DryStoneGarden

Clematis ligusticifolia, Virgins Bower

Now that we are just past the official start of spring, I thought I’d post the state of our deciduous plants. Nothing especially revelatory here, but it might be interesting/helpful to me in the future to have an approximate calendar date for leaf-out on some of these plants.

California natives:

Clematis ligusticifolia is leafed out;
Calycanthus occidentalis is just now leafing out;
Dicentra formosa and Dicentra “Bachanal” leafed out at the start of the month;
the Redtwig Dogwood is leafed out;
the Ninebark leafed out in early February and already has flower buds;
the native lilies came up several weeks ago, the other bulbs have been up for a long time;
the native asters are leafed out;
the Ribes “White Icicle” in the shade is leafed out and still holding some blooms;
the non-cultivar Ribes sanguineum is mid-bloom with leaves just starting to appear;
the two Amelanchier alnifolia in containers are budding;
Philadelphus microphyllus is budding;
the Snowberry leafed out two weeks ago;
Mimulus cardinalis is leafed out;
the Stream Orchid is just poking up

Non-natives:

the fig tree is leafing out;
the walnut just started to leaf out;
the Chinese pistaches are budding;
the Japanese maples in containers are leafed out;
the Astilbes just sent up some foliage;
the Chaste tree is just budding;
the young Eastern Redbuds have a few flowers;
the Indigofera just started to leaf out

Dicentra formosa and Tellima grandiflora

Dicentra formosa was the plant that I was happiest to see this year. It’s in a container that was devastated by skunks last year and I thought it was gone, but it popped out from under the Tellima several weeks ago and now has a few blooms up.

Dicentra formosa and Tellima grandiflora

Throughout the winter we get people asking us if their tree or shrub is still alive. Plants sometimes fool us people in the Bay Area when they drop their leaves, and the frosts of winter often cause tender evergreens to suddenly look dead, and then in the spring there is sometimes one plant in a garden that doesn’t leaf out when all the others do, making everyone wonder if it is still alive. It can be hard to tell. Last fall, I planted a Spiraea “Anthony Waterer” that my dad has prematurely declared dead twice already.

We have an easy method for diagnosis: Scratch the bark with a fingernail or blade. The branch should have a bit of green under the bark if the wood is still living, but it will be hard and gray if the wood is dead. Dead wood won’t come back to life, but if there is green wood, we just cut out the dead and wait.

There’s a saying in back-country first aid: No one is dead until they are warm and dead. The human body has the ability to go dormant in extreme cold, and not even doctors can tell the difference between death and extreme stasis; frozen people have occasionally revived after days without a detectable pulse. Plants have even greater dormancy and regenerative powers than humans, so we generally apply that same rule to plants, with June as the approximate plant equivalent of warm. No leafless plant is dead, until it is June, leafless, and dead.

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