On the Eve of May

Apr30

I hope no one is expecting the entertaining, witty narrative which usually accompanies these posts. It’s been raining all day and the gloom has me drowsy, plus hours of inhaling varnish fumes this weekend probably killed off more brain cells than I can afford, so be prepared for a somewhat dull post.

The potager last Friday. The cool weather has been good to the tulips, but wind and rain is starting to take its toll.

As the first order of business I want to reassure everyone with the announcement that I have resolved my overabundance of yellow tulips problem. They were looking a little tired Saturday so I just yanked a good amount of them and tossed them on the compost. Sure they’ll probably show up everywhere now, as the compost will be contaminated by bulblets, but today I’m pleased with myself. Never mind that it took me weeks to come up with this solution, despite the fact many people pull their tulips after bloom, but in this garden I celebrate where I can.

My only 2022 tulip purchase, ‘Tom Pouce’. Five bulbs purchased, one came up yellow, but I love the other four for their delicious yellow with pink frosted colors.

So in a moment of distraction I started wondering who Tom Pouce was, since there’s also a pink and yellow lily, and pink and yellow daffodil named after him, and to have three flowers carry your name must count for something impressive, so off to the library I went.

Or Google… and then Wikipedia… “A tompoes or tompouce is a pastry in the Netherlands and Belgium. It is the local variety of the mille-feuille or Napoleon, introduced by an Amsterdam pastry baker and named after Admiraal Tom Pouce, the stage name of the Frisian dwarf Jan Hannema”. Apparently it’s a pastry taken seriously in the low countries. Color may stray, the pink and yellow may change based on national holidays or serious sporting events, but you don’t mess around with either shape or ingredients. It sounds like a pastry I would enjoy getting to know, although there also seems to be a little bit of a quandary on how it should be correctly eaten. I believe that discussion is outside the scope of this tulip post, so I’ll stop now and wonder about Frisian dwarves all on my own 😉

Not named after a pastry, ‘Insulinde’ is an example of one of the virused ‘broken tulips’ which are a virus risk, but just amazing enough to try growing anyway. This one dates back to 1915.

Soon the tulips will be a thing of the past, and just like snowdrops and daffodils it will be another 12 months before they return, but at this time of the year it barely matters. There’s so much coming along that even on a miserably rainy and dark Sunday you can’t help be a little excited. In the potager the wisteria is blooming again, and although it should only be a year since the last time, it’s really three since late freezes have done it in for a couple seasons. The scent of the flowers fills the potager air, even stronger than lilacs and probably just as sweet.

This wisteria only looks like it is supported by the pergola since I wouldn’t dare release it onto crushable aluminum supports and a frame of mere two by fours. Once a week for the entire summer stray tentacles of vine are cut back to a leaf or two to keep it under control. This plant is a beautiful monster.

There’s more blooming and growing out there, but I’ll spare you all except this last peony. Paeonia daurica subsp. mlokosewitschii is a mouthful so most refer to this plant as ‘Molly the Witch’. I did want the pure yellow version but when my seedling finally bloomed it showed to be a pale yellow with a pink tint, which is also within the range for this species. I love the foliage but to me the bloom is relatively small and somewhat mild mannered. Time will tell if it keeps a spot here in the garden, but even if it doesn’t I’m sure some gardening friend would take it in for me.

A nice pink tinted version of Paeonia daurica subsp. mlokosewitschii.

The rain is coming down strong again and it’s getting late. There’s work tomorrow. Ugh. I think I need something sugary and fatty or just plain greasy, because I feel like Monday has already arrived and I’m not excited. Enjoy your week at least!

Tulips

Apr24

It was warmer than expected and most of the garden’s tulips opened for the weekend. That sounds good but it was hotter than they like and a few fried up, and then the wind picked up and they took another beating… and then we had a downpour…so today they look a little tired, but the cooler weather in this week’s forecast will be perfect to keep them fresh looking for another week at least. It’s not botanical garden glorious, but I’m quite pleased with it, and also grateful that a couple friends were able to stop by and take a look as well.

Mixed Darwin tulips in the vegetable garden beds.

Some ‘Spryng Break’ lined out with the others

Another view of the potager beds

Honestly it looks much better in the closeups. From a distance you can see all the “works in progress” around the yard and these beds look more like some maniac just stuffed too many flowers into a tin can vase, but again I’m pleased with it and wondering if I have enough beds of tulips yet 🙂

Some of the tulips out front. Like everything else they need dividing but with a gardener who just waddles around the beds smiling at each new bloom there’s only a slight chance that could happen.

Originally the mix came around when I collected stray tulips and wasn’t sure what they were, so just planted them all together. There have only been a few times when I wasn’t happy with them all together, and when that happened I just pulled out the offenders and all was well, but this year I’m wondering if growing a few as separate color blocks might be fun. I’m envisioning a Dutch bulb field look with rows of color, and since I think I have too many yellows anyway as long as I’m separating those out might as well separate a few other colors as well, right? -I can almost hear you saying obviously…

I like them. I think I need a few more still. We all have our weaknesses.

Marking and sorting out tulips sounds like a lot of work. I may have to plant them with some better spacing so they can sit where they are for two seasons rather than being dug each summer, and I think if I keep them along the edges of the beds there will be room for zucchini or whatever and hopefully the extra watering won’t bother the dormant bulbs. I always miss a few anyway, and they do fine so in theory this should work.

So much color

In any case I know I’ll have plenty more tulips next year. These will likely double in number for next year and my friend Kimberly at Cosmos and Cleome will hopefully 🙂 offer me her leftovers again when she ejects her own tulip patch to make way for the season’s next show… I’ll gleefully add them somewhere here to grow on until they’re big enough to bloom again.

An old bulb bed where a few tulips still come up through the grass and weeds. Even with the potager beds packed and in full bloom, a trio of flowers in the weeds is still amazing.

Sorry this post is just the ramblings of a tulip maniac. To make it somewhat useful I guess I should reveal all my secrets about growing tulips so here they are. Wait until frost kills off whatever is in the vegetable bed and remove the dead vines and stakes. Grab a shovel and dig a shallow grave. Dump a reasonable amount of bulbs in and to make yourself feel like you’re putting in some effort, space them somewhat evenly and turn them pointy side up. Fill the grave with the dirt and old tomatoes and rotten peppers and whatever else you were too lazy to cart off to the compost. Cover the beds with a good inch or two of chopped leaves so that no one can see how poorly you prepared the bed. Wait for spring.

I think my reputation is established enough that no one expected the “work” involved here to be anything special. I have plenty of other jobs to kill myself with here so no sense letting the tulip planting have the upper hand, but it surely helps that I love digging them up again to see how well they’ve grown. Tulip flowers are nice enough, but sacks of tulip bulbs curing in the garage must really thrill the dormant prepper in me, and make me feel like I’m more than well prepared for any civilization crumbling tulip-shortage that could happen at any moment. You never know. It’s always good to be prepared.

April in Bloom

Apr21

We had our earliest 90+ degree day ever last week (33C) and I was unimpressed. Daffodils melted and hyacinths fried and the gardener turned on the air conditioning and did nothing in the shade. Three days later he froze standing around at a track meet with a brisk 41F (5C) breeze and the occasional snow flurry. Such are our springs. As usual things are busy and people are probably relieved that photographing snowdrops had to take a back seat to work and trips and home repairs, but I did take a minute Sunday to photograph a few things. Lets start at the end… the end of snowdrop season 😦

Here’s the double snowdrop ‘L.P. Short’ holding on to a last bloom while a sea of Spring Beauties (Claytonia virginica) bring on the next show.

Galanthus ‘Narwhal’ is still hanging on in spite of all kinds of weather and me stepping on him at least once…

Of course the end of snowdrop season is always a sad time, but at least there are plenty of distractions to ease the trauma. Actually as things come on so fast and furious it will be at least another month or two before the reality sinks in, and by then I can start digging a few bulbs and buying a few new ones, and dreaming of next season 😉

I might have added an Epimedium or two over the last few years. Shade tolerant, drought resistant, deer and rabbit resistant, nice all summer… I’ve been avoiding them for a while, but what’s the harm in adding another two or ten? This is ‘Purple something’ since I lost the tag and possibly didn’t write the name down anywhere…

As trees grow, this full sun garden is becoming shady in spots and I kind of like the early flush of spring bloomers.

Some dogtooth violets (Erythronium americanum) a friend gifted me a few years back. I was shocked to see them blooming this year, I thought for sure the cool speckled foliage would be all I’d ever get in this crappy, rooty, dry as a bone all summer, growing location.

From far enough away the somewhat-shaded part of the garden actually looks nice.

Shade is nice, but full sun is still something I treasure most. All kinds of bulbs are now filling in the beds and it’s awesome to see the return of color and growth, even if at times it seems to move along too fast.

The grape hyacinths are absolutely common, and somewhat weedy if not dead-headed, but the blue color is perfect and lasts a while.

For all the treasures I see in the garden, most of the people coming and going from this house don’t mention a thing about the garden. You can imagine my shock then when not one, but two people commented on the ‘pink tropical looking flower growing alongside the porch. Species peonies are nice enough but two people? Honestly I think they’re just messing with me, but when they immediately lost interest upon hearing the blooms only last a week or so, I knew they were authentically interested… even if it was only for a minute…

Peonia daurica by the front porch.

No one mentioned the dandelions, not even the fancy white Japanese version I’ve been pampering along in the front border. I wish it would seed around a little, that would surely draw more attention.

It’s a favorite of the rabbits at least. Taraxacum albidium must have a better flavor than the regular dandelions since I practically have to cage it to keep the bunnies off.

The daffodils might draw attention even if it’s never mentioned by anyone. I need more, and I need to move a few bunches back into full sun since they’re sulking in the shady spots I tucked them into. They’ll bounce back, but I was so proud of myself when I found all that room under the trees along the side of the yard. I guess there was a reason for the empty spaces since apparently nothing really wants to be there including the daffodils.

Narcissus ‘Bravoure’ front and center near the door. It’s very nice and refined and I can’t find a single fault other than I’m not so crazy about it. Maybe it’s too stiff. I really shouldn’t try and find faults.

Narcissus ‘Stella’ aka Kathy’s Sweetheart is not too stiff. She nods and sways and has joyfully twisted petals which fade from cream to white and I’m surprised how she’s grown on me. I was trying to be a show-daff kind of person but I guess I’m not.

This one just showed up. It doesn’t match anything which used to grow here yet I’m pretty sure it had a name at one time and I either never knew it or lost it. It’s a keeper though, I like how the color of the trumpet bleeds into the petals… something which I believe show-daff people frown upon…

Newer, fancier daffs which are not doing as well in the ‘terrace’ as I thought they would. It’s frightening to think how these should also be moved to a better spot.

I don’t remember ‘White Collar’ from last year, but this year he’s living up to the name and I definitely approve. Behind him is ‘Bronzewing’. Bronzewing is again amazing.

To be honest the shaded daffodils escaped the worst of the heat and are still somewhat nice when compared to the fried daffodils in the main beds. But what fries the daffodils grows the tulips, and from here on it’s the tulips which will shine.

Darwin tulips in the front border.

Years ago I took out the double tulips, but I must have missed one and over the years the one bulb has been clumping up nicely. I suspect it’s the tulip ‘Abba’.

Most of the tulips here come and go as I add new ones or accidentally dig up and then divide old ones, but the potager is filled with the tulips I intentionally dig and divide each summer. There are a couple hundred and although I planted them too thickly (entirely because I was too lazy to plant them properly), they still seem to be coming along nicely. There’s no room for lettuce or onions but by the weekend all I’ll care about is how amazing it looks.

More (mostly Darwin) tulips in the vegetable beds. Another warm day and the main show will start.

Honestly the tulip show is nothing when compared to the big shows where bed after bed is filled with a curated display of color echoes and blends, but I like it, and on a beautifully sunny day all the color is just a celebration of spring.

One day I’m telling my sister in law that this is one of the less-interesting, sloppy forms of tulip, and then two days later I think it’s one of the nicest in the garden. ‘Orange Emperor’ has a delicious color and I like the touch of green on a few of the blooms. Thanks Kimberley, I like it!

There is a little bit of a stink hanging over the display. The pear tree is covered in blooms and without a freeze in the forecast I’m anticipating a good deal of pears this summer. Fortunately this ‘Bartlett’ pear doesn’t seem to stink as much as the yucky stench of those Bradford pears planted all over the place. This one only comes on as a wiff here and there, the Bradfords stink up your whole car if you drive by with the windows open.

Plenty of pears to be.

While on the topic of flowering trees, the magnolias were amazing this year, but the heat pushed them over far too quickly. I’ll have to get photos next year of two new ones but for now the new standard magnolia ‘Ann’ is still putting on a great show. New flowers open for a while and the fruity fragrance always wins against the stink of a pear.

‘Ann’ will never be more than a small tree, and that’s a perfect size for this side of the yard.

The side of the yard where ‘Ann’ is planted is somewhat mucky in spring when runoff works its way down from the yard next door and the front of this house, and for a while the spring muck followed by summer drought rejected pretty much everything I planted here, but finally two plantings are doing well. Spring snowflakes (Leucojum vernum) and Snakeshead fritillaria (F. meleagris) rebel against good drainage and don’t mind sitting in water when water sits. Both are actually happy enough to seed around.

Fritillaria meleagris seedlings are blooming here and there below the magnolia and my plan is coming together perfectly except for the fact you don’t notice the purple flowers under the purple magnolia. Hmmm. But at least they’re happy 😉

Plenty of things don’t work out to plan here, and plenty more things don’t work out without a plan so miss-colored fritillaria are one more thing which needs moving but will probably stay put for decades. I’m fine with that. The thing or two which do work out keep me happy enough and for the next couple weeks I’ll be swimming in tulips and that’s more than plenty.

A mess of tulips

I hope your spring is also filled with plenty. Have a great weekend!

A Touch of Spring

Apr2

I took the dog out for a walk around the garden this morning and decided it’s still not shorts with a coffee weather, in spite of me trying. There’s a brisk wind blowing and with a temperature just above freezing I decided to give the thermometer a few more hours to warm up and instead cleaned the kitchen. I impressed myself, and now when my wife cleans up every other day I can bring this up as proof that I help… unlike the kids, who are still nearly useless for these things in spite of reports from work that they are quick and on top of things…

A new wave of early spring bulbs is awakening. Pink and purple corydalis, a few chiondoxa blooms, and a carpet of blue Scilla siberica. Each year I debate the ‘enthusiasm’ of the scilla, but it’s hard to think badly of so much blue in the garden.

Speaking of ‘quick and on top of things’, the gardener has been neither. Work is annoying and other than Wednesday afternoon, today is the first day he can get out there for anything. I’m sure someone will suggest he work on the next cabinet for the closet but maybe it’s too cold and windy for that. Sawdust blowing and swirling all through the garage is practically the definition of unsafe working conditions, and we’d be going backwards if some of that blows into the clean kitchen.

Fading snowdrops and the first peony sprouts. Neither cares that nightime lows can still drop well below freezing.

Maybe I’ll try and slap a few things together and then head out back with the shovel. Cold and windy is excellent digging weather and I still have a couple thousand tons of earth to move.

The spring snowflakes(Leucojum vernum) are up and trying to hold up to the battering wind. Someone mentioned that they don’t bloom long and now that’s all I think of when I see them, counting the days since they opened and questioning how many more days of bloom will be ‘long enough’.

What I should really do is divide and move a few billion snowdrops and stray seedlings. If I wait another year things might go beyond knowing who is who, and among snowdrop snobs having the wrong name with the wrong flower is akin to eating your salmon with a salad fork and we can’t have that.

I neglected to deadhead this batch of snowdrops (G.elwesii) last spring and will now have to deal with a sea of grass-like seedlings. Obviously they’re too precious to just weed out.

And now I’m hungry. I’m afraid to dirty the kitchen with a snack before anyone has the chance to admire it but am also pretty sure the empty bags of Easter candy will be a bigger deal, and no one will even acknowledge my hard work this morning. If you have coffee with your peanutbutter eggs it’s breakfast and people shouldn’t deny you breakfast when you’re cleaning the house for Palm Sunday.

Have a great week!

Cool

Mar14

I’m feeling a little guilty since I expected great things for this snowdrop season, but never expected it to go on forever. I’m apologizing. Sorry that every post for the past few months has mentioned ‘snow’-anything, and as the East coast gets a little winter weather, and parts of the West coast tunnel through to find front doors and buried cars, I’m also sorry that there’s no end in sight. I’ll try to be quick.

The view from the street is starting to hint at a snowdrop theme, and I think they’re ready for some more dividing and spreading around this spring for an even better show next year.

These photos were taken yesterday afternoon, and today we’re looking at about four inches of snow covering them, but the white stuff always melts quickly in March, even when a foot or two drops. Fortunately we don’t have that here… Sorry Eliza 😉

Finally a flower that’s not white. Crocus heuffelianus, ‘Tatra shades’ doing well but I bet a little dividing and spreading around (once they go dormant) would make for an even better show next year.

A light snow will highlight any new sprouts and flowers which stand out above the snowline, and surely mark them for decapitation by rabbits, but for a few days at least we were able to enjoy them. The rabbits probably figure out real quick that snowdrops are a yuck thing, but crocus are not, and once they find the first blooms they’ll spend the next night or two searching out every last flower in the yard. Good for them I guess. I do get annoyed when they keep coming back to eat every attempt the crocus make at growing foliage, since it will weaken next year’s show, but for the few days the crocus are in flower I don’t mind sharing… a little…

A white flower which is not a snowdrop (Galanthus). I love snowflakes (Leucojum vernum), and this form, which lacks nearly all the green of the normal tips, is even more special. I need to divide and spread around this and the clump behind so it bulks up quicker and puts on an even better show next year.

So that’s two flowers which are not snowdrops and I feel less sorry again, so back to normal!

Can you tell I never pruned that rose last year? Add that to the list. Also add dividing ‘Augustus’ to the list, he’s the drop in the front and with such nice foliage I think dividing and moving him around to a few new spots would make for an even better show next year.

Did you notice a few snowdrops behind ‘Augustus’? They’re all random patches of the giant snowdrop (Galanthus elwesii) and are quite a few more snowdrops than I need. It’s hard to plant new snowdrops when the spots are already filled with old snowdrops so I might have to address all the less-special clumps and their seedlings this summer. Seedlings. Don’t even get me started on seedlings. I have baby snowdrops coming up in all the wrong places, and even though every snowdrop is special your own babies are even more so which means they all need attention.

I’m guessing this is a seedling of ‘Blonde Inge’ because of the bright yellow inner petals, even though I’m not sure how a seed managed to travel the six feet between here and the mother clump. There are a few more scattered about but they lack the yellow and are just plain green. All of course should be divided and moved to spots of their own for an even better show next year.

Although it’s a good excuse, the gardener here isn’t using the on-again, off-again cool weather and snow as a reason to sit on the computer all day looking at daylily sales. He did already divide and move a few bunches of snowdrops to new locations. To be honest it amounted to about 25 minutes of work between vacuuming plaster dust and scooping ice cream, but it does fall into the work category so that’s a good thing. Take a trowel or small shovel, dig deep to avoid slicing through the deeper bulbs… which for some reason always happens anyway… tease a few bunches apart or take it down to single bulbs if you’re greedy, trowel out a new spot and shove them in at the same depth, give them a little drink to settle in. My gardener uses a water-soluble fertilizer like Miracle-Gro as the drink, but better gardeners with more ambition could work in soil amendments and organic fertilizers to start your new plantings off on a good footing.

The new stone wall will probably need rebuilding some day as a result of poor workmanship, but at least the results of the 20 minutes spent planting these snowdrops will last. I can’t wait to see them settle in for an even better show next year!

There’s snow on the ground, the year is barely off to a start, and I’m already obsessing about next year. Sounds about right. I hate to think what I would waste my time with if it weren’t for the garden, probably something silly like managing retirement investments, or monetizing a youtube channel or Ticktock feed. Who needs that, right?

Enjoy this flashback to winter, and may all your bids on your favorite daylily auction not win especially if you were counting on a lot to not win since that’s a bunch of daylilies even if you have a daylily farm to plant. Yeah 😉

The Turning of the Tides

Jan27

I had a nice surprise Tuesday morning on the way to work. The normally dark and gloomy ride was brightened up by something I haven’t seen in a while, a sunrise. To call it a sunrise is giving the event a bunch more credit than it deserves, but it was a pinkish glow spread across the edges of a smattering of clouds and was much nicer than the black abyss I’ve gotten used to over the last few weeks. It’s a hopeful moment. There will still be plenty a day before I can walk into work with an actual sun over the horizon, but until then a promising glow in the morning counts for a lot.

With or without morning sun, the first of the witch hazels (Hammamelis x ‘Pallida’) has opened up for a full-bloom show of color in the otherwise bleak landscape.

The promise of seeing daylight again on the ride to work is a nice affirmation that days really are getting longer and spring will someday be more than an idea. Nice isn’t always good though, since this week typically brings the very coldest days of the season, and getting all sentimental and hopeful weeks too early can be torture when a string of snowstorms rolls through from February to March. Actually it can get expensive as well. People get delusional about expanding vegetable gardens and starting viburnum collections and planting new cannas everywhere. People can also get judgmental toward delusional gardeners, and let me state clearly here that that’s not ok. You should never be judgmental about people just trying to make the world a better place, and that’s exactly what a February gardener is trying to do with their not-as-well-planned-as-they-could-be new plant decisions.

First blooms on a new little witch hazel. ‘Spanish Spider’ was a totally unplanned and perhaps unnecessary purchase which is proving itself invaluable and essential this week.

For now on I will consider midwinter purchases as brilliant, perhaps genius, foresight. Leave the bean-counting to accountants and go ahead and buy as many bean seeds as you think your ‘Year of the Bean’ needs. Tell the naysayers they’re the type who would drive unrecognized genius to cut off an ear, and unless they want to be part of the problem they should instead help choose a nice yellow Romano pole bean to go with the heirloom purple.

More pale yellow Eranthis hiemalis are hearing the call of spring…. or maybe winter… they are also called winter aconites after all.

So enough with the aimless babbling and back to the garden. We’re still running a good bit above average temperatures. Skiing is happening but the ice fishermen are still on the sidelines, and plants are still trying to start growing just a little too early.

Peony shoots always seem to come up too early. These Peonia daurica buds look awfully exposed but they’re really quite hardy. At least that’s one thing I won’t have to worry about.

Fingers crossed that the early sprouts mean an early spring, and not a disaster of melted and blackened tender foliage in a month or two’s time. A few things are still reeling from December’s blast.

The fall blooming snowdrops (G. elwesii ‘Barnes’ in this case) did not appreciate going from North Carolina to Newfoundland in 12 hours. I see new growth though, so I suspect all is not lost.

A Sternbergia lutea (autumn daffodil?) which might be worse than it looks. All the browned damage is right close to the bulb and the rest of the leaf might follow as the damage works its way down.

Another Sternbergia lutea just a few inches away, further out into the garden which should have been more exposed and therefore damaged, but no, it looks untouched. The narrower foliage could mean something, and it’s also from a different source. Maybe it’s just variations in the species, but who knows?

Some of the hardy cyclamen (C. hederifolium and C. coum) were blasted by the cold, but I know they’ll recover, and by the looks of these early buds there’s still a good chance for an excellent spring flowering.

Obviously I can’t leave off on a gardening report with a down note on snowdrops. They’re inching forward, and hopefully still pace themselves in spite of the continuous above average temperatures.

The double ‘Ophelia’ is moving right along and should make a great show in a few more weeks. Unlike some, I don’t think she’s ever been bothered by a later freeze.

A few snowdrops are always eager to get started. Some years it’s cold enough to hold them back to bloom alongside the later varieties, other years they pop up early, hopefully miss the worst weather, and the season is extended that many more weeks:)

‘Wendy’s Gold’ will bloom during the next nice day, I suspect Sunday or Monday… right before the possibility of two actual winter days… maybe…

So snowdrops are still good just in case you were worried, and by the way the winter garden is also still good even if winter hasn’t been as healthy as he should be.

Another year of seed cleaning and sorting is finished and now my little coffee table is all tidied up and set for the main round of seed sowing.

It’s all the usual suspects under the lights, plus a few pots of daylily seedlings for the farm. If all goes well this will become a deliciously overgrown mess again by May.

There’s always a few new things. Someone gave me a bromeliad (Neoregelia) last summer and after a billion hours of online bromeliad searching I can proudly say I still only have one and I also haven’t moved to the tropics to grow them better. Go me!

I wish I could say the same for succulents. Who knew 20 bucks on Etsy could get you a tiny box of 10 mixed Echeveria agavoides cuttings!!?? 20 more bucks can get a handful of lithop seedlings to show up at your doorstep!!

So not to brag, I think I’m handling the depths of winter quite well. Witch hazels on the way, snowdrops in bloom, and exciting things under the grow lights. I could get used to these non-winters… assuming the two days of cold next week don’t become a habit… but even if they do there’s still always those longer days, the stronger sun, and there’s only so much winter can do against that.

Have a great weekend!

A Week of Flowers-Day 3

Dec2

My mother’s family is all centered in Northern Germany in the city of Osnabrück, and my mom would tell stories of their summertime beach trips cross the border to the barrier islands off the coast of the Netherlands. It’s really not all that great a distance and to be honest if someday some genetic testing finds a bit of that Dutch-tulip-loving DNA in me I would not be surprised. To me tulips are nice. Obsessively nice, and if someone were to say to me ‘but they’re so much work’, I’d have to point out that my kids aren’t exactly a picnic, and if you’re looking at dollars I would guess one Christmas’ worth of either child’s presents is probably more than I’ve ever spent on tulips… Hmmm. Guess who just had that “what is Santa’s budget this year” discussion?

Tulips in the potager. They’re dug and dried for the summer and replanted in the fall after the tomatoes and peppers freeze off.

Let me just quickly add that in my garden we rarely have tulip-eating vermin such as deer, the rabbits are quite lazy (or full of other plants), and the tulips seem to just like the soil here, enough so that they usually perennialize even when not dug. I know that’s not the case for everyone so please let me enjoy this one success!

Darwin and Triumph tulips mixed into the front perennial border.

A garden filled with tulips and daffodils is one of the best announcements of spring’s arrival.

These are a few of the antique broken tulips of the earliest days of the Dutch tulip industry. I’m still trying to find a spot they like here, for me they’re not nearly as vigorous as the newer types.

Fortunately tulip season is followed by irises and peonies and clematis and a billion other amazing spring flowers. If that wasn’t the case I’d probably need medication and a few days in a dim room by myself in order to recover from the high.

Tomorrow will be a quick post. It’s hard to move on from tulips. Thanks Cathy for giving me the excuse to revisit one of my favorite times of the year, and if you’d also like to revisit more floralific seasons give Words and Herbs a visit for more of Cathy’s Week of Flowers

Bragging Again

May7

The weather has finally warmed up enough here to get things growing, and as usual it’s the tulips and daffodils which are my absolute favorites. They’re not at all subtle and I think that’s needed in order to distract from the raw construction of other parts of the garden.

The border along the street is looking good with a nice show of returning tulips. Some have been in place for over five years and are way overdue for dividing.

Tulips and daffodils are a weakness of mine and it may surprise some that I’ve been on a strict diet for the last two or three years and haven’t allowed myself to buy any new bulbs until I take better care of what’s here. Crowded clumps need dividing in order to show off best and in the case of tulips a string of late freezes and excessively damp springs have brought on some serious plagues of tulip fire botrytis. Fortunately it only takes a few nice flowers in order for me to completely ignore a thousand other issues!

‘Marit’ might be in the top five of favorite tulips. The colors, shape, and size are just amazing to my eye.

This year drier weather has also been helpful in keeping the botrytis down. Between that and some Neem oil spraying last spring things are looking much improved this spring. I’m also ruthlessly ripping out infected shoots and thinning the foliage on still overcrowded clumps. We will see what ‘thinning the foliage’ does to next year’s flowers since obviously the bulbs need the foliage to grow new bulbs, but a few less bulbs might not be the worst thing either.

I’m not sure you can tell that these tulips have been thinned. The one clump of orange was missed, but the others were all dug in late May(?) far earlier than they should have been, and immediately replanted after pulling off and tossing all the smaller bulbs. I’m hoping the show next spring is again solid with color.

I’m pretty sure only the gardener will notice if there are a ‘few less’ bulbs next year. Exponential growth means a hundred tulips can become three hundred in just a year, so better to revel in the luxury of me doing the thinning rather than disease or *gulp* deer or other vermin doing it for me. Thank goodness the deer still avoid my garden.

An overcrowded daffodil patch. Sadly this is a newer replant where I thought I was leaving room, but really wasn’t as I tried to pack too many bulbs into too small a bed…

At least deer don’t eat daffodils. Someday the backup plan might be daffodils and a fenced in potager if worse comes to worst.

An airy little ‘Firebird’.

I don’t know if anyone remembers but ‘The Purge’ took place two springs ago, and daffodils were downsized to just under 150 varieties and that still sounds generous, but I miss them.

‘Tahiti’ will never be downsized. Even as a double in a garden where doubles are under-appreciated, it’s a favorite.

A new bed of daffodils would likely help. I think it’s worth a shot at least 😉

‘Coral Light’ also made the cut and looks excellent with some room to show off. If only I could do more of this planting-with-reasonable-spacing thing I think I’d be alright and things would look much better.

Where would this bed go? Who knows but it would probably involve less lawn and that’s also a good thing… unless someone wants a badminton net strung up and doesn’t want to avoid jumping over daffodil clumps…

The bulbs of ‘Mrs R O Backhouse’ did not look great after the purge, and I was worried, but many of these older varieties bounce back quickly.

‘The Purge’ reached a highpoint two years ago during the potager rebuild, and a couple daffodil plantings had to make way for the construction of raised beds. Sadly since then I’ve found that I don’t like the way the daffodils look in the raised beds, so that’s a new space problem, and even worse I love growing tulips in the raised beds. The digging and replanting seems to really help with controlling the tulip fire botrytis and I can spend hours each week just going back and forth looking to see how much they’ve grown each day, and what new surprise has opened up. Sometimes I really have to wonder where they come from when it’s a flower I don’t remember ever planting or it’s one I haven’t seen in years!

I tried to keep two beds open for tomatoes, beans, and zucchini plantings this month. Next year all bets are off and the whole thing might be tulips.

Actually here’s a confession. Last fall I did add 10 new bulbs of ‘Shirley’ and ‘Pink Impression’, so this bulb diet I’m on isn’t all abstinence and cutting back. Maybe it should have been though, since both varieties were mislabeled.

This is not the tulip ‘Shirley’ but still nice, and for a clearance bulb I can’t complain. The real ‘Shirley’ has more of an inky purple stain that spreads down from the edges as the flower ages, and of course I still need to get that one again… and keep this one now…

A friend with excellent taste in tulips pulls hers each year after bloom and usually I say no thanks, but this year I already put in a save request. I’m also looking through bulb catalogs. I’m also excited about how fat and vigorous this year’s crop of bulbs should be. I fear ‘The Purge’ shall be followed by ‘The Splurge’ and tomatoes will end up in pots on the deck next year… and I’m 100% fine with that! -until someone else here overrules me 😉

The view from my in-potager seating area. When the sun shines and the flowers open wide there’s not much getting done around here.

Usually the saved bulbs end up as mixes since it’s (1) easier and (2) it’s easier. Plus the gardener always misses a bunch of bulbs when digging, stray bulbs get dropped and returned to the wrong box, and the gardener is a little disorganized in general. He tries though. A solid patch of his favorite is always worth marking and digging separately.

I think this streaked orange is ‘Beauty of Apeldoorn’ and I wouldn’t mind a solid bunch of it, as well as the yellow behind which might be ‘Big Smile’ which is plain and yellow, and I have plenty of yellow, but it’s also excellent and I love it.

Don’t worry, there’s a good chance none of that will ever happen. Just getting the bulbs dug will be work enough and trust me the gardener isn’t one to go out looking for extra work.

Most of the tulips here come from generic Darwin Hybrid mixes, and often they turn out to be something else, but I believe the large reddish orange with yellow edges is the Darwin hybrid ‘Apledoorn Elite’ and it makes up a big part of the mix.

I bet a few complementary perennials would also look nice, but all we’ve got is purple deadnettle and a few self-sown clumps of bleeding hearts. There’s much to be said for careful weeding.

One year bleeding heart seed somehow ended up in the compost and they came up all over. Works for me I said!

Enough with the tulips, just one last photo on how much they multiply. I came across this picture from two years ago of all the ones which were dug and saved during the potager upheaval.

The potager tulips all descend from these few saved bunches. A few of the reds were added later as leftovers from the planters out front, but the nerd in me sees the baby pictures of ‘Red Emperor’ and ‘Apledoorn Elite’ just waiting to go back into the ground and explode!

Ok, one last confession. I may have mentioned I did buy a few new daffodils last fall since I had been so good during ‘The Purge’ and made so many adult decisions about how many was enough and how many was too much. They were all one or two bulb purchases from either QDaffs or PHS daffs and were more meant to support small growers and importers, and entirely not because I really needed them… but that sham is now falling apart. I was either sent more bulbs than I ordered or the quality was so obscenely excellent that one bulb really amounted to three normal bulbs, and now there are enough and they’re so awesome that more would be even better. Oh the cruelty of it all.

An older variety, ‘Bernardino’ with a newer variety, ‘Hyperbole’ behind it. Both are outstanding.

Fortunately I haven’t clicked on any new orders. Actually I think it’s downright irresponsible to even allow us to order more daffs while it’s still peak season here, and I kind of feel like I’m being targeted for my weaknesses… but on second thought I may be just fine with that.

‘Red Passion’ in front with ‘Rocoza’ behind. To a daffodilista that’s what red looks like, just like peach is often called pink, but whatever, I always enjoy the enthusiasm of the plant-obsessed.

So we will see if anything new is ordered. I’m leaning towards responsibility and frugality, and more adult decisions which consider available space and appropriate choices, but when you come home from work on a Friday excited for the weekend only to find it’s raining inside the bathroom nearly as much as outside, your resolve weakens. Plus there’s always that gardening budget just bursting with revenue from the new plant tax. Construction is still as expensive as ever but when this genius decided to put a plant tax on all building costs it’s been a huge windfall for my plant budget. This must be how the big oil companies feel when gas prices surge and then stay there… except that’s also my money vanishing… and it’s surely not being spent on plants…

In any case have a great weekend. It’s still raining here (although the extra shower in the bathroom has stopped) but at least the rain has kept me from staring at flowers all morning. Enjoy!

Spring?

Apr27

Last Sunday was fantastic. There was sunshine and warmth, and coffee on the porch, and then here was a nice stroll to look at plants. Then there was more looking and some sitting and then a little more looking. I believe things were actually growing as I watched and that’s a nice change from the chilly standstill that the last few days have had us at… and the snow… but nearly all of that melted when the warmer weather rolled in. Eventually I even did a little work!

This spring has been good for the hellebores… except I probably have too many and I probably have even more seedlings coming along so I probably should open up a few new spots and not plant other things there since I’m opening them up for future hellebore seedlings…

I’ve been a little down on the garden due to gloomy weather and construction debris, but just a couple hours of short sleeve gardening with spring flowers opening had me flying high again. My weedy, disheveled potager with a few tulips close to opening had me imagining the grandeur of Keukenhof right here in my own backyard, but now the reality of another gloomy day has brought me back down to earth. I think it will be nice enough, but things could still use a bit of work here.

Anemone x lipsiensis is a cute little spring bloomer. I bought a little root the same year a friend gave me a piece and I assumed they’d be the same thing but they’re not. Now I need to decide if the smaller, paler clone on the left is different enough from the one on the right to bother separating.

I think a breakthrough was finally making a move on the poor little boxwood hedge which was upended when construction fill had to be shuttled from the foundation hole to the low spot in the back of the yard. My jelly ‘topsoil’ was squeezed to the side by the weight of the backhoe, and when it squished over it took the hedge with it. Part of me wanted to rip it out and rethink things but then the other part decided it would be worth digging out and straightening up. So… the hedge along the potager will be dug and returned to its upright position.

My sad and abused boxwood hedge. All winter it’s been nearly pushed over and I’ve been back and forth on what to do.

The hedge across from it is a different story. It’s also riding a wave of squishy topsoil and I think that wave is about to crash.

The even sadder and more abused neighboring boxwood hedge. Maybe it’s time to say goodbye.

Come to think of it I’m not all that happy with the swingset in the middle of the yard anymore either. The kids don’t use it all that much and when they do they’re not toddlers I need to keep an eye on, rather they’re teens who wouldn’t mind hiding with their friends somewhere off to the side. Hmmmm. And don’t even get me started on the trampoline.

Construction has not been kind to the pond. It’s a muddy mess which fills with runoff, but the waterlily is returning and I see duckweed bits floating about so all is not dead.

Maybe changes are afoot. It’s not surprising that poorly planned projects of five and ten years ago need updating, and the sad truth will be that their replacements will likely be just as hasty and poorly planned. Obviously I’m one of those people who needs to learn everything the hard way.

A pile of rocks might as well become a wall so as to not look so much like a pile of save-them-somewhere rocks.

Don’t think that my whole beautiful weekend was filled with the joys of stone moving and hedge lifting, there was also the fun moment when a small jackhammer showed up so that “if I wanted to start taking out the concrete patio section and digging out new basement stairs” I could. Lucky me!

Virginia bluebells (Mertensia virginica) can be floppy and messy and rapidly die down when the weather gets warm, but I’m determined to get a few settled into the garden.

So even when my day of rest was topped off with three hours of jack hammering and digging I still thought it was a fantastic weekend. The weather was beautiful and I even snuck in a quick hike and garden center run with the daughter. She got it into her head to trim Grandma’s spiral evergreens, pull weeds, and also wanted to plant a few flowers, so needless to say I was thrilled to hear her speaking my language and found the time to look at plants with her 😉

‘Jetfire’ is a nice little daffodil that looks all yellow most years… until a cold spring comes our way. Then the trumpet burns orange just like it likely does every year in more reliably dismal climates.

All this is still a lot of raw construction talk and torn up earth, so hopefully the next batch of photos will be more pleasing and flowerful. I think it will be. The daffodils are beginning and with tulips right behind them I’ll be thrilled, even if the sun is lost and gloomy weather returns. You can’t hold spring back forever.

This year the yellow trumpet daffodil ‘Tweety Bird’ holds the record for longest bloom. A full month after first opening, it still looks exceptional, and it doesn’t hurt that this small trumpet flower form might be my very favorite daffodil form.

‘High Society’ just barely missed the bulldozer blade. It’s such a highly regarded, good grower, and I can’t think of a single reason to justify my luke-warm opinion of this plant.

Hope the garden did well for you this weekend. I feel recharged and can’t wait to get back out there, especially if it’s heavier on the sit and look side than it is jack hammering and stone hauling 😉

Have a great week!

An End Before the Start

Mar27

Yesterday I made a point of getting outside for a few pictures before whatever happens happened. Those of you who’ve visited this blog ever probably know that this gardener has more than a passing fancy for snowdrops, and sadly this year the season has passed in a blur with other things and weather taking priority over the hope for idle days in the sunshine crawling from snowdrop clump to snowdrop clump. Instead I was out at night with a flashlight, out in the rain, or wind, or cold, and none of those scenarios make for good picture taking. It happens, it could be worse, and with several clumps disappearing or dwindling this year I guess it was as good a season as any to have fly by. Next year will be perfect I’m sure!

A grainy, just before dark photo of the ‘White Trash’ bed from about a week ago. Galanthus ‘flore peno’ and other “common”, “messy”, and “no special merit” snowdrops fill this bed, and it’s one of my favorite plantings.

We won’t dwell on the weather of course. If a gardener ever hopes to enjoy their snowdrops in this area they need to be prepared for a season which goes from an early spring thaw one week, to frigid temps and snow and ice the next, to overly warm shorts and T-shirt weather for five days, back to snow and a hard freeze. I can always stay inside, but the snowdrops can’t and sometimes end up a little beaten down.

A nice galanthus nivalis with just the tiniest green mark inside. Someday I hope to find an albino, but for now this one keeps me happy.

So here’s where the survivors are at. For you’re sake I’ll try to write less and photo more 😉

Galanthus ‘Cordelia’ a little sloppy yet hanging on and Cardamine quinquefolia just starting with its pink flowers. A few people have lodged complaints about the cardamine’s spreading ways but it looks like I’ll have to learn the hard way.

I can never speak poorly of big flowers on a non-floppy plant. ‘Imbolc’ is representing and hopefully hangs on for a while during our cold spell.

Galanthus ‘Erway’ has a nice paleness this spring which is fairly normal but not always this pronounced.

I think I show galanthus ‘Moortown’ each spring. He’s such a hefty brute.

My thoughts are always mixed on anything from sharlockii blood, but this one has turned out nice. A Belgium drop with lots of green and inner petals almost as long as the outers.

Please don’t even fall for my woe is me comments on this year’s season. Even a bad one is still better than the suffering my non-snowdropping neighbors are enduring. I see them washing cars and trying to liven up a dead yard with a few plastic Easter eggs and realize that my yard has been bursting with bulbs for the last month and more, and the garden year is already off to a good start. Missing the snowdrops is as much my own fault for not being independently wealthy as it is the cruel ups and down of the weather, and maybe a few less garden visits and ski trips would have also helped. I’ll try to work on that… maybe…

A doubled winter aconite (Eranthis ‘Gothenburg’) flowering for the first time after two other years of ‘no thanks’. Please don’t die now is my reply. In this garden new and hard to find winter aconites like to die the year after finally looking nice.

So now I have nothing to look forward to except hundreds of spring bulbs and sprouting perennials and wave after wave of new color every day! Sure there will be a few hiccups along the way, but still I can’t even imagine things being bad enough to make washing the car a decent alternative.

More bulbs popping up. The unspellable Scilla mischtschenkoana doesn’t ask for much but does fade quickly in anything warmer than sweater weather.

I don’t know how people manage self restraint around all the small ‘minor’ bulbs which could fill their gardens. I mean I do, but there are so many tempting crocus and bulb forming iris and corydalis that I really can’t judge anyone who ends up with a bed devoted to species tulips or spring blooming colchicums.

I vaguely remember these not blooming and me digging and dividing the clump. For a couple days they’ll be amazing and then the next great thing will roll along and I won’t even bother to dig out a label for an ID.

Even for someone who is the definition of restraint, things can build up. If I had any backbone whatsoever I’d mow down seedlings, dig bulblets, divide crowded clumps, and just toss the excess but I’m like one of those people who grew up poor and then for a lifetime can’t throw out a decent pair of shoes or nice cardboard box, or even throw out the last six Easter eggs even though you did manage to eat at least two dozen of the ones the kids dyed. Waste is a sin, and who wastes corydalis seedlings?

Hyacinths, corydalis, crocus, and winter aconite were never planted here. I wouldn’t even know where to start if I tried to return this to the original species peonies, single snowdrop, and Muscari azureum (both white and blue forms!)

Before I leave the subject of restraint, here’s a link to an International Rock Gardener article on >the many species and forms of winter aconite (Eranthis)<. I’m not tempted, but perhaps others will enjoy looking at all the different variations you can plant in addition to the not-common-at-all yellow.

I have no plans to show restraint towards witch hazels. They will be crowded and poorly grown but Hamamelis ‘Aphrodite’ needs more company.

I do need more spring snowflakes (Lecojum vernum). I consider them the messy big brother of snowdrops but they come in yellows and doubles and I’m forced to live with just the species form and that’s been making me sad. Not sad enough to go wash the car, but sad enough to wistfully search for other forms which exist but are separated from me by an ocean and at least seven time zones. I don’t think adding two or three new ones would count as a lack of restraint, it’s definitely more of a widening your horizons kind of thing.

The straight form of the spring snowflake (Leucojum vernum, not the summer snowflake L. aestivum, that’s different!).

Unlike most bulbs, Leucojum actually enjoy a poorly drained soil which doesn’t dry out and will suffer in a drier spot. Think riverbanks and wet meadows, and if you find a spot they like you might as well plant a few snake’s head fritallaries (F. meleagris) since they also like that same mucky kind of spot.

A nice pure white form I found a few years back. It’s a nice thing and nicely complements the “yellow tipped” ones behind them… if only they would stay yellow…

And again I’m going on too long. Let’s just photo along and get through hellebores and the current weather.

The first hellebores are starting. A couple nice yellow seedlings.

A surprise anemone form hellebore seedling. I was hoping for a double, but this might even be better.

Construction continues. Maybe today I’ll bundle up and try and dig out the snowflakes and hostas which probably won’t come up through the two feet of excavated fill, but then I’ll look at the rocks and dirt in the pond and feel guilty about not addressing that.

Yesterday it wasn’t raining and snowing too much (just like last Sunday which was the only other time I’ve been out during the day lately) so I spent a few hours scraping fill off the lawn and hoping that at least half the yard can be sort-of back to normal for the year. For what it’s worth “scraping fill off the lawn” means shoveling wheel barrow after wheel barrow of hard-packed rock and dirt and then trying to find the old turf underneath and then exposing enough with a rake so that it comes back to life. I suspect in another week or two it will be mostly smothered and dead so that’s why I’m trying now. In spite of the biting wind… and on again off again rain showers…. and frequent snow squalls….

The snow stopped melting and the light was fading, so the lawn is as good as it’s going to be.

I might not like it, but most of the garden doesn’t mind a little snow and sleet this time of year. We will see what happens tonight though. It’s supposed to be frigid again.

Back in the day I never even imagined I’d have bunches of hardy spring cyclamen here in the mountains of Pennsylvania but then they happened 🙂

I might look at the pond this afternoon. We will see. The winter garden might be a nicer option with its somewhat warm temperature and lack of an icy wind and gloomy skies. It’s a jungle and I need to trim it back which of course means cuttings since I can’t waste a single shoot. Obviously these will be cuttings I do not need.

A patriotic blend of geraniums, oxalis, and streptocarpella. The blue streptocarpella is much too large.

Cuttings galore and I think I should chop everything first and then see how much I can use afterwards. Right now I’m not sure if the water I throw on this thicket even hits the pots underneath.

The amaryllis have been nice. This is a seedling a friend gave me and I might need a big pot of it, even though it multiplies like a pair of miss-sexed hamsters.

I’m going to have way too many geranium cuttings. What to do, what to do…

…and the primrose seedlings have come along nicely. I can sit at my little table contemplating seed orders all the while enjoying the promise of spring and an occasional wiff of primula fragrance.

So that’s where things are at and I’m hoping for a few less-busy weeks to come. In the meantime thanks for sticking it out and if you’re relieved over the missing snowdrops don’t get your hopes up too much. Cooler weather means the season may stretch out the further north you go and I still haven’t ruled out northern snowdrop visits 😉

Have a great, restrained, week!

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Category Archives: spring bulbs