Heronswood Winter 2023 visit

And grevillea blooms...
Grevillea victoriae
This was my first time seeing the newly built raining wall (raining ferns that is).
And I was extremely disappointed to discover the fern table covered. During the winter the garden is only open on the weekends, and they do charge admission. There was no cold weather in the forecast, how much effort would it have taken to fold back that covering so visitors could see the table plantings?
Protected tree ferns...

As I mentioned in an 2021 post on the Renaissance Garden there are non-plant "things" sprinkled about, here's quote from an article that appeared in the Hardy Fern Foundation Fall Quarterly, written by Patrick McMillan (then director at Heronswood) that I included in that post: "the Renaissance Garden is filled with period appropriate artifacts that take the visitor into an abandoned logging camp that has been reclaimed with the lush vibrancy of life." I found it easer to ignore those artifacts on this visit, perhaps because the plants were bigger, and it seemed that maybe there were less of the items strewn about. I quite liked this rope on the mossy log.
I've no idea what this ruffled cutie is, but it was looking fresh in February.
Astelia in the midst. 
Astelia make such good fern companions, sadly the ones in my garden that had rebounded from winter 2022/23 were hit again, hard, with the last storm.
The trunk of this tree fern is protected, fronds left in place though.
Moss and hellebores kind of expected, the palm is a surprise.
Finally, the pyrrosia! Pyrrosia sp. aff. lingua 

Pyrrosia lingua 'Futaba Shishi'
Pyrrosia lingua 'Tachiba Koryu'
Pyrrosia lingua 'Hiryu'. 
A reminder this visit was in February of 2023, I wonder how the pyrrosia are doing after this year's winter storm? (I'll be visiting Heronswood as part of the Garden Fling this summer, so I guess I will get a chance to see).

Heading into the garden proper I had to run a gauntlet of spring flowers, it was hard-core! Chimonanthus praecox
So many crocus!
So many...
Freshly mulched around the plants on columns.
Cyclamen...more flowers!

Check out the size of those ferns! I believe they're Woodwardia unigemmata, and the grassy-looking plants are Fascicularia pitcairniifolia, but I could be wrong.
Olearia ilicifolia 
Scallopy and spiky.
One of Dan Hinkley's Edgeworthia chrysantha finds. Not yellow, not orange, kinda bubble-gum.
Oh my! Mahonia oiwakensis ssp lomariifolia v tenuifolia, amazing. I have a small one of these (very small, and very thrashed by winter), I hope it looks like this one day.
Walking on...

That's a handsome schefflera, on the right.

Carnivorous plants in the foreground.
I can't decide if I hate that fountain or not.
The first time I saw it, I hated it.
But it's starting to grow on me. Working on this post I finally learned of it's origins. Searching for a link to the Little & Lewis work later in the post I found this: "Our seven-foot-tall Chanterell Plunging Basin, at home in the Heronswood Nursery vegetable garden. When not in use for washing their produce, it doubles as a fountain." (source)
Continuing the fungus theme...
My hand for scale.
Heading back to the entrance/exit as I think Andrew has been patiently napping in the car.
He did walk the garden, but finished much quicker than I did.
Little & Lewis installation
Mature tree ferns wrapped for the winter. I wonder if they did something special to get the bend in the trunks?
Finally, I had to share this patch of aspidistra.
Perfect leaves of green...(unlike the same plant in my garden this winter)