I was pleased to see a small clump of Cyclamen, of unknown variety, I bought a plant sale a couple of years ago, spreading into some baby tears lining a walkway. I had nearly forgotten planting them in the dappled, shade, caste by the outer branches of a Deodor Ceder. Cyclamen like rich, porous soil with lots of humus. I'm glad that particular area has recieved an abundance of compost and manures over the years. The last addition was a truck load of home-made compost.
A couple of years ago our old truck broke down. Filled with garden debris, that we kept adding too, it stayed out of commission from September of one year to the middle of Spring the next. When the truck was finally fixed the garden debris had turned into the most wonderful compost. Rather than cart it any distance, we dumped it over the fence onto the ground that lay below the old Ceder.
Behind the Cyclamen stands a single, trunked, beautifully branching Edgeworthia papyrifera, with its tropical-looking leaves still intact. As it ages it will become multi-trunked. Even now, in late fall, it has already begun to set fat, buds, heralding, early Spring flowers of creamy, yellow. When the leaves are gone, its camel-colored, bark will cut a lovely silhouette in the winter garden. In Japan, this same bark is used for making paper.
Other shrubs with buds, forming, will bloom in the middle of winter. Trained into an arch over the front entry that leads into my garden, Viburnum bodnantense, 'Dawn' will wrap visitors in a cloud of perfume as they enter the gate. This Viburnum was purposely placed there. Planted elsewhere, in some far flung area of the garden, seldom visited in the middle of winter, its pink flowers and lovely scent might be lost.
For this same reason I planted Daphne odorata, 'Aureomaginata' off a cross walk near the front door, although, the heady, sweet, smelling fragrance of this tidy shrub can spread through a whole nieghborhood. Nearbye and close to the front door, resides another, later blooming, Daphne, 'Carol Mackie.' This lovely low growing shrub with its gold-edged leaves and pure white flowers, perfumes the air in late Spring. A Daphne, I would like to add for more winter bloom, is Daphne mezureum, a native of Northern Europe. This shrub is covered in dense clusters of sweet smelling, rosy-purple flowers in February.
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