It has been a warm January, with only a little bit of rain at the beginning of the year. This is a Lilly-of-the-Valley shrub, with variegated leaves. I chose the smaller plant at the nursery because it is less expensive & that gave me the chance of buying a few more plants. This particular shrub is grown in part shade, I put it on the eastern side of my garden, & with the leaves variegated it draws the eyes even when it's out-of-bloom.
The soil is still damp & soft, & I always try to plant after it rains. I am trying to collect some plants that bloom in autumn & winter, because it is rarely seen & more special to me. The summer-blooming plants & spring-flowering plants are very easy to find, I love allysum-the purples & pink kinds especially, with the pretty, delicate scent of honey; I like to put it into the cracks of the concrete path & always as filler in baskets & pots.
I am also concentrating on buying roses in colors & scents I really like; Mister Lincoln smells gorgeously unforgettable! I lost the tree-rose version of it in a very powerful wind storm more than half a decade ago. I recently found in the mail a Jackson & Perkins catalog, & I saw they have a number of purple roses & a few striped roses. They are the ones I order my tree-rose of Mr. Lincoln from. They are now offering winter-blooming honeysuckle, although they don't mention the bloom time of Lonicera fragrantissima. They also have a black hellebore now, which I want.
I am very slow, unfortunately, in gathering what I want, practically on "geologic time". I do want a "black" garden-they have near-black hollyhocks, a tulip, the hellebore, & a few others.
