Four years ago, I planted about ten winter aconite in my Front Border. Each year, the patch has slowly grown through self-seeding. Pictured are some of the newest that are just starting to come up. I'd guess the total number in the patch is now somewhere around thirty. Aren't they cute?
What a difference a month makes for Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day. In my zone 6b garden, the garden is slowly waking up. Winter aconite (Eranthis) started blooming last week in the Front Border.
In addition to the Galanthus elwesii snowdrops that I photographed a few weeks ago, these Galanthus nivalis are also now in bloom in the Front Border.
Also, these double snowdrops Plena Flora are blooming in the Egg Garden.
Crocus tommasinianus just started blooming in the Front Border.
The Witchhazel Primavera is growing next to the Fort.
The Witchhzael Arnold's Promise is now in full bloom next to the playground.
Finally, just today, my son found this purple hellebore poking up on Goldberry Hill.
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Check out all of the bloom day posts from around the world over at May Dreams Garden.
I've wanted a witchhazel for a few years now and, after planting my first one last spring, am now enjoying my first blooms. I planted a small specimen of Arnold's promise (the name is from Harvard's Arnold Arboretum in Massachusetts), a common and widely available witchhazel (my specimen is from Forestfarm Plant Nursery). The flowers are unique and have a strong fragrance. In addition, they get bonus points for blooming while the rest of the garden is still asleep. The picture was taken this weekend before today's heavy snow.
Is February over yet? Only three days left until March when the garden really starts coming back to life. Now that the snow has melted from the beds, you can see the snowdrops blooming in earnest.
This may be the most challenging month for my contribution to Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day at May Dreams Gardens. My garden is buried beneath snow and ice, but I was fortunate enough to find at least one resilient snowdrop bloom in the Front Border to share with you. There were actually a few more, but the children picked them to make a small vase. Inside, I have some amaryllis blooming, which you can see here (white) and here (red).
As a follow-up to last Wednesday's post, here are the rest of this year's winter containers.
As per my recent posts on spray-painted alliums and wreath-making, I am trying do most of my indoor and outdoor Christmas decorating with cuttings from my garden. As a part of this effort, here are some of the winter containers that I have put together this past week. I'm about half-way done and will post pictures of the others after I finish them. If you want to see how they differ from last year's winter containers, click here.
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Winterberry and Leyland Cypress
Carex, blue spruce, variegated holly, Ballerina rose hips, and spray-painted allium
Spray-painted alliums, Southern Magnolia leaves, blue spruce and Ballerina rose hips
Ilex, Dortmund rose hips and blue spruce 
After the deciduous trees drop their leaves, I become all the more appreciative of the evergreens in my garden. One of my favorite additions to the garden this year is the Southern Magnolia.One of the many reasons I love hydrangeas is that they look good year-round (for a related post on year-round color, click here). Right now, their autumn colors are a highlight. See below some pictures of the pee gee hydrangea (Hydrangea paniculata) in the Front Border during all four seasons.
Autumn blooms turn pale green and pink.
Winter blooms turn light brown.
Spring after pruning (for a prior post about pruning pee gee hydrangeas, click here).
Summer blooms of brilliant white.
I was walking around my garden this weekend and I couldn't resist taking yet another picture of my Annabelle hydrangeas. As I wrote in a prior post, my Annabelle hydrangeas--with their dried blossoms--are a highlight of my winter garden (http://heirloomgardener.blogspot.com/2007/12/annabelle-hydrangea-in-winter.html).
This past week, Telegraph.co.uk--the online version of the Telegraph in London--wrote an article praising Annabelle hydrangeas and giving advice on how to grow them. Val Bourne writes:
"The cool white Hydrangea arborescens 'Annabelle' produces one of the most magical of all winter seed heads. After the flowers have faded and fallen, a skeleton of fine tracery remains to catch the frost and low winter sunshine. So this is one hydrangea that deserves a prominent place in every garden, somewhere it can shine in three seasons - summer, autumn and winter."
For the full article, click here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/gardening/main.jhtml?xml=/gardening/2008/02/08/garden-hydrangea-grow108.xml.
I woke up early this morning before my husband and children and took a walk around the garden. It was cold and there were only a few signs of spring and almost nothing worthwhile to photograph.
After church, we were sitting down for lunch looking out the windows to the west to this view. Today, with the movement of the sky and the trees, it was particularly beautiful.
Later, we were drawing with the children and this image came back to my mind's eye when I was looking through a book of Van Gogh's landscapes, especially the starkness of the trees and the movement of the sky. One of my favorites is his drawing Avenue of Willows with Shepherd and Peasant Woman, 1884.
Regarding this long month for gardeners in the Nothern states, Carolyn over at Sweet Home and Garden Chicago has a great quote from Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing: "Why what's the matter that you have such a February face, so full of frost, of storm and cloudiness?"
For Carolyn's full post, click here: http://sweethomeandgardenchicago.blogspot.com/2008/02/garden-bloggers-muse-day-feb-1.html
As it relates to color in the garden, one of my goals is to create year-round interest. Looking through my pictures, the year starts with whites and yellows; the middle months have a full range of of bright colors; and the year ends with the deep colors of berries. Here is a brief overview of these colors with one picture for each month of the year.
This post was inspired by the "Garden Bloggers' Design Workshop - Colors in the Garden" at one of my favorite gardening blogs, Gardening Gone Wild: http://www.gardeninggonewild.com/?p=698
January in northern New Jersey (zone 6b) is a hard month to find any color in the garden. Fortunately, whenever the weather warms up into the forties, the forsythia start to show off some of their blooms. Of course, when it gets cold again, they hide themselves away until it warms up in earnest. This is the time when I start to cut the branches off and bring them indoors to force--my favorite thing to do with forsythia.
February is the month for snowdrops. I have snowdrops in the Cutting Garden and, last fall, planted more in the Walled Garden. These small flowers are so cute and the first real sign that spring is coming. Given their size, you really can't plant too many of them--think hundreds. Since I like to plant a lot, I buy my snowdrops wholesale from Van Engelen. Once they come up, I cut small bunches for vases. Pests do not eat these bulbs.
The March bulb show begins with winter aconite. It is another small bulb that I planted under Prunus 'Forest Pansy' in my front border. It took me a couple of years for me to get these established. I was most successful with bulbs from Old House Gardens. I think the difference was that these bulbs dry out very easily and Old House Gardens coats the bulbs in a horticultural wax to prevent this. If you know someone with an established clump, it's best to beg a few in the green and replant them immediately in your garden. Pests do not eat these bulbs.
April, of course, is the month for daffodils. I plant hundreds of daffodils all over the garden. I plant all sizes and colors, but am particularly fond of the white daffodils. The earliest actually start to bloom at the end of March and they last through April into May. Pictured here is an old heirloom Thalia.
May is one of my favorite months in the garden as tulips explode everywhere. Last year, my combination was inspired by the Granny's Garden collection from Old House Gardens. I planted a mix of the following tulips, most of which are older varieties: Cum Laude, Glowing Pink, Kingsblood, Maureen, Queen of the Night, Dillenborg, Mrs. John Scheepers, Colour Cardinal, Princess Irene, and Ballerina.
July is when the plants from and reminescent of the American prairie take over. Purple coneflower, the many rudbeckias, joe pye weed, heleniums, helianthus, phlox, milkweed, monarda, erygium, echinops, and shasta daisies all begin their bloom. These plants, despite the heat and humidity of summer, keep going and going while attracting many birds, hummers, and butterflies to the garden. By mixing these with grasses, you have color, movement, and beauty that will carry you well into September.
One of my daughters is in love with hibiscus and has been reminding me I haven't put a picture of her hibiscus on my blog yet. In August, the huge tropical looking flowers garner lots of attention. The flowers are great floated in a vase and keep coming over a long period of time. Also, the seed pods of the hibiscus are quite beautiful afterward.
September is part of summer in my book. The garden is still in full swing with no sign of winding down. By the end of the month, however, the Japanese anemone 'Queen Charlotte' is beginning to bloom, signaling the very beginning of fall. 
The butterfly weed pictured here was a welcome volunteer from a clump of Mexican milkweed I planted in 2006. I did not expect it to reseed for me given that its grown mainly in zone 8 and warmer. But the seedling did come and were enjoyed by many monarch catepillars. The plants came into bloom very late in the season. They, however, made it through many light frosts and only died well into November when we had a hard frost.
