Winter Blooms Inside and Out

During the holidays many of us may hang wreaths or decorate a fir tree. Some may drape a mantel or staircase in garlands of greenery. This dried boxwood wreath is one of four we like to hang in our home beginning at Thanksgiving. The seller said the wreaths would likely last for four months; it has now been three years and to me, they are as beautiful and fresh as the day we got them. The scent of living plants and fresh greenery inside the home or out on a covered porch enlivens the somewhat stark look of the winter landscape.

Our garden is filled with ornamental herbs, that is, herbs grown decoratively as part of the larger landscape. These are cook’s wreaths made of grapevine covered in rosemary and oregano and tied with a velvet ribbon. When making the wreaths, my thought was to give them to our hosts for holiday dinners. The tiny six-inch wreaths might be hung in the kitchen or placed on the counter ready to use when cooking.

These shops in Georgetown, Washington, D.C. are lush with greenery and enticing aromas. There is something about a florist shop redolent with blooms, greenery, and assorted pots and vases that fascinates me. Better when there are cut stems and branches on the floor and candles burning and trickling wax. Notably, when we travel, stopping in and experiencing these locations is always on my itinerary. The window of Manse reminded me of my potted paperwhite bulbs and two tissue wrapped amaryllis bulbs were carefully added to my suitcase.

Planted in a Victorian ironstone jelly mold the flower buds begin to emerge from the soil within days.

It won’t be long before we see the bud opening to reveal the petals; the stems gesturing as they follow the light.

The bulbs are flowering abundantly! Each stem has several flower heads and each of these puts out multiple flowers. This morning the weighty petals pulled the stem over and nearly tipped it out of the pot. Still in my pajamas with clippers in hand I raided the nearest Texas redbud out front for a branch. In this case, a crossed branch which would have needed to be removed anyway. The branches were pressed down into the two pots with a bit of moss added to protect the stems and tied with hemp string.

The result is both useful and artful.

Mid-November finds me at Milberger’s, one of many outstanding nurseries in the San Antonio area rummaging for Ziva paperwhite bulbs in a large cardboard box inside the shop near the bags of soil and fertilizer. This year we happened to have several empty terra cotta pots and so, tried growing some out on the porch where the cool air would slow their progress and we could enjoy them longer. These three photographs show their progress. At the moment, due to a windy spell and dropping temperatures, they are just inside the doors resting on a drop cloth and making the whole house smell like a florist’s shop!

In the library they are growing in an ironstone soup tureen.

They grew so fast we had to put a wooden dowl in the center of the container and tie the stems to it with hemp twine.

This photo of the Mount Vernon greenhouse in Interior Portraits (Rizzoli) reimagined by designer Victoria Hagan is an evocative image. She sees it as a place people will pass through on the way in or out and choose to stay awhile. The chairs are slipcovered and the room is filled with candles and cut flowers. In a corner of the room, not shown in this clipped image, a potted kumquat tree grows.

This fall when I came across some very small lemon trees discounted for the end of the season it seemed worth the risk to try something new. The weather here in the Texas Hill Country can be very cold and windy in the winter so they would need to come inside before the first frost. With that in mind their pots were placed just outside the doors leading to a small walled garden. Wanting them to be as strong as they could before coming inside they got a small dose of liquid plant food once a week.

The man who sold the pair of little lemon trees to me said, “When you put these in pots they’re gonna take off!” Words cannot express my wonder at watching them put out new leaves, blossoms, and now tiny green lemons yet to ripen. There is something to see in them every day and of course, the honeybees love them. Now the lemon trees are inside and even here their leaves curl up a bit in the nighttime chill. Their blossoms are a soft perfume near my bathtub!

La Foce is the story of a family farm in Italy begun by Iris and Antonio Origo. The story begins in the 1930’s and continues today with their descendants.

There, as in other Italian gardens, lemon trees are grown in terra cotta pots placed in the garden. Each pot rests on a raised stand which looks to be made of stone.

Here at La Foce the citrus trees are brought inside for the winter where they will stay until early in May. These seem to be on raised metal bleachers so as not to crowd the branches.

My knowledge of lemons and lemon trees grew with a reading of The Gourmand’s Lemon (Taschen). Cosimo I de’Medici and his wife Eleonora di Toledo and their 11 children lived in the hills outside Florence at Villa di Castello where they would come to own the largest collection of potted lemons in existence – over 600 species. During World War I when the buildings of the villa served as field hospitals the gardens were devastated as the lemon trees were left outside to freeze or chopped up for firewood.

In 1980 Paolo Galeotti, Director of the Parks and Gardens Office of the Tuscany Museum Center saw an unusual twig growing from the trunk of an orange tree. He removed the twig and grafted it to a sour orange rootstock and thus began the rejuvenation of the lemon orchard. In the ensuing years he has identified and rescued 80 species from the original lemon trees.

(homecitrusgrowers.co.uk)

Here is a photo of the lemon trees wintering in the Villa de Castello Limonaia.

We don’t seem to have kumquat trees in our local nurseries. It is tempting to try to order one and see what kind of success we might have in growing it.

When we lived in a loft we would buy blooming hyacinths at the grocery florist and put them in blue and white jardinieres to brighten up the late winter. These are from whiteflowerfarm.com…so many ways to bring life into your cozy winter world!