Surviving Mud Season

Mud season is made tolerable for me, in part, because I can go to the Flower Shows. So far I’ve been to shows in Providence, Rhode Island, in Hartford, Connecticut and the Vermont Flower Show in Essex Junction. Each offered something different, but each had lots of blooming spring flowers, trees and shrubs.

One of my favorite spring shrubs is Fothergilla (Fothergilla major). This beauty has white bottlebrush-like blossoms that appear in April in my garden. But at the Vermont show there were some that had been brought into a greenhouse and made to bloom now. It is a slow-growing shrub that for me has been unbothered by pests or diseases, and has spectacular fall colors.

Fothergilla in center, background, white

Also at the Vermont Show was a Redbud (Cercis canadensis) in bloom. I’ve had a small redbud for at least 5 years, and have not one blossom. If it does not blossom this year I shall give it a good scare by girdling it with a sharp knife. This technique, called “spanking” a tree, is scary for me because you can kill a tree it you do it wrong, I think. The key is to cut down through the outer layers of bark, just hitting the hard interior, but not removing any bark. Bill Lord of the UNH Cooperative Extension says it works on apples, but I figure I have nothing to lose trying it on my non-blooming redbud.

On the horizon? I plan to go to the Boston Show on March 17, and Floribunda, the Norwich Home and Garden show that same weekend. I hope you get to a show, too. You can go to my website and read my article about the flower shows of New England. It’swww.Gardening-Guy.com. I’m having the site re-built and you should soon be able to order my new book there before it comes out in the bookstores.