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Chinodoxa or Glory of the Snow

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It’s been a beautiful week here in Toronto. The plants in my garden have shown their appreciation of the warm weather by growing and growing and growing some more!

Chionodoxa

The Chionodoxa, Glory of the Snow, is blooming. One day the plants were just short little green leaves, the next a few tiny buds had appears and then the following day the Chionodoxa had grown several inches and were blooming. I’ve got white ones, bluish ones and pink ones blooming in several clumps throughout the back garden.

The Chionodoxa in the front garden beds aren’t blooming yet. That area only gets late afternoon sun so it will probably be another week before they begin to bloom. The tulips in the front beds have really grown in the last day or so though.

I don’t see many people talking about Chionodoxa or Glory of the Snow as they are more commonly called. I wonder if they aren’t a very popular spring flower in many areas? If they aren’t it’s a shame because they are very easy to grow and as you can see from the photo I’ve included above they produce lovely clumps of flowers in the spring garden.

Here’s a little more information about this lovely spring flower:

Latin Name: Chionodoxa luciliae, C. gigantea
Common Name: Glory of the Snow

The species originated in Asia Minor and propagates by offset bulblets. These spring flowering bulbs requires a warm (60 to 70F) – cool (20 to 30F) – warm (35 to 55F) annual thermoperiodic cycle.

Depending upon the area, these bulbs will bloom anywhere from February to April.

If you purchase bulbs for planting they should be 4/5 to 5 cm and up in circumference. Plant in the fall, one inch apart, at five inches in depth.

These flowers are hardy to USDA zone 3 with mulch, and zones 4 to 7 without mulch.

Requires – full sunlight AM or PM sunlight, 25% shade.

Tolerates – summer drought, but requires adequate moisture throughout the growing season.

Look for these bulbs in your local garden center or nursery when Fall bulbs are being sold.

I planted most of mine in 2002 and they’re still going strong so I’d say this is a long lived and or self- propagating plant for most gardens. Mine are growing at the edge of my flower beds as they are relatively short plants that only grow to at most 6 inches in height.

Glory of the Snow are perfect for rock gardens, beds, ground covers, lawns, and woodland gardens. Some companion that Chionodoxa goes well with are Chaenomeles japonica, Forsythia, Jasminum nudiflorum, Helleborus orientalis, Vinca minor, Hammamelis.






Growing Monkshood

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It’s amazing how many plants are coming up in my garden. Every time I either look outside or go outside to look at the garden I notice how much the plants have grown or new green shoots coming up in areas that were barren the day before.

The monkshood is already making an appearance:

monkshoodshoots

This is Monkshood Aconitum Arendsii Azure Blue.

The new leaves are coming up amid the old stalks that I still have to remove! Usually I tidy up the garden beds in the fall, but I didn’t really do that last year. Even when I clean up the garden in the autumn I’ll often still leave a few plant stalks or a leaf or two so that come spring I can remember where the plant is planted.

I do have plant markers in the garden, but most have been there for four or five years now and they are barely legible or they’ve snapped in the cold so there’s only half of the plants name.

I grow another kind of Monkshood at the back of the garden near the holly shrub. It’s a bicolor Monkshood and I’ve forgotten it’s full name.

Now I know I have several photos of the Azure Blue Monkshood but I can’t find any of them right now. Odd. I do have a photo of the BiColor Monkshood as it’s beginning to bloom though.

Monkshood Aconitum

The bicolor Monkshood usually blooms twice a season. Often once in July and then in Mid to Late September. The Azure Blue only blooms once in late August through into September.

Monkshood is very easy to grow, but you must remember that it’s a poisonous plant. I’m a little nervous about growing it now that we have a Labrador Retriever puppy, but I don’t think she’ll be allowed in the backyard very often and certainly not unsupervised.

Monkshood can be grown in shade or bright sunlight. It does best with at least 6 hours of bright sunlight each day. Depending on the species it grow from 30 inches to approx. 36 inches in height.

This plant does best in rich, moist, humusy soil. It doesn’t like being disturbed once it’s established but it can be propagated through division.

There are several species and hybrids of Monkshood. Some will rebloom if the flowers are removed shortly after they’ve finished blooming as with my bicolor monkshood and others are of the fall blooming variety.

Monkshood is a beautiful plant that adds a lovely touch of color to the garden bed. Even it’s foliage is attractive. Just remember that all parts of the plant are poisonous!

Tidying up the garden beds

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Last week I said that it was such a nice day that I thought I’d go out and start cleaning up the front garden beds. Well I did. As much as I could anyway, given that there was still some snow on the lawn and in some of the beds:

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Now do you believe me when I say we’ve got a small front lawn? Look at that, the grass area which is still covered in snow, is smaller than our compact car! It’s actually a good thing that the front boulevard was covered in very deep snow most of the winter because it was really a sight for sore eyes once the snow melted.

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In case you’re wondering the boulevard was still full of hard woody sunflower stalks and the stakes that held the tall flowers up last year.

A few hours in the increasingly cold afternoon and at least three yard waste bags later and the front boulevard looked like this:

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I didn’t take after photos of the front garden beds, but they and the back garden beds were a lot tidier too with most of the leaves that had blown on them removed and some of the old dead foliage cut down.

We even took about 45 minutes and ducked out to Home Depot where we bought the stone edging for the front boulevard. That will help keep grass from growing into the flower bed. I also purchased several new spring plants to fill up some empty shady areas in the garden which I hope to plant later today.

By Tuesday all of the snow was gone and any growth that we’d discovered in the front and back garden beds when we were cleaning on Sunday had pretty much doubled or tripled in size.

Most of our crocus’ are happily blooming away now too:

yellowcrocus

Have you been busy cleaning up your garden and perhaps even planting new plants?

Gardeners, Plant and Nature lovers can join in every Sunday, visit As the Garden Grows for more information. GTS participants remember to check in at As the Garden Grows each week so that we’ll know you made a new post!

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