Wishing you and yours a very happy and safe New Year!

How would you like a perennial flower that blooms in your shady garden during the late winter! That is right, the late winter, starting during February or March. This perennial is also evergreen and it will push nodding flower buds through the chilly soil and cold days. In Southern New England the flowers begin in February; as you move north the flowering cycle will be a little later, depending on snow cover. In Southern Maine, they will show flowers during March.

Unlike most flowers that last only a few days, the helleborus will flower for several months. The evergreen foliage is dark green most of the year and fades a bit during the winter. The leaves are in the shape of your hand and grow in a cluster 15 to 18 inches wide and about 12 inches tall. This perennial is not a rose and the flowers resemble a flowering crab bloom--except much larger. The flowers grow to be 1 to 1.5 inches wide, single petals with a center filled with bright yellow pollen sacks. The flowers range from white to pink, red, purple, green and many combinations of these colors. The flowers come out of the ground on strong stems from the center of the foliage, and each stem holds 3 to 5 or more flowers.

If that is not enough to get you thinking about this plant, let me tell you more. They do not have to be watered or fertilized! They are deer and vole resistant! They will tolerate drought conditions but not wet feet. They love to be planted under tall trees, such as a grouping of pines. Helleborus love a lot of organic matter, and pine needles are just what they love to grow in, so leave the pine needles around them. Well-drained soils are a must, so keep away from heavy wet clay-like soils. When you plant them, space them 2 to 2.5 feet apart so they have room to grow. They grow in a clump like hostas do and get bigger each year. When they finish flowering the flower will form a seed pod that in time will break open and drop seeds near the main plant. These seeds will germinate and start new plants near the mother plant. You can easily transplant them in early fall or swap them with gardening friends.

When choosing a garden to plant them in, remember light shade, fertile and well-drained, soil. They will not survive in flowerbeds that have automatic sprinklers! When planting, keep them shallow--sitting on the surface of the soil--and if you add mulch, no more than half an inch. Helleborus prefer a sweet soil, so be sure to lime the garden each year, unless your soil is already alkaline, and the flower count will increase as the plant grows larger. Using one handful of limestone around each plant in the spring will do the trick.

This wonderful perennial will make new foliage after flowering in the spring and again in the fall. If some of the foliage becomes ragged looking, cut it off and the plant will replace it quickly. When planting, try to find several different colored plants, to give this garden great color. The dark purple, sometimes called "Black" is unique but does not jump out when you look at the garden, but you must have one in the garden. As the garden matures, the Helleborus plants will cross pollinate the flowers, and the new seedlings with different colors will begin to develop. In the spring, ask your local garden center to pick up plants for you. Plants will cost $4 to $15 dollars but are well worth the investment. Look on the internet for specialty growers for different varieties and quantity discounts.

Everyone should have a kitchen garden filled with fresh herbs and greens! But how do you know what to plant in the garden for your use in the kitchen? Let us plan it out on paper and start small, so we can see what we can handle the first year. We can always make the garden bigger next year, right? To start this new garden, write down what you actually use when you cook. What herbs do you use every day? Take this list and look at your garden books to see if these herbs need special growing conditions, special care, and check the space needed in the garden. See if these herbs mature in one year or take more time to mature.

I use a lot of Italian seasoning when I cook, so I read the label of my favorite seasoning and copied the list of herbs found in the package. Can you imagine what fresh Italian seasoning would taste like? There was the beginning of my plant list. I love fennel on fish. I love green onions in soup and omelets. Shallots are my favorite onion and very expensive. When thinking herbs, let's also think about the plants. Are they annual or perennial? Are they invasive--could they take over the entire garden in time, killing everything else there, like the mint family? How many plants do I actually need? Should I purchase dried herbs that I only use a bit of and concentrate on the ones I will use a lot of? How about BUGS and DISEASE--am I ready to handle them?

It's winter so we have plenty of time to do research on the plants and plan how to plant out the garden. Begin with a piece of graph paper and give every plant room to grow. Key points are location of the garden, exposure to the sun, soil quality and your commitment of time to make this happen. Also, think about how to handle the product: when it is ready, what I do with it? When do I harvest the crop and what part of the plant do I use for cooking? Do I buy plants or start them from seed? Should I grow some in pots to bring indoors for the winter as fresh? How do I care for the plants during the winter in the garden?

Think this out, plan it, and do your research on the plants before you act. And next year, enjoy your fresh herbs in your cooking!

Planting Bare-root roses and perennials in the spring.

In the next few weeks, you will be looking at seed and garden catalogs and beginning to dream of a new garden or remodeling an established garden. That is GOOD. You have all winter to plan the changes, so do not rush the process. The most important part of ordering from garden catalogs during the winter is SHIPPING TIME to you! All companies guess when to ship out their plants to you, and the sooner the better for them. That is not always the case for you! You know your climate and the weather where you live. If you leave it up to them, your bare-root plants will come when the ground is still snow covered. The plants you order are in refrigerated coolers until they ship them out to you. If they have to hold them back for you another couple of weeks, your plants are better there than at your house.

When you receive them, here is what you should do to get them off to a good start. Remove them from the package and examine them for freshness. Dormant plants should be packed in peat moss or moist shredded newspaper. Remove broken or damaged branches, also any white mold that could be on the growth. Now soak the roots of the plant in warm water for 3 to 5 hours to get water back into the plant. Before you soak the plants be sure to cut back the root tips by ½ to one inch as they have probably dried up and will not be able to soak up the water properly. Plants should feel firm and some root growth should be visible. If you see problems, let the company know as soon as you unpack the plants. Ask them what they recommend you do for the best results. If you feel there is a problem, ask for new replacement plants. Timing is everything when receiving mail order plants. Roots need to be covered with soil and the top must be exposed to the air or mold will destroy them quickly. Get them out of the box and packaging as soon as possible!

If you want to get a jump on the season, pot them up and place them near a sunny window for a few weeks before planting in the garden. If you do not have the room indoors, plant them directly in the garden if the season is ready. If the season is not ready, pot them up and keep them in a garage or tool shed until it is ready. Once you receive the plants from the grower, THEY MUST BE POTTED or PLANTED! If not planted or potted, the roots will begin to dry up and you could lose the plants or they may never get off to a good start and grow properly. Woody plants like roses or small shrubs should be treated with a anti-desicant spray like wilt-pruf or wilt-stop. This will seal up the pores on the plant and prevent moisture loss until it begins to grow. I also like to cover the top part of the plant when possible with straw or pine needles to help protect the plant from the wind and sun. Once the new growth begins, remove the covering.

When planting prepare the soil as you would for anything else. Use organic matter, remember that planting depth in the ground is important, and water well to get the plant off to a good start. I also like to use a liquid fertilizer to stimulate the roots once planted and a granular slow release fertilizer, for feeding once it gets established. Bark mulch or compost around the plant will help to keep the plant from drying out when the weather gets warm and dry. This will also help control weeds.

Mail order plants can be fun, because many of these plants cannot be found at your local nursery. You have more varieties to choose from, greater selection to choose from and you can purchase smaller plants to save you money when purchasing large quantity. One last thing--purchase plants from growers that grow in the same climate that you grow in! Grown in Florida does not mean that it will survive in New England in the garden.

Xavier Metz, a Frenchman who manages a cashew plantation on Madagascar, was walking one day with his family in a remote area when they came upon a giant palm tree with huge pyramidal flowering sprouting out of the tip. Never having seen its like, they took photographs and posted them on the web. These came to the attention of John Dransfield, an Honorary Research Fellow of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew in Great Britain.

The Tahina spectabilis, which is Malagasy for ‘blessed', or 'to be protected,' is the new name for this extraordinary find. Tahina is the name of one of Xavier Metz's daughters who was accompanying him when he first found the palm. .

Towering over 60 feet in height, and sporting a life-span of 50 years, this strange species has gained the name in the press as the suicide palm. At the end of the plant's lifecycle, the stem tips develop a giant inflorescence and burst into branches of hundreds of tiny flowers. Each of these flowers is capable of being pollinated and developing into fruit, and each drips with nectar that attracts swarms of insects and birds, but the effort of producing such a colorful display, and the production of so much fruit is so taxing that the nutritional reserves of the palm run dry upon fruiting and the entire tree then collapses and dies.

When Dr. Dransfield travelled out to meet the tree's discoverers, Xavier and Nathalie Metz, it took three days travel in a 4x4 vehicle to reach the remote area where it grows. They then initiated a series of long talks with each other and local people from a nearby village to discuss the palm's conservation. A village patrol was set up to protect the area in which it was found, and they are working with the Kew and the Millennium Seed Bank to come up with a way to sell seed as a means of raising income for the villagers. Seeds have been sent to gardens in countries including the United States, Spain, Australia, South Africa, Singapore and Indonesia; palm experts at Kew are also propagating the seeds for research and public display in the Gardens.

While there are bigger palms in existence, the Madagascar find is the most massive, with fan leaves 16 feet in diameter; its size makes it visible via Google Earth. It is also from an evolutionary line not previously known to exist in Madagascar, home to over 10,000 plant species, 90% of which occur nowhere else in the world. The country has a highly diverse palm flora with over 170 known species; scientists predict that there are fewer than 100 individuals of the suicide palm.

Therefore, the exact location of the small cluster of trees is being kept a secret.

Click here to view more Strange Species!

This Week's Question:
Bromeliads belong to the same family as a popular tropical fruit. What is the famous bromeliad family member?

This Week's Prize:
One bottle of Vacation.

Last Week's Question:
The oil from the roots of a tree native to most of the eastern part of the United States and Southern Ontario was originally the key ingredient used to flavour root beer. What is this tree with mitten-shaped leaves?

Last Week's Prize:
One bottle of Vacation.

Last Week's Winner:
Bill Plummer

Last Week's Answer:
Sassafras. (In 1960, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration banned the use of this oil. Not long after the ban, the root beer industry was saved when inventors discovered that sassafras could still be used if it was treated to remove the oil.)

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