of sand. Off the walkways though the landscape is still completely white. Detail is blunted. Shapes and patterns are favored.

The Garden is like our own private estate this morning. I counted nine cars in the parking lot when were arrived shortly after eight. Except for the troupe of "regulars" who we passed and greeted, we saw no one.

On my way in, I picked up a copy of this week's "Plants in Bloom," a weekly listing of what is blooming in each of the Garden's gardens and glass houses. Except for longer lists of bloomers in warmed and sheltered glass houses, the rest of the report was a repetitious list of violas and pansies in each of the outdoor gardens. "Plants in Bloom" plays to the idea that visitors come to the Garden to see the flowers. It follows then that the fewer the flowers, the less reason to visit the Garden. I like flowers as much as the next person and I'm always eager to see what's in bloom, but I think a flyer like "Don't Miss This" would serve the Garden better than long list of nothing but pansies.

A couple of nominations for this morning's "Don't Miss This" list: In the Linnean House more and more of the Garden's stunning collection of camellias are beginning to bloom. Their perfect shape, delicate hues, and satin sheen invite touching. I resist. But I rarely miss stooping to pick up and handle a recently fallen flower that I find on the walk. Especially nice this morning were several spent pink blossoms that landed face-up on a cover of emerald green Baby's-tears (Soleirolia soleirolii) that borders the walkway between the shrubs.


Better than any decorated Christmas tree are the snow patterns left on the slats of seats of many of the hardwood benches. Wind and sun have shaped the snow into stylized pines that remind me of cookie cutters.


As far as we have able to tell, there is only one piece of art glass in Henry Shaw's 1849 Tower Grove House. The leaded-glass piece is a simple design of squares and diamonds set into an opening at the top of a bay that extends from the back of the house. Neither Pat nor I know anything about the piece. I fact, until Pat pointed it out to me several months ago, I had never noticed it. Because of the reconstruction of the Herb Garden in the back of Shaw's House, it is impossible to get a close look at the piece, but we have both taken a liking to the quilt-like pattern formed by its simple geometric shapes. Pat has sketched it. I've tried unsuccessfully to photograph it. We have even talked about asking Pat's sister, a stained-glass artist, to do a small replica of the piece to put over a plain glass panel in the opening of our front door. Then without a hint, Pat talked to her sister before Christmas and I had replica of the Shaw's piece waiting for me under the Christmas tree. Almost as soon as I opened the package, I've been working to get the panel positioned and fixed into place. After I get home today, I'll squeeze the last coat of silicon glue into the spaces around the edges, and the piece will become a permanent part of our lives. Thoughts of the talent of the designer, the artist, and Henry Shaw will be with us each we go to the front door.


The white background of the snow makes anything with arching stems or branches more prominent and aesthetic. The stems, leaves, and sepals of a Toad Lily, now an undistinguished bleached brown, have taken on the look of an elegant piece arranged by a floral designer. The green splays of the Japanese Rose (Kerria japonica) and the salmon of the Bloodtwig Dogwood glow from the reflected light from the snow.

The Bird Garden is a pleasant place to pause during a winter walk. Dozens of birds, mostly sparrows and cardinals gather around the long cylindrical feeders or perch on the bird-friendly shrubs that circle the garden. No moral or political issues here, or so I thought until I read the article on feeding birds that appeared on the front page of yesterday's Wall Street Journal. The Journal reports that 52.8 million Americans are feeding wild birds between 500,000 and 1.2 million tons of birdseed costing $2.6 billion a year. Here are some of the unintended consequences of this gentle pursuit: overpopulation of "nuisance animals" such as cats, squirrels, hawks, skunks, raccoons, and rats that feed on seeds scratched out by picky birds; increased numbers of birds (such as jays and grackles) that prey on the eggs of less aggressive birds; widespread disease and death of birds that contract infection at feeders; deaths of millions of feeder-fed birds killed by hawks, cats, or by flying into the windows from which we watch. On top of all that, the article says that one of the most popular feeder seeds, a small black oilseed called niger or thistle, is imported from Burma, a country under fire for its human rights policies. To add to the guilt, the Journal points out that the annual expenditures for birdseed is two and one-half times the amount spent to buy food to feed hungry people in needy nations.

It's been three weeks since I walked here. Things that could not wait had me on planes to places far from here. Coming back this morning I found myself still looking for green, for lingering summer blossoms, and for the yellows, russets, and salmons of fall. The Garden has changed its season. I'm stuck in fall.

The many fall plantings I admired in the beds West of the Linnean House have been reduced to three: the variegated sage, the silvery licorice plant, (Helichrysum thianschanicum ICICILES), and the tiny, rosy English daisy (Bellis perrenis 'Galaxy Rose'). The daisy, while not inclined to form new buds or open fresh flowers is holding its own. It is behaving much like the pansies: playing dead when covered by frost and then brightening with the sun.

The Sevenbark vines (Hydrangea petiolaris) along the stone walls that keep the plants from leaving the Garden have lost all of their leaves. All that is left is a brown tracery on gray limestone that looks like a giant river delta might from 25,000 feet.

For the past two years a catbird has claimed the winterberry shrub planted next to the sculpture of the bench and life-sized figure of Garden founder Henry Shaw. I've often taken pictures of the bird perched on Shaw's head and even wiped some white "sweat beads" from Shaw's forehead. This year the winterberry has no berries. With nothing in the larder for winter, there is no catbird. I know there will be no bird this winter, but every week I'll continue to look.

When most of the landscape is translucent or brown, anything green stands out. Like spring flowers popping up from the matting of leaves, the exotic leaves of the Italian Arum punctuate the open spaces in the English Woodland Garden. No matter how often I see their arrow-shaped variegated leaves, I think they ought to be growing much further South or at the least in a South-facing window. The marvel is they are here, outdoors, in December, dominating the landscape.

I don't know whether I remember doing it or whether think I did it. I can see myself as a boy dressed in winter clothing bending to examine the fronds of a Christmas fern (Polystichum acrostichoides). The father of a childhood friend took me to a sheltered hillside beside a stream. There he pointed out the Christmas ferns growing along the slopes. He gently turned the fronds over to expose the characteristic bumps while telling me that that's how I could identify them. He said that when he was a child, his mother sent him to the woods around Christmas time to collect the ferns to use for decorations. This morning when a spotted a Christmas fern in the Butterfly Garden, I bent down and rubbed my finger along the back of one of the fronds.

clear: breeze from the South: 34º

Tombstone labels have at last identified the intriguing plants in the beds at the West end of the Linnean Greenhouse. Weeks ago I made my guesses. I was wrong on all counts. The plant with quilted leaves of burgundy and green is purple mustard (Brassica juncea var. rugosa 'Red Giant'), not an out-of-control chard. I thought the silver-colored plant with slivers for leaves was wormwood or a very hardy dusty miller. The sign says it is a licorice plant (Helichrysum thianschanicum ICICILES marked with a ®). The dainty rosy flower with daisy-like petals that I thought was a primula is instead an English daisy (Bellis perrenis 'Galaxy Rose'). Since spotting these unusual plants nearly a month ago, I go back to them each week. So far, in the words of former all-star first baseman Wil Clark, they "ain't even been scathed." Each of them is immune to frost and even brief hard freezes. This week snow and the coldest yet temperatures of the season are expected. I'm anxious to see how each of them fares.

I followed the trail of the registered plant ICICLES. Turns out it is one of 32 tough plants that shrug at the cold. The hardy group, called "Fall Magic," is marketed by an international group of plant propagators that finds varieties of plants that are popular in Europe and Japan and then brings them to the United States for field trials. Those that do best are then marketed as "Proven Winners." Armed with their list of 32, next October I'll check the big nurseries to get some of these season extenders for container planting.

Less than a month ago, I took a picture of a tea viburnum dripping with pendants of orange-red berries. Birds hated them, I thought. They would last until spring, I wrote. I saw the shrub again this morning: picked clean. Not a berry left. Without color to swing eyes toward it, this tea viburnum has had its fifteen minutes of fame for this year.



Not every colorful fruit is gone. Struck by the sharp, early sun and set on a field of clear blue, the flowering crab 'Winter Gold' is spectacular. Bare twigs and clusters of dots, close and distant stretch like the milky way on a summer's night. Just as fine, but on a less exuberant scale are the rose-salmon fruits of 'Redbird' Mountain Ash appropriately planted at the edge of the Rose Garden.



They say that in the theater, if the lighting designer is doing a good job, audiences will never notice the lighting. Lighting works along with set and costumes to create the mood of the play. In the Garden, the morning sun has no such subtleties. It backlights prize specimens and weeds alike making them all dazzle. The elephantine sugar cane plants on the East and West ends of the Boxwood Garden are nearly identical. Each has plumes topping stocks twice my height. The plumes are laddered so that the plants look as though they are frowning. Two pictures: one with backlighting the other lit with face toward the sun. Same plants; same place. Romanticism and mystery turned to realism.







clouds: breezy: 59º

I was wrong about the Tea Viburnum. The hanging clumps of bright, orange-red berries I though would last the winter won't. They may not last the week. This morning a flock of robins were stripping the shrub. They were so intent on feeding that even my approach didn't worry them enough to leave.


November is not a peak time for hostas. None is in flower and none shows variegated color or sheen. What's they have left though is a rich variety of colors from faded green through vivid yellows to the translucent buff color of limp death. Maturity through death: all within a few feet. It's like looking at a Victorian stages of life illustration that depicts birth, childhood, maturity, and old age as though time and seasons didn't exist.

Experiences and pictures often don't coincide. I've stopped taking pictures of the mature ginko tree near the Spink Pavilion because any picture I can take leaves behind the essence I was trying to take away. Today is that ginko's day: all of its leaves have cooperated by turning a bright, vibrant lemon and the walk below the trunk looks as though it was painted to match just for the occasion.

Each fall, I pick a favorite leaf to remember in winter. Last year it was the speckled red sweet gum. This year, it's a yellow Bradford pear leaf made interesting by its blocky markings of green holding on to the central vein. The fuzzy chunky blocks look very much like the pictures of chromosome karyotypes I've seen.



Near the lower entrance to the Kemper center I thought I happened upon a rarity of nature: an clump of anemone, the most delicate of late spring bloomers, flowering in the fall. The nearby sign called them Snowdrop anemone (Anemone sylvestris) and set their blooming time for April. Nature not following the rules of nature is always exciting. I felt as though I had found a lost treasure. From a scan of the web when I got home though, I learned that while now is the usual time to buy and plant Snowdrop anemones, it is not terribly unusual to see established patches bloom again in the fall. One nursery says it "is excellent for areas with morning sun and afternoon shade, and will bloom in the spring and again in the fall if it likes where it is." Another says "Bloom is heavy in spring, and it is not unusual to see rebloom when cool weather returns in the fall."

mostly clouds: west wind: 29º

The lead story on the 10:00 news last night was about an impending hard freeze - the season's first. We planned to arrive at the Garden just as it opened at 7:00 a.m. to see the summer plants embalmed by frost before they wilted and blacked. But long days and a warm bed pushed our arrival up an hour. By then, the frost was just beginning to release the plants.

I particularly wanted to see how the freeze had treated the roses. The west half of the Rose Garden already had been reduced to bare canes, but the east end still had not been pruned. I looked for a rose with a name that suggested warm summer evenings. Half way in I found a rose-pink florabunda called 'Miami Moon.' I caught this picture of 'Miami Moon' etched with frost crystals.

There was no wind last night so leaves snapped by the freeze fell straight and true. Certain trees like the Manchurian Alder in the English Woodland Garden lost nearly all of its leaves overnight. The fallen leaves formed a dense cover from tree trunk to weep line. I'm glad I got here before the keepers with leaf blowers strapped to their backs so that I could see this rarity.

The dry flowers on any hydrangea make a grand winters show even after the leaves have dropped. The fat grape-like cones of 'Oak Leaf' hydrangea attract most attention, but there's a lace cap called 'Blue Wave' planted around the edges of the Bog
Garden that I particularly like. Unlike the leaves of the 'Oak Leaf' that are now reddish brown, 'Blue Wave' leaves are a summer green. Rather than color its leaves, Blue Wave chooses to make the large male flowers around the caps limp and to tint the undersides of the flowers a rosy salmon. To contrast with the photo I took today, I found a picture of 'Blue Wave' taken in June when its orbiting flowers were lavender.

Like a canopy over the carpet of brown leaves in the English Woodland Garden are clusters of these salmon mushrooms. I don't know what they are, but look right at home at this time of year.

Sometime during the past week the dwarf apple trees along a walk named "Apple Alley" were removed. Things seem to change here for no apparent reason. Maybe the apple trees weren't colorful enough; maybe the apples were an attractive nuisance; maybe they were blocking the vista into the garden. More cynically, maybe taking things out and replacing them with other things keeps a large staff of keepers busy.

Last week, on my way to a shopping center I passed a lawn covered with lavender flowers of some kind. The right color and sprinkling for crocus, I thought, but, because it was late October I thought it couldn't be. I turned on a side street to circle around for another look. The lawn was at the top of a grade, so I could get close enough to see without doing some serious trespassing. This morning in the Temperate House, I think I spotted what I saw in that lawn. It's a crocus called "Crocus goulimyi." Rare enough not to be listed in National Garden Book, I found it that blooms about this time in Southern Greece where it prefers old neglected olive and fig groves instead of suburban lawns.