Get ready for Blackberry Winter 2020, which is probably right around the corner. That’s the folk name for the late frost that nearly always puts an abrupt end to two or three weeks of gloriously warm weather, taking the wind out of our Spring fever sails. It catches daffodils and too-early canna foliage by surprise, nips the new growth on hydrangeas and figs, and brings out the quilts for covering blueberries and prized azaleas.
Its very predictableness is what keeps experienced farmers from planting cotton too early (assuming the fields ever dry out), and savvy gardeners from setting out tomatoes before Good Friday.
But I have a theory, from decades of observation: We might prevent it by not planting those glorious pink Japanese magnolias.
While tooling around Greenwood last week, giving a talk to the garden club and consulting afterwards on their sweet beautification projects around town (love the little herb garden down by the river), I noticed these magnificent small trees in full bloom. They flower early, signaling a coming end to winter.
But I’m suspicious. Seems like every year, just as they come into flower, we get a freeze. Could it possibly be that they actually cause a freeze?
Just kidding, of course. No way to test the hypothesis without chopping them all down and banning future plantings, which just might thwart their dastardly deed. And we could better appreciate the less-showy but equally worthy Spiraeas, Forsythias, and Camellias.
Meanwhile, enjoy the cozy feelings they’re fetching for our low spirits. Seasonal Affective Disorder, what medical professionals call the winter blues or blahs, is real; anything to keep our tiny pineal glands stimulated and deliver us from cabin fever.
Luckily for us Southerners, we have lots of material to work with. Plenty of tree and shrub winter greenery to foil the otherwise brown scenery, including evergreens to deflect chilly winter winds.
Even if we don’t have them in our own gardens, enough neighbors have winter flowers to share visually. Just a short walk or drive will turn up early and very fragrant paperwhites, little yellow Tete a Tete daffodils, red flowering quince, yellow winter jasmine shrubs, and Camellias to keep our spirits up.
A drive down any rural highway will reveal roadsides awash with escaped daffodils. Note: moving them while in bloom causes them to skip a year or two. Cut a bouquet and go back for the bulbs later.
Melodious songbirds bring color and motion as they flit from heavy-berried Nandinas to piles of birdseed, plus a little drama as they quarrel with squirrels on the feeder. My little back garden has several large mirrors to increase the visual impact, and I have had to hang small crape myrtle branches to keep birds from banging into them.
And there are dozens of cold-hardy plants with interesting freeze-proof perennial foliage to add much-needed shape and texture contrasts. Any flower bed or group of shrubs can be perked up a skirt of iris, dwarf yucca, or dusty miller. The arrowhead-shaped variegated leaves of painted Arum and pale green foliage of Alstroemeria, a perennial summer cut flower, look entirely too tender to make it, but they do. All winter.
All this while barely mentioning hardy winter annuals: Pansies, little violas, all sorts of kale, and the like. Even just one big potful of these, with a handful of daffodils, can create a much-welcome spot of color in the dreariest winter garden.
We can have great winter gardens, easily, by planning ahead with just a handful of these plants. Now if we could just keep those pink magnolias from spoiling an early spring!
Felder Rushing is a Mississippi author, columnist and radio host who writes a weekly column for state newspapers through the Mississippi Press Association. Email gardening questions to rushingfelder@yahoo.com.
