An Iowa Garden

Those who've been reading this blog for a while, will surely by now have realized I'm a big fan of woodland wildflowers that carry their foliage through the winter. These plants may either have foliage that just persists through the winter, or have true hibernal leaves, which are leaves that are put out by some woodland wildflowers in the fall, then they remain through the winter and more or less die back by late spring, and the plant goes dormant during the summer; this takes advantage of the increased light on the forest floor when the trees are not leafed out.
I think I can explain my passion for these humble plants by telling you about my Uncle Bob. He lived in an Iowa town so small, that there was no stop SIGN, let alone a stop light, but I once heard someone ask him what there could possibly be to do in a little godforsaken place like that in winter, and Bob replied "Well, you'd be surprised... there's ALWAYS something going on, and there's lots to do and see!" I must say, he didn't elaborate on that statement with any examples, and I know I must have heard ten times over as many years about the time his dog messed with a skunk, but be that as it may, I think I could say the same about having a surprisingly interesting garden here in winter... there's LOTS to do and see, and these winter leaves are a part of that. You just have to get down close, and admire their beauty. Many of them get a very lovely plum-chocolate color, and have a shiny, waxy sheen. Two examples seen today, with a temperature close to zero this morning, are Asarum arifolium (above), which is the arrow-leafed ginger, native to the SE part of the country, and Speirantha convallarioides (below), which is an oddity... sometimes called an evergreen lily of the valley (it is in the same sub-family as lily of the valley). This particular plant is native to China, and is usually rated as hardy only to zone 7, but it grows here in 5a, remaining evergreen completely without protection... it probably IS wondering how it ended up here, though.