Trillium grandiflorum flore pleno | Fernwood Nursery & Gardens

Due to feeling a little like Piglet in the episode of Winnie The Pooh where his house floats away because of the continuous rain, we will be opening for the season on Wednesday, May 8th. Our hours will still be Wednesday through Sunday, closed Mondays and Tuesdays. We are seeing lots of green shoots and swelling buds and even blooms from the ephemerals, but the ground is so squishy, saturated from the rain! I dare not complain, however, who knows what the upcoming season may bring in the way of drought. Here in the northeast, as many of you know, July and August have been terribly dry over the last three years. I am thankful that the groundwater is being amply replenished at the moment!
So, outdoors I go to fill the sales area with horticultural goodies and to continue potting up plants from the stock area. Even though our wardrobe staple consists of rain pants and rubber boots, we are so excited for the new growing season! Spring! We’ll welcome her every way we can!
Here are a few plants waiting for their spot in the nursery and a few that are already blooming in the gardens…

Trillium grandiflorum flora plena

Salix boydii

Saxifraga cotyledon

Cardamine glandulosa

Eranthis hyemalis

Helleborous thibetanus

View from the potting bench, looking over a portion of the sales area

Here we are midway through the month of May. Earlier on, we enjoy the slow procession of the very first plants to bloom, we’ve talked about these….. the hepaticas, corydalis, hellebores, and others that are designed to emerge before the trees leaf out. Now that the soil temperatures ( and night time temperatures, too) are really warming, the gardens are bursting. Here are a few examples of what’s growing in the gardens right now at Fernwood.