Hellebores look better in the near view....especially these plants

I didn't plant them in the wall, they just seeded down into it. I admit it isn't the prettiest wall in the world. When we moved into the house almost 30 years ago we were young and poor; buying stone for a wall really wasn't an option, so we went with "found materials." We didn't really have a choice about terracing the yard. It sloped from front to back (north to south) and from right to left (west to east). There wasn't enough level ground for two lawn chairs.

So we terraced with scrounged concrete, shovel and mattock. Stepping out the basement door (facing south) the wall starts a few feet to your right and meanders a hundred feet or so on a ss by se track ending where the bamboo grove used to begin. There are beds above and, a mediocre linear area of turf below it witch is bordered by a wide planting bed running the length of the east edge of the garden. The wall is presented at its worst here; it does look better in other seasons when the light isn''t so harsh and plants soften it.

I have no idea what this is but I know it wasn't there last year

Yes, I ought to have kept a record and labeled it immediately, but a few slip through the cracks. What can I say? I'm intrigued by it because it seems to be a week or two ahead of, well everything but the early bulbs and the familiar winter perennials. It seems to be budding so I ought to be able to identify it in the next week or so.

I've enjoyed, for years, being half of a horticultural couple. There are always surprises, things you didn't plant and didn't notice, popping up. Since Karen began landscaping, her contributions, though beautiful, are usually not so bizarre as they were when she was at Behnkes, tempted by every new and unique item. I observe this only as part of my admission that almost surely I'm the culprit here. Whatever it is, I planted it. And forgot it completely. Getting old then, is a new way of being surprised in the garden. I haven't got to the point where everything s new to me every year, but increasingly I do find myself coming upon plants unexpectedly that I planted myself.

Regular attendance at the Beltsville Garden Club sales, the FONA plant sale, garden club exchanges, and a circle of friends who are plant fanatics mean that all sorts of odd plants enter the garden. It could be anything!