Top photo by JeffG166, chionodoxa, or glory-of-the-snow — from the Greek chion (snow) plus doxa (glory).
From commentor Narya: Can anyone help identify this mystery houseplant?
What *is* this?
I tried to get the leaves AND flowers in the first one, the focus on one or the other for the other two, but whatever works.
***********
Murphy willing and the rain holds off, later today we’ll be making the first trip of the season to our favorite garden center for some pansies. Yay heartsease!
What’s going on in your gardens (planning / starting / memories), this week?
Baud
Looks like a South American man-eating poison plant.
Mike S (Now with a Democratic Congressperson!)
Nice Chionodoxa patch!
The flowers pics are fuzzy, but I think it might be a Kalanchoe because of the pic of the leaves.
Mike S (Now with a Democratic Congressperson!)
@Baud: no, those have alternate leaves and superior ovaries.
NotMax
@Baud
Idiotium Greenwaldiana?
:)
satby
narya: it looks like a kalanchoe. I used to have one decades ago but I think the cats decimated it.
JeffG: when the lawns in Beverly turn blue with snow glories is when we consider spring has sprung. I keep trying to naturalize them in all the places I live, but it’s been slow going. My old house in Chicago has one side of the yard completely covered in spring, but they’ve been growing and spreading for 35 years.
satby
AnneLaurie: aren’t you expecting way colder temps over the next couple of days? It’s a frigid 22 here now, and tonight’s overnight low will be in the teens. The polar vortex is late this year, but it looks like it extends from Chicago all the way to the east coast, and south to parts of Kentucky.
Ken
@satby: NO. SPRING HERE. MUST GARDEN.
As an apartment-dweller, my personal gardening involves moving some of my houseplants onto the balcony. I do some work at my church, and was just noticing last week that the rosebushes are beginning to sprout new canes – so time to prune away the dead stuff. That’s always a little scary since it sure looks like I’ve killed them, but within a month they’re lovely green bushes again.
Anne Laurie
Only into the mid-20s, and these will be field-grown pansies. Which will probably by sold out, by next weekend, when it’ll be in the high 50s or low 60s again…
(If we need to cover the flats / pots overnight, I trust the Mahoneys people to warn us — one reason to use an established local firm.)
oldgold
The mystery houseplant is definitely a Wutcha-McCallitt.
wenchacha
Some critter has pulled several crocus bulbs from the spot where so planted them in the fall. The blooms were just starting to show themselves, durnit.
Same spot the whitetail bucks decided to rub my President Lincoln lilac bush to death. Was it squirrels, deer, raccoons? I tucked the bulbs in again, but we’ll see if it helps.
OzarkHillbilly
My glory of the snow are finally blooming, which makes me happy as I was afraid I might miss them this year. The wolf’s bane I planted last fall have bloomed spectacularly and I am already looking at other places to plant this coming fall. My Spanish Bluebells are all up but it will be another week or 2 before they bloom. I’m looking for the Trout Lillies but only a few are showing as of now. And of course the daffodils are all up and blooming too. Unfortunately, the magnolia looks rather ragged and uneven, and with the freeze we have coming tonight it is unlikely to improve.
The forsythia has begun to bloom. The lilac and the clematis are greening up and I’m seeing signs of life from the bleeding hearts and columbine.
I am also seeing all the work I was unable to do this past fall and winter. Time to get busy.
Narya
Thank you everyone! I will poke around more now that I have a place to start!
Steeplejack
@satby:
Yes, it’s 40° in my corner of NoVA this morning, going down to 25° tonight. Then only up to 39° tomorrow and 21° tomorrow night. Brr!
satby
@OzarkHillbilly: I’m not seeing much signs of life from my freeze decimated lilacs from last year. There’s new sprouts from the roots of some which I can let grow, but it means waiting at least another 3-5 years for flowers. I’m just crushed by that, I had such high hopes for how beautiful they’d all be in bloom last year and this. The new replacement looks ok, and one tiny lilac that’s never thrived was also never damaged, so I may move it, but the rest aren’t looking good.?
satby
@Steeplejack: I know spring bulbs can usually shake off a frost or light freeze, but these are hard freezes and most of my bulbs have leaves five or six inches tall. I covered the iris bed, but just have to cross my fingers for the rest of them. March came in like a lion and is going out the same way.
Steeplejack
@satby:
We have had a nice run of warm, sunny weather, so I fear that the flora is in for a rude shock.
MomSense
I stuffed some more leaves around my plants because it is going to be cold today.
I have no idea what to put in my gardens anymore. It’s like we are the worst of zone 3 with the heat of the tropics in the summer minus the rain and humidity.
I’m not quite at the pebbles and driftwood place yet but it’s not far off.
WTF climate crisis.
debbie
Lots of yards around here have tiny purple flowering things sprinkled all over. Google told me it was squill. Is that the same as glory-in-the-snow
The trees, forsythia, and magnolias are just about to bloom. I’m afraid the current flurries and very cold temperatures will ruin that.
debbie
Definitely kalanchoe. I’ve overwatered a few in my time.
Jeffery
@satby:
I don’t know how long ago I planted ten bulbs in the spot. They started to move into the grass a few years ago. They are heading towards the sun.
OzarkHillbilly
@debbie: Squill is not the same as glory-in-the-snow.
Josie
@satby:
I agree – kalanchoe
debbie
@OzarkHillbilly:
Thanks. The photos at your links, especially the covered lawns! ?
Kalakal
@satby: Yep, kalanchoe
OzarkHillbilly
@debbie: The past couple years I’ve been planting GotS bulbs in our driveway island (200 the first year, 100 this year) and can hardly wait as they spread and fill in on their own.
PST
I’m a non-gardener who really doesn’t belong here, but I need some advice. I live in Chicago in a third-floor apartment that faces south across a wide street, so my balcony gets loads of direct sunlight all summer long. (It also gets a lot of strong, steady winds from the west that occasionally uproot plants.) In years past, I have put out window boxes with petunias, which have been very successful some years but less so in others. My overwhelming goal is to shock passersby with a big, gaudy splash of color visible from the street. No subtlety for me! I have a feeling that maybe where I went wrong some years is in my selection of petunia variety (evidently there are many different kinds). Can anyone tell me what I should be looking for that will live all year, hang down with an abundance of blooms, and not take too much effort?
debbie
@OzarkHillbilly:
There were a few older homes where crocuses and snowdrops had spread throughout the lawn. Of course, when they were sold, the new owners ripped up and replaced the sod. Yuck.
Kristine
Another vote for kalanchoe.
It’s winter revisited here in NE Illinois just as bulbs and hellebore are starting to sprout. Last night fell into the teens. The previous night fell into the twenties. High in the 30s today. Except for a bounce midweek, highs in the 50s not expected until well into April. Hoping the buds survive.
Kristine
@PST: A few years ago, I bought some pink and purple verbena from the Chicago Botanic Garden shop discount shelf. They grew into the most beautiful tumbles that would definitely be seen from the street. Possibly even from space. There are a number of varieties, but the ones I had did not grow upright. Here’s a link to some varieties and yes they love full sun. The Garden variety may work best for what you have in mind
As an aside, I brought both plants inside when the temps dropped. The purple survived and bloomed the next year, though not as vigorously. The pink didn’t make it.
Jeffery
@PST: Wave petunias have a unique trailing growth habit and are highly prolific in their blooming. They drape over the sides of containers and raised beds and are great summer performers. A regular petunia has an upright or bush growth habit. It may spread slightly, but will not drape down as dramatically as a Wave petunia.
When you say all year I assume you mean all summer into autumn until a killer frost or freeze. Nothing is going to live year round outside in Chicago.
MagdaInBlack
It is a sunny 21 degrees in the Chi nw suburbs. I ran for groceries and sweet mother of Mary, that wind has teeth!
I toyed with putting Ruby the giant geranium outside this week, but I knew I’d just have to haul her back in.
OzarkHillbilly
@debbie: The suburban obsession with grass is a thing I will never understand.
Kristine
@MagdaInBlack: I put the mini roses outside last week when we hit close to 70F. Brought them back inside a day too late. Hoping they recover. They may lose the leaves they grew when they were indoors for the winter.
TerryC
My first shipment of bare root trees arrived a little early. So I am busy right now putting them in 2 gallon pots for in-ground planting later. Yesterday I potted eleven Sweet Gum and four Nuttall Oak babies. Many more today!
This is also the year that I learn to graft. I’ve already started putting various kinds of what’s called scionwood onto native or wild pear, apple, and plum. Already, on one plum tree, I have put two large peach branches and four smaller cherry branches. We’ll see.
Scout211
I planted 4 raised beds with all kinds of salad greens from seed for my early spring garden. All are doing well. I also planted some tomatoes, squash and peppers from starts I bought at the nursery. It always feels like this is going to be a good year around this time every year. It’s nice to feel hopeful.
I had to augment my raised beds this year with new soil. My local landscaping supply store had a new brand of organic soil called “Happy Hippie” that I had delivered. Filling my raised beds with Happy Hippie soil made me smile, so that was nice, too.
Josie
@MagdaInBlack:
My middle son went to Northwestern after being raised in the southernmost tip of Texas. I made the mistake of visiting him in January one year. I have never before or since felt the cold like I felt it with the wind coming off of the lake. After the first year, he adjusted to the cold. I never did.
PST
@Jeffery: Thank you to you and Kristine. Yes, I only meant all summer. Lotta Chicagoans today.
MagdaInBlack
@Kristine: That weather sure triggered the gardening itch, didn’t it
@Josie: I’m about 17 miles west of the lake/ Evanston, and still, yikes !
Kristine
@MagdaInBlack: It felt so good.
Kay
satby got it- it’s kalanchoe
I love pansies too AL but they’re breeding for larger and larger flowers and I don’t think they’re proportional with the plant anymore. I wish they wouldn’t do that. A bigger flower is not always better.
I’ve been growing violas instead – the common one is Johnny Jump Up. They reseed so I now have them coming up in the sand between the bricks on a patio which I really like.
narya
@PST: I love nasturtiums–I manage to grow them on a north-facing balcony, even, but they like sunlight. They won’t last all year, but they are so pretty–and edible.
Kay
I grew some of this 2 years ago and it was easy. I still have half the seeds I ordered so I’ll use it again this year. It’s really orange but the flowers are small so from a distance it looks great with violets or blue flowers, like, 6 violet/blue to one orange :)
narya
I poked around, and you all are right (well, except for Baud, but I’m used to that :-) ), as best as I can tell–not least because the care instructions I found helped explain some very small issues I have with it, namely, it gets a little too MUCH direct sun, and the leaves aren’t enjoying that. Easy fix. The info I found made it sound like it needed a winter dark period to bloom, but mine has been blooming nearly non-stop for more than a year. I’ll prune it once it stops, and probably repot more often, but damn, it is my kind of low-maintenance plant. My other big growers are aloe–anyone in Chicago need some??–and spider plants; I have so many of both. Next weekend I’ll bring the window boxes in and start some stuff inside.
narya
Another suggestion for Chicago balconies: bunny tails! I threw some into my balcony box mix, and they’re fun.
MagdaInBlack
@Kay: I have always loved Johnny Jump Ups. My mother tucked them in as filler. Little happy faces peeking out everywhere.
debbie
One of my small jade cuttings has just sprouted a new branch. Spring has now arrived!
Another Scott
@satby: Google Lens agrees with your identification (via the first picture).
DavesGarden – Kalanchoe, Flaming Katy, Christmas Kalanchoe, Florist Kalanchoe ‘Noids, Mixed Hybrids’ (Kalanchoe blossfeldiana)
Cheers,
Scott.