BILOWZ ASSOCIATES INC. is an award winning landscape architectural design firm with a proven philosophy: "Creating Design with Harmony & Balance."
Our company blog, Annie's Gardening Corner, takes a sneak peek at how we balance our own love for everything green + a place to find inspiration, garden ideas and landscape design tips.

To browse our award winning landscape design portfolios, click on our company website at WWW.BILOWZASSOCIATES.COM

Friday, February 10, 2012

Snow Days




Maybe we can’t eek past this weekend without some white stuff falling to the ground but there’s always a bright side in the world of horticulture and design. Have your thoughts crossed over yet to plant palettes and nursery excursions, anticipating new texture and color for your landscape? If you’ve been counting down how many days until spring, it’s probably so. But let’s dig a little deeper for those underused and overlooked specialty shrubs when developing your plant list.

A deciduous beauty often forgotten is Exochorda racemosa (Common Pearlbush).  Its large springtime flower is a dashing snow-white. The common shrub can get a tad high (15 feet) but a weeping, dwarf variety that some plant lovers may be familiar with is ‘The Bride.’ To keep in today’s winter theme, Proven Winners has an Exochorda you may want to consider; The Snow Day™ ‘Blizzard’. This variety has ‘extra large flowers roughly twice the size of ‘The Bride.’ These plants do best in acidic soil and can handle some pretty chilly temps. It makes a perfect New England sampler shrub or one you can mass in drifts; no plows or snow blowers required.

What’s in your spring planting plan? Does it include deciduous shrubs? If so, think beyond the usual suspects. Think pearls. Think snow-like flowers called Blizzard and Bride. Add white to your springtime plant palette while remembering tomorrow’s snow shall quickly reside.

To end this February blog week, a garden quote from Barbara Winkler keeps our spring spirits chugging. "Every gardener knows that under the cloak of winter lies a miracle ... a seed waiting to sprout, a bulb opening to the light, a bud straining to unfurl.  And the anticipation nurtures our dream."



Image of Snow Day™ ‘Blizzard’ from Proven Winners website
Image of Valentine’s Day card by Ann Bilowz

If you like this blog, remember to post your comments, questions, even your garden photos. You can like our fan page at http://www.facebook.com/abilowz or follow on twitter http://twitter.com/annbilowz (where there are even more shared tidbits) or subscribe on the blog to receive posts daily via email or a feed. Either way, we hope you follow the postings somewhere in cyberspace and share it with your gardening friends. Contact me direct at annbilowz@gmail.com Happy Gardening. Annie

No comments:

© 2009

© 2009 Ann St. Jean-Bilowz/Bilowz Associates Inc. (including all photographs, unless otherwise noted in Annie's Gardening Corner are the property of Bilowz Associates Inc. and shall not be reproduced in any manner nor are they to be assigned to any third party without the expressed written permission and consent of Bilowz Associates Inc.)