It's March, how is the garden?

Our mild winter weather continues and would be an absolute dream for the garden, if not for the extremely horrid week we experienced mid-January, the effects of which continue show themselves. My last update on how the plants fared was on February 5th (here), almost a month has passed since then, I think it's time for another installment...

First a spot of happy news. I feared the blooms of my Edgeworthia chrysantha 'Nanjing Gold' were so stunned they'd remain in their not quite open state and fall without opening. Thank god that didn't happen and they've been wowing me with their bright colors for a couple of weeks now.

I even did some much needed pruning and brought the cut branches indoors where they've been scenting the kitchen.

The overall shape of the unruly shrub is a bit more graceful now.

On the far right of the photo above, and again below, is a large, newly (almost) empty, pot. The brown leaves at the front belong to Loropetalum 'Jazz Hands' mini, but the container used to hold a large pineapple guava, Acca sellowiana. No longer.

The storm had once again zapped the leaves. It might have made a come back and regrown them, but I was done with it. I planted it knowing it was evergreen, but it's lost all of it's leaves at least 4 times now. Time to stop. Of course I still haven't dug the stump out of the container, that's gonna be fun! 

Speaking of digging out stumps. I decided it was time to get rid of that sad Yucca rostrata on the left below. It started downhill late last spring and I waited months to see if it would make a recovery.

The green leaves at the very center had given me hope. But after giving it all summer without it doing anything...

And that dark area getting squishier and squishier, it was time.

Oh my god what an improvement to not have to look at it anymore!

Before (page up and down for before and after) was just too ugly, especially with all the other dead/dying/disfigured things around the garden (special thanks to Patricia for letting me use her root slayer to dig out this bad boy).

Moving on to the Callistemon ‘Woodlander’s 'Hardy Red' that are now all brown. The two in the front garden are both in this photo, to the right of the sidewalk.

The biggest/oldest was planted in 2010, that's a long time for it to have lived well, and then been hit so hard.

If it regrows from the tips only it's gonna be an ugly plant. I don't know what to do! Thankfully that Agave 'Mateo' continues to feel solid.

Here's the second callistemon in the front garden.

In the back garden I just went ahead and called it quits on the third 'Hardy Red', which I'd had since 2009. Purchasing it was one of the very first blog posts I wrote! Of course I plant so densely you can't really tell anything is missing in this photo...

Even from this angle, can you spot the missing plant?

How about here? Ya, there are the stumps (which I haven't done anything with) peeking up over the variegated aspidistra.

Here's the Metapanax delavayi leaf drop I came home to after our trip up to Seattle. 

Sadly that's not the last of it as the plant has many more to brown leaves yet to fall. A reminder, this plant is an evergreen, at least it's supposed to be. I'm still hopeful it will leaf-out again once spring hits.

The (NoID) bamboo has decided to get in on the browning leaves thing—I can't blame it since it was wind-whipped something nasty when the temperatures were only 12F.

Ditto for the Azara microphylla.

And Fatsia polycarpa 'Needham's Lace', which is starting to drop some of its big leaves.

I cut my Pittosporum illicioides 'Strappy' back hard last spring and it had sent up all sorts of soft green growth (3 of the 4 trunks below belong to the pittosporum, the center one belongs to the fatsia), naturally they're all defoliated too.

All three of my Loropetalum chinense are loosing their leaves, the wood still has some green though so hopefully they'll rebound.

Lame photo! I included it only to remind myself of the damage to both Corokia virgata 'Sunsplash', which I cut back hard hoping for new growth.

Many of my mahonia have received the same treatment. Evan assured me they'd respond well to being cut back and new growth would appear below the cut. Thank god because many were nothing but tall ugly sticks. Mahonia confusa 'Narihira'...

Mahonia eurybracteata 'Indianola Silver'

And Mahonia x media 'Marvel' are just three of the hack-jobs around the garden.

Oh and their are agave deaths to report too. Plants that looked great for awhile, until they started to melt. Agave montana here, the white pipes are part of the PVC structure keeping it dry. This plant had been in the ground many years...

And this! The Agave victoriae-reginae I thought was going to make it (it had been kept dry too), is obviously not. It's rotting. ugh.

My tallest/oldest Rhodonendron sinogrande is also showing damage and has dropped a few leaves. As I've said before one of the hardest parts of this all is how long it drags out. Things that look fine end up showing damage after weeks. Things that look horrible may leaf out again and go on to look great by June. 

Ending with a few positives (and prayer I'm not cursing them). Sinopanax formosanus, which I did not protect at all, hasn't shown much damage. Interestingly this one was hit hard in our 116F heat wave. 

Same for the Podocarpus matudae, it's "leaves" (seems strange to use that word on a conifer) look fine, but at 116 it was a brown ugly mess.

This tiny little leaf (again strange to use, as this is a fern, but that's not really a frond) belongs to Lepisorus cf. macrosphaerus. Last summer I planted out a tiny piece of the plant I got from Far Reaches Farm (most of it went into a container) and look at that! It lives. Zero protection, in fact I forgot all about it and had to stare at it for quite awhile before I realized what it was...

So that's the latest. Hopefully it's all up from here, I mean it is meteorological spring!

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