That wasn’t smart 3.0

Dec7

Yesterday afternoon my Brent and Becky bulbs arrived….. did I mention I bought quite a few during their end of the season clearance sale? So knowing the weather report I was out in the dim light and freezing rain getting things into the ground before the snow and cold came. Bulbs go in quick when you’re wet and freezing, and I did pretty good although there was at least one shout from the house about catching pneumonia or what not…. I beat the snow by at least two hours 🙂 first snowfall on deck

That was a close call since the weatherman is predicting more snow tomorrow and lows around 7F (-14C) for next week, and things will surely freeze solid. Sensible people are finished for the year, unfortunately I have a stubborn streak and a history of stupid ideas put into action. Brent and Becky was sold out of the 50 snowdrop bulbs I ordered so they were missing from my shipment (such is the risk of a late season order). Instead of accepting my situation, I somehow ended up at Van Engelen’s website this morning and clicked OK to 200 more snowdrops (plus a couple hyacinth). Not the smartest move. Better check the potting soil supply 😉

Someone thinks it’s winter

Nov17

I feel like I hit the jackpot! It’s not often that I get all excited over a plant, but this one has me visiting it as often as I can (ok, so maybe I do get a little too excited about many plants, hence the creation of this blog, and the insulation it provides my friends and family from too much plant talk)

I think this snowdrop is a fall blooming version of one of my springtime favorites. I bought the bulbs a few weeks ago at my favorite local PA nursery, Perennial Point, and since they were lose bulbs I (of course) poked around in there to pick out the 10 absolute best (they were all in good shape). One bulb was already sprouting in the box and I knew I had to have that one. Even though the bulbs were labeled galanthus woronowii I had a suspicion they may be incorrectly labeled as are many snowdrops in cultivation. I’m sure more photos will follow once my camera returns from Florida, but for now this one off my phone will have to do in showing what I think is galanthus elwesii var. monostictus. That’s quite a mouthful, but it’s basically the regular giant snowdrop with just one green spot rather than the typical two. Also it’s a fall/early winter bloomer as opposed to the normal late winter g. elwesii. fall snowdrop

Nothing is guaranteed, but if you look at the label you’ll see I potted the bulbs up Nov 3, and while its potmates are barely breaking the surface this one is already in full bloom. I wonder what next year (assuming I don’t kill it) will bring 🙂 ! also I wonder what the other bulbs in the pot will turn out to be…

btw, the cyclamen coum is also way out of season, but I bet it’s more due to relief for having survived my neglect this summer than it is to any new and unusual genetic quirk. In any case my winter garden appears to be off to a great start!

Ho Hum

Nov3

Finally more rain has arrived. The grass that greened up when cooler temperatures came in was starting to brown again with only about half an inch over the last four weeks. I don’t like fall to begin with, and a dry fall makes me want to just sit inside. Dusty flower beds doesn’t make for good transplanting and bulb planting.

Other than the hardy cyclamen only the fall blooming crocus are enjoying the season. I bought these as crocus zonatus (now c kotschyanus?) and always thought they were a little under whelming until I saw a few pictures over at Cold Climate Gardening . Apparently fall crocus can be beautiful and not just a fall blooming curiosity (such as mine seem to be).

A little online poking around and I found that mine are a “somewhat weedy” species known for small blooms and seeding around. I can think of worse weeds, but I guess next fall I might have to reconsider my garden’s lack of decent fall crocus flowers and maybe do something about it!

In the meantime the rain and killing frosts (happened last week….) have re-inspired my garden motivation. I spent today cleaning out the dead summer vegetables and frosted summer annuals. Maybe I’ll find the time and energy to tackle spots like this poorly planted, weed infested hellebore patch.

Being outside and having a little moisture in the ground (it’s still bone dry ‘zuckersand’ a few inches down) have me feeling better. Maybe I do need to add a few tulips and such if the warm weather holds out….. I do have a few open spots in the vegetable patch now that the veggies are gone 😉

The cyclamen are back

Sep22

It’s raining this evening and I hope this finally takes us out of the summer long drought we’ve been limping through. The rain will hopefully soften the rock hard soil and usher in a nice gentle season of planting and transplanting. Somehow the cyclamen knew the calendar had turned to fall, in spite of the heat and drought they’ve been sprouting up amongst the dry, dead leaves and giving fresh hope for fall.

Nothing else grows in the dry shade of this weeping cherry, but the cyclamen don’t seem to mind. The cyclamen hederifolium normally come into bloom now, some years earlier, some later, but they always seem to know summer is winding down. Usually the flowers come up before the leaves even show, but I like it when the two appear at the same time.

The colors range from white to dark purple and this planting was really starting to look good until some kind of basketball/wagon/quad/bicycle incident at dusk.

There might be some recovery but right now most are crushed or have a ‘windswept’ look.

All of these are from seed. My introduction to these plants came from a friend who sent me a mixed packet to try out. I planted them in the fall and was amazed to see them sprout during the winter on a cold windowsill and start showing off their fancy little leaves…. until I killed most of them when I left the pot out during a hard freeze.

But gardeners are nothing if not resilient, so next fall I planted a whole new batch of seeds from Green Ice Nursery in the Netherlands. They were more than amazing. I grew them under lights in the cool of the basement, repotted them for the next year, put them out for the summer and even enjoyed some flowers that fall. Another winter indoors and I was starting to recover from the pain of killing off my first batch.

That summer I potted up the best looking ones into individual pots to really get the full effect. I could admire the individual plants and their cool leaves this way. (by the way, chicken grit -available at feed stores- makes the perfect pot topper for these guys)

A few really stood out. This one was a nicely colored, heavy bloomer that sent up plenty of foliage as a backdrop for the two toned flowers.

Things were going really well until it came time to move them in. I couldn’t find enough room for what was now about 80 pots in all kinds of sizes. So I crossed my fingers, dug them in for the winter in a sheltered spot, and hoped for the best.

While hope may spring eternal, its got to make it through winter first. Between January and August I again lost most of my little cyclamen, and as of today this is what remains. Maybe 15 of the original 80 plants still survive.

But never fear, any healthy new obsession involves overkill, and you can bet that even though I’ve lost so many there are also so many more coming along. Here are last winter’s new seedlings growing happily. They are courtesy the N. American Rock Gardens Society’s annual seed exchange. Members donate seeds in the fall and other members such as myself reap the rewards during the winter exchange. For a pittance to cover postage you can pick up all kinds of new and unusual plant seeds, many of which are just not available elsewhere.

Besides the exchange, there’s also the possibility I broke down last winter and ordered even more seeds from Green Ice. Jan Bravenboer of Green Ice must have a great eye for cyclamen, so many of his strains seem to be one in a million plants picked out from here and there across Europe. I had to get just a few more which are sprouting now, and I’m glad I did. Changes in the inspection policies of the EU have made the certificates on small orders such as mine way too expensive for honest buyers/sellers.

The seeds in themselves are cool too. When cyclamen blooms are pollinated, the flower stalk curls up and the growing seed pod is snuggled down into the mulch next to the plant. There they sit safely tucked in until the seeds ripen.

There are other cyclamen that overwinter just fine (when planted properly) in my zone 5/6ish garden. The patterned waterlily shaped leaves below belong to cyclamen coum, which is setting buds for Feb/March blooming, and the smaller silvery leaves bottom right belong to cyclamen purpurescens.

The summer blooming C. Purpurescens might be the hardiest of them all. I’m having a little trouble making it happy but I think once established it will settle into a zone 4 garden without trouble, and you can enjoy the leaves all year as they don’t die back like many of the other types.

I’m afraid I’ve gone on too long again. It’s Sunday morning and the rain is finished and the birds are all over the place. Time to head out there and check things out. I’ll bore you with many more cyclamen in the future, trust me.

Thinking of next year yet?

Sep15

I’m still in denial that summer is winding down. Every sunny day and higher temperature reading gives me hope the warmth is still holding on, but eventually I’ll need to come to terms with winter’s approach. My least favorite season is just about here and it’s time to shake off that summertime laziness and start making plans.

By least favorite season I mean fall. I dread the fall shutdown that plants go through and the first frost. Even the fall foliage looks to me like death warmed over. The best thing about fall is all the planting, and for hardy bulbs fall is the number one planting season. Although I was lost in tulips this spring, it’s daffodils that I really like, and in order to convince you to get more too I dredged up a couple pictures from the good old days of spring.

‘Accent “(1960- the year this daff was registered) is a great daffodil, it has a medium pink cup (corona) surrounded by pure white petals (perianth). The color is reliable, the plant is reliable, and it’s not too hard to find. I like fancy things too, but reliable fills a garden every spring with beautiful blooms, and in this next (over exposed) picture “accent” is paired with another great, reliable one (and one of my real favorites) “Tahiti”(1956).

There are thousands of named daffodils out there and thousands of ways to pick the best ones for your garden. Picking up a bag at the box store is fine and inexpensive and a good starting point but if you begin to get serious take a look at the Wister Award winners. It’s an American Daffodil Society award for outstanding garden daffodils and will give you a shopping list of the best daffodils for your garden.

Another good pink is “Pink Charm” (1977)

It’s a little newer than “accent” and only just a bit different with more white in the cup, but for two years I’ve been impressed with the opening color and then the later blend of pink fading to white in the center.

“Passionale”(1956) is a strong growing older pink. The flowers open with a yellowish tint to the cup which is common for these older varieties. In daffodils, pink is a relatively new color for breeders, and it’s been a long journey to separate the color and strengthen it to a ‘real’ pink color.

Daffodil breeders are always tinkering with their favorites but they generally fall into 13 divisions. To take a look at some of the fanciest and newest examples of each division click here. “Palmaries”(1973) falls into the split cup category. It’s frillier and flouncier than what I usually like, but it has been doing well in my garden.

“Newcomer”(1992) has the saturated darker pink of a newer introduction. It won’t be an easy daff to find but does show the long lasting pure colors of a modern daffodil.

“Sagitta”(2007) shows one of the newest combinations, yellow-pink. This one will likely be a very popular daffodil, so far it’s been a great grower, multiplier, and bloomer for me and I love it.

But there’s nothing wrong with a yellow trumpet daffodil. Since “King Alfred” was registered in 1899 new yellow daffodils continue to come out with stronger blooms, colors, and growth habits. The true King Alfred is tough to find today since years of slapping the name onto any yellow daffodil has muddied the water, but with so many solid yellows such as “Primeur”(1978), how can you go wrong?

My favorite group of daffodils are the cyclamineus types. Daffodils in this group all share the reflexed petals and long trumpets of the original narcissus cyclamineus species. “Peeping Tom” (1948) is on the top of my list, it’s an oldie but I love the long trumpet, wide flare and early bloom season.

Another one in this group that’s doing well for me is “Jetfire” (1966). It’s a good grower with a little orange in the trumpet (more so in cooler springs) but it’s a little stubbier and shorter than “Peeping Tom”.

If you can’t find “Peeping Tom” (I don’t see it in many catalogs any more) you could try out one of it’s children. “Wisley”(2004) comes from the seeds of a Peeping Tom cross. It’s new for me, but the flowers have a love-it or hate-it look that I’m still trying to figure out.

If you’re ever looking for daffodil info, Daff Seek pretty much has it all. It’s the searchable database of the American Daffodil Society and has photos and information on most registered daffodils…. plus interesting tidbits such as daffodil lineage and breeding info.

My latest color craze has been the yellow red combo. “Serola”(1986) is a great one that multiplies well, doesn’t fade in the sun, and is bright!

“Montego” (1968) has the same colors in a smaller rim of red. I might have gone overboard with this color range in the last few years but I really do like them.

If you’re unsure where to start with your own daffodil quest, but ready to move past the generic offerings, start with Brent and Becky’s. Even if you end up ordering elsewhere, they probably offer the best selection of good varieties and don’t carry the duds. Some of the best sources for bulk daffodils are Van Engelen and Colorblends. Just be careful, before you know it you’ll be looking up the specialists such as Mitsch’s and Cherry Creek and really killing your gardening budget.

Ok one more yellow-red. “Molten Lava” (1987) has slightly more subtle coloring, but still rich tones.

White never goes out of style and “Misty Glen” (1976) is a great daffodil in white. Over 40 other registered daffodils trace their roots to this variety and it’s won many awards. It’s one of the best daffodils.

If you still don’t feel the need to add more daffodils, here’s another try. The small cupped daffodils such as “excitement” (2001) also come in all kinds of color combos just like the big guys.

Beyond the big and little cups and the trumpets there are still thousands of “other” daffodils out there. They’re all just different expressions of the genus Narcissus. The name daffodil is just a common name most people apply to the bigger trumpet sorts but it works for all of them.

Some of the other types have unique traits that can be traced back to one of the original narcissus species. “Geranium” (pre 1930) is a reliable, hardy tazetta type which shows the clustered blooms and fragrance of this of this group. I might put this one on my top 10 best daffodil list, but with so many new types to distract me, I sometimes forget about the multiple award winners like Geranium.

Paperwhites are a well known member of the tazetta group, they’re just not hardy enough to grow up in this part of Pennsylvania. One that does suffer through is “Erlicheer” (pre 1951), it’s listed as a double but tazetta blood runs through it’s veins. The problem for me with Erlicheer is its early sprouting habit anytime there’s a break in winter temperatures. You can see how all the leaf tips have been burnt by cold snaps that came along after growth started. Too much cold combined with too active growth will eventually kill these. Sometimes erlicheer is sold as a “summer daffodil” because they don’t need the deep freeze of winter in order to bloom. You can plant them in the spring, have summer flowers, but they’ll be back to normal spring flowering the following year.

I never meant for this to be such a long post, but daffodils are so easy to grow…… and I admit I’m slightly addicted.

Here’s an example of one of the poeticus types. “Pentucket” (pre 1946) might be hard to find, but there are several look alikes out there. Poeticus daffodils (the Poet narcissus) have been grown since ancient times and are most likely the daffodil referenced in Greek poetry and myth. Today they are grown by the perfume industry for the narcissus oil they produce and apparently it’s one of the most popular fragrances…. oddly enough I don’t pick up much scent in these.

So plan ahead for spring and get some more daffodils in the ground! Even if it’s a dainty non-daff like “Baby Boomer” (pre 2008) they’re all equally easy to plant.

I find the easiest method to plant daffodils is to take out the big shovel, scoop out one or two shovel-fulls of dirt, dump the bulbs in, and cover. You don’t need to set the bulbs correctly (although I usually do put them pointy side up) and your regular soil should be fine without improvements, just get them in the ground!

Good luck, and I’d love to hear how your bulb ordering and planting is going:)

Camassia

May16

The garden here always goes through a bit of a slump once the tulips begin to fade. The iris haven’t kicked in yet and most of the late spring flowers aren’t doing a whole lot. Bleeding hearts, columbine, and oriental poppies would all probably help out, but camassia is what looks the best right now. I have two types, Camassia ‘Caerulea’ and ‘Blue Danube’. One is supposed to have a rich lavender color and the other a dark blue…. but I can’t tell a difference between them. One might be a few inches shorter but that could be soil or location or whatever.The yellow iris behind is ‘Elsa Sass’, a historic iris from 1939. It blooms early for me, but maybe that’s from being close to the house.

Camassias are a bulb native to Northwestern North America and while I grow them in regular garden soil, they’re supposed to tolerate wet soils and clay soils. Apparently they’re edible too, but I’ll pass for now. This is the other clump, Camassia ‘Caerulea’. I like both types well enough, blue is always welcome and they’ve never required any special care, but for me they don’t seem to bloom very long. Just over a week seems about average, I’d much rather they held out for at least two.

Just another day at the salt mines

May14

I can sorta relate to the people looking for low maintenance plants and landscaping. I for one love being outside, watching things grow, tending plants, dividing, staking, deadheading…. even weeding. About the only thing I really don’t care for is watering, so when it’s spring and I have a list of projects to work on and halfway through start to think it’s more trouble than it’s worth….. well it might be time to hit the lawnchair with a drink. In a sick way I sometimes look around at my fellow suburbanites and think their yards look just as good as mine, but then I remember it’s unlikely they have a couple dozen different iris coming along into bloom, and they probably don’t even have any more than one or two snowdrops. That helps my mood and I go through and finish the day with a smug grin, quite pleased with myself all over again.

The late tulips are still holding out, these (probably “Dordogne”) mixed in with all the others keep the patch colorful even after the rest are over. Unless Sunday’s high winds beat them silly, they should last another week.

I think what beats me down is the lawn maintenance. If you want to talk high maintenance a lawn is right there on top. Part of that is my fault, I’m stubborn and insist on using a corded electric mower instead of something bigger, stronger, and faster. It’s not the most manly mower, but from someone who’s always wandering the yard looking at his flowers….. well, the mower doesn’t help.

Something that’s mostly no-maintenance is fothergilla. It doesn’t need pruning, blooms with these nice white bottlebrush flowers, is presentable all summer, and come fall puts on a nice show of glowing reds, yellows and oranges. The blooms don’t last long for me, somewhere around two weeks, but that’s plenty. You miss it when it’s gone, which in my opinion is better than a plant that wears out its welcome.

Round around July the lawn starts wearing out its welcome. Mowing in the heat stinks and I look forward to the summer sun and drought sucking the green out of its blades. As long as I mow on the long side it just goes dormant, and the summer vacation from mowing is much welcomed, since mowing clearly cuts into pool time. But right now I need the flush of green clippings since they’re my number one mulch for the vegetable garden. I use them and some leftover chopped maple leaves to smother the grass and weeds that are buried in this new bed.Most of the weeds and grass will die, and hopefully by the time tomato planting weather rolls around (2 more weeks?) I can carefully dig down to soil level, plant the seedlings, top the bed with new clippings, and admire my avoidance of actually digging up this patch of hardpacked gravely “soil”.

Since I don’t have enough better things to do I actually transplanted some of the grass from the new bed into the former bed-turned-new-pathway (lower right of the picture). I’m a big sod mover. I hate waiting for grass seed to sprout. People will disagree, but I like grass paths through the garden. If you noticed, mine are edged with fancy pink marble sections. Some people have compared the look to “deep south cemetery”, but it’s the best use I could think of for the stone we pulled off the house front. Maybe it’s the second best…. we also have a pink marble compost bin.

In the orchard our new “Freedom” apple has even put out a few blossom clusters. I should of course nip them off so the tree has more energy to establish, but I don’t care. For all I know the tree could die tomorrow, so I’ll enjoy the blooms today.

Speaking of dying tomorrow, we have a frost predicted for tonight. I brought in a few succulents and four or five early summer plant purchases. The rest of the stuff is on its own. Planning for low maintenance gardening means not sweating the small stuff like late frosts. The cold weather veggie seedlings will tough it out (strong sun would damage them more than cool weather).

So we will see where the weather takes us. I figure if the tulips and iris don’t mind this afternoon’s snow, they shouldn’t mind a slight frost.

Snowdrops in the green

May11

Most bulbs are best moved around and transplanted after they’ve yellowed and died back. The bulbs are dug, dried and stored for a couple of weeks and then replanted again when the proper planting time rolls around. It’s a convenient way to handle them and most bulbous plants are designed to handle months of dry, hot, dormancy. Snowdrops are not. Most snowdrops don’t appreciate drying out, and to get around this quirk the practice of sending snowdrops “in the green” started. It’s a genteel way of saying you dug them up while growing and transplanted them that way.

My “in the green” snowdrops from The Temple Nursery arrived about a week and a half ago.

Snowdrops in the green are dug and sent shortly after bloom or even while still blooming. I planted them (almost) as soon as I got them and I can’t wait to see them grow and thrive in my garden. The bulbs look great and are carefully packed in damp sphagnum moss, wrapped in paper towels, hand labeled, bagged in plastic, and shipped priority mail. Everything about my order said that care was taken and attention was paid to all the details. Mr Hitch Lyman is the proprietor of The Temple Nursery and is well known for this old-school attention to details. The catalog is a carefully prepared list out of his own garden, and the list changes from year to year depending on what’s ready for dividing. There’s no internet presence, and correspondence is hand written. Based on how fresh my bulbs were I feel his “dug to order” description was entirely accurate.

I didn’t mean for this post to be a gushing waterfall of praise, but I guess I’m excited about my plants. There are a couple other sources for snowdrops, Brent and Becky sells them dry and is a good source, the three other “in the green” sources I’ve heard about are: Carolyn’s Shade Garden, Linden Hill Nursery, and Black Hog Farms (couldn’t find a web link… they might only do garden shows etc.). I also got a batch of dry bulbs from Van Engelen, and they were excellent.

If you want to give the Temple Nursery a try, send a catalog request to: The Temple Nursery, (Mr. Hitch Lyman), Box 591, Trumansburg, NY 14886. I’ve never heard anything official on this but I sent $4 with the request. Send it early. Not only do the snowdrops sell out fast but the catalogs are also limited, so send it out soon!

Tulip Time!

May9

There must be some Dutch in me because I’m a little wacky about tulips. Not real bad, I don’t collect every kind and have them all over the place (my criteria for plant wackiness), but I’m always adding a few new ones…. and then I feel some kind of urge to tend them and multiply them and replant them. It should end once this relatively new garden starts to fill up, but for now I can indulge that inner Dutch.

The rain and cold kept them shut for a while, but even then they looked nice (these are pictures from early last week). Four years ago I bought this blend on clearance as a generic “darwin mix”… it was nearly all orange, so I threw in a couple pinks just beacause I had them.

The “sweatheart” tulips were new this year, don’t know why I bought a lemon meringue colored tulip when I have so many daffodils in similar colors…..

Also new was the “Princely mix” from Van Engelen. Not sure what’s in it, but again…. on clearance… can’t beat this color for around$15. Plus I spread the other half of the box around the rest of the beds :)The random white peeling post is our attractive front light. The less you see of that the better.

“Pink Impression” (also new) is always a winner. I’ve bought it before but have gotten other, similar tulips instead. This looks to be the real thing and the flowers are huge!

Tulips will last much longer in cool weather, but when a warm sunny day finally hits (like we had last week) the flowers open wide and you know it’s finally full, head-on spring.

I just go around on days like this and get nothing done. It’s too tempting to just sit around, enjoy the sun and admire the season. Since the vegetable garden is the easiest place to plant out your excess tulips, that’s where most end up. I’ll regret this in a couple of weeks as I’m scratching my head looking for a spot to stick a tomato.

I don’t really cut too many for the house, most of the picking is done by the kids. A couple end up at grandma’s, some get planted in the mulch, many get pulled apart and thrown, and random neighbors often get deliveries in exchange for an ice pop or cookie.

Daddy sometimes gets a flower, but much of his time is spent protecting the double tulips, since they seem to be particularly attractive to flower collectors. The doubles have started to grow on me though. Ever since I bought this mix of early doubles called “magic carpet”, I’m finding an excuse to keep them around (even though the singles are still so much more graceful). To me the doubles look like huge fluffy wads of tissue paper…. but wow! that’s some fluff!

My favorites might be the ones just coming into bloom now. The late tulips seem to have the most subtle blends and nicest forms. If you ignore the color clashes in this planting and just look at the color and almost lily shape of these fruity colored “Temple of Beauty” tulips, I think you might like them a little too, even with the crappy camera focus.

Tulip season is a little past peak now with the earliest ones already going by. The pickers are still keeping busy and I’ll be busy too when I need to dig them all up out of the veggie garden. That’s a job for June though, May is for enjoying flowers.

Finally…. mulch is down

May7

It might take normal people a weekend to get their mulch spread, but I went for the one week plan. The biggest time drain was sprinkling the mulch down in between emerging clumps and working the wheel barrow back into a bed that was filled with soft sprouts. On top of that I was trying to stretch every mulch dollar by walking the fine line between too thin and too thick and trying to figure out just where exactly my limited mulch supply would go. Oh, and did I mention the allergies and sinus infection?

The newly renovated front bed got a nice top coat, showing off the mix of tulips I put in last fall. This is what a weak moment during Van Egelen’s fall clearance sale will get you. It’s the Scheeper’s mix, made up of all Scheeper hybrids. Not sure if the color is a good choice for in front of the orange brick….. but oh well, colors don’t clash in May 🙂

The mulch looks so neat and tidy, and it does look better than before when dirt was splashing everywhere and weeds were popping up by the thousands. Look how it sets off this “Isla Gold” Tansy.

The tansy is one of my favorites right now. I’ll be the first to admit I’m going through an I-need-everything-with yellow-foliage phase, but the lacy foliage, the fresh color, and the fact it keeps this color all season are just a couple reasons for my smitten-ness. Did I mention it even has little buttons of yellow blooms in late summer? I bet it would look great then with a blue salvia.

Right now I could pair it with polemonium reptans which is in bloom.

The polemonium comes from my parent’s house. The original planting was there when they first purchased the house over 40 years ago and has been going strong ever since, without dividing or anything. You could trim it back after blooming if you want but I never get around to it.

Probably about half the beds are now covered, but in order to complete the job I’m guessing it will take another load. Together the two loads will run about $660. That really kills my garden budget for the year, but mulch costs are easy to pass by the boss. I sometimes think that if our yard was just mulch beds, lawn expanses and a few rounded yews she’d be happy.

It’s May and tulips and daffodils are blooming all over the place. There’s more to do than time to do it but I need to post a few tulip pictures. They really rule the yard right now, and here’s a well mulched batch of “apricot impression” and some mixed lily flowered tulips. After the tulips fade this bed will hit a lull for a couple weeks, and I’m working on that, but usually hostas take over and a couple coleus find their way in. So it all works out well enough.

There are more tulip pictures. A lot more. I’ll be catching up on those next.

sorta like suburbia

more than you ever wanted to know about my garden

Category Archives: spring bulbs