Here Comes the Sun

Mar10

What a beautiful weekend. A little windy, a little cold… actually if you went by the commentary which followed nearly everyone’s observation on me working outside you would say it was a frigid weekend… but it was perfect. I cleaned up the front yard, it looks amazing in my opinion but others do not like all the autumn leaves which mulch the street bed. Okay maybe it looks a bit messy and they could have been mulched a little more, but if that’s what’s distracting you after weeks of frozen soil and cold winds well then I can’t help you. Color is back and I’m ready to enjoy.

Some of the first snowdrop plantings here have matured nicely. This is a favorite spot along the front of the house and the shelter from the wind brings everything on a little earlier.

‘Straffan’ in front and ‘Brenda Troyle’ in back. Also a sheltered spot, right up against the porch. Normally ‘Straffan’ is a little later, but I guess this year everyone is anxious for spring.

The rabbits have been caught off guard and didn’t realize the first crocus (‘Tatra Shades’) are ready and waiting. They should find them by tomorrow.

Hamamelis ‘Barmstedt Gold’ is amazing this spring. I might need to collect even more witch hazels 🙂

The driveway soaks up the sun’s warmth and keeps this bed warm enough to bring on a full flush of snowdrops and winter aconite. Cyclamen coum are on the way as well!

The winter aconite in this bed are a mix of the straight species Eranthis hiemalis, plus pale yellow ‘Lightning’ (which is already starting to look tired), and the faded yellow of ‘Schwefelglanz’. I love them all.

The newer snowdrop plantings need to fight for their space. This Dryad Gold snowdrop was planted a little too close to the giant reed grass patch, and I’ll need an axe and a pick to free up the delicate little thing.

‘Bloomer’. I’m showing this just because none of them sold at the gala and it’s one of my absolute favorites. On the plus side I replanted the unsold ones as a second clump, and perhaps next year will be their year!

So that was a hit and run post. I don’t think anyone will miss me prattling on about all kinds of nonsense and I wanted to get these photos up before I take another twenty or two hundred tomorrow! Enjoy your week 🙂

A Weekend in Spring

Apr15

So I guess it’s officially spring in my neck of the woods. People were cutting grass, washing cars, and of course I was even busier than ever wandering around checking on the same plants again and again. Sunday was warm and between the first tour in the am and the last tour in the pm things had moved ahead more than you would think. Fortunately I was there to keep an eye on things 😉

Narcissus ‘Pistachio’ is one of my favorites with its glowingly pale yellow blooms on short, wind-steady stalks.

I did not wash the car in case you’re wondering, but in between garden wandering, I did have to endure track meets, ferry the child to some parties and then endure a Sunday morning college visit. Fortunately the visit was local and just a twenty minute drive, but between hearing tuition payment options and filing the taxes the night before it was a good thing the weather turned nice so I could escape to the garden…. until we had an April thunderstorm roll through… more rain was not what we needed.

‘Vulcan’ is a bright daffodil, even brighter with the cool temperatures of the previous week.

So I guess this post is bound to be as aimless as my weekend wanderings but with the weather turning warm the garden will move ahead rapidly, and these pictures from Friday evening will be stale old news if I dawdle any longer so here’s a post. I’m hoping I’m not the only one who falls behind this time of year?

The new colchicum bed is already nearly overwhelmed with colchicums and other things. I was a good boy for dividing and replanting, but now do I possibly have too many?

If you remember, last year things in this garden were focused on earth moving, and this year it’s the second step of the process, mainly making it look nice. The garden doesn’t always look nice, and often veers into the messy lane, and for this year that won’t fly. There is a girl turning sixteen and a boy graduating High School and both parties are planned to happen this summer and in this garden.

The last raw scars of earthmoving are beginning to fade with a new planting bed and new lawn coming up. I have until mid June to clean up the edges and pretty up the plantings.

I knew this was coming, so now with the date picked I have to focus on having something nice in the yard for the party days. Right now I’m envisioning yellowing and dying tulip and daffodil foliage, alongside weedy oxeye daisies and an overgrown meadow garden, and although that might be interesting I’m quite sure I shouldn’t mention it to the bosses. Somehow I have to dig all the tulips and get something nice into the beds all within a couple weeks, and no one seemed the tiniest bit flexible when I said that August would be a nicer time for a graduation party or maybe a sweet sixteen plus two months party.

The tulips are coming on fast, but this bed is showing a lot of the fungal infection called ‘tulip fire’ (spotty leaves and twisted growth). They are the same bulbs which are planted elsewhere but in this bed they’re suffering and I think I need to give the soil a break from tulips.

If worse comes to worse I’ll just chop the tulips and plant coleus everywhere. There’s always a backup plan but I’d be lost in August without a bunch of trays filled with curing tulip bulbs so hopefully the weather and work schedule can make it happen. Tulips are worth it. If you thought snowdrops were bad, prepare for tulips, but fortunately during tulip season there are a billion other things to do so this blogger can’t really go on like he does in March.

Mixed Darwin tulips in yet another ‘new’ bed. They were opening up by the end of Sunday and I’m anticipating a dazzling display by the end of the week.

Things may turn stressful. I’ve got a party to plant for and here I am questioning if I have too many colchicums or tulips or snowdrops and where would I grow more tulips if I clear them out of the potager to give the soil a rest, and why don’t I have too many or even enough daffodils and I wonder if I could grow those in the potager beds and dig them for summer and….

I think it’s just that time of year. There are so many plans and for a little while they haven’t been screwed up yet, and for at least another two or three more weeks I can imagine that it’s going to be a perfect season. Even if it isn’t though it’s still better than January, right?

Corydalis Solida

Apr2

There was a time when spring blooming bulb lists and catalogs wouldn’t show up until late summer. The obsessed would have orders in the mail before heading out to the beach again, but the more sensible would dillydally with other distractions until that first chilly afternoon got them thinking about planting up for the next season. It was a logical model. Most spring blooming bulbs are dug in the summer and who has the time to count bulbs, set prices, and send out a catalog when you have acres of tulips to dig? But times change, and these days the bulb merchants are perhaps willing to take a bit of a gamble on prices and harvests, and know gardeners are at their weakest now when the cold of winter is still fresh in our minds and a hillside of daffodils sounds like a good idea. It is a good idea! With things sprouting everywhere the gardener doesn’t even think twice about last November and all the mumbling about planting bulbs before the ground freezes and another daffodil hillside would be brilliant 😉

Not daffodils, but a range of Corydalis solida seedlings coming up in the front street border.

Maybe there’s no daffodil hill in your future, but don’t give up because of that. Take a browse through the ‘minor bulb’ section, or the ‘miscellaneous bulbs’ tab and realize that tiny bulbs are barely any work to plant and can sometimes make just as big a display. Corydalis solida comes to mind and this year they’re quite an excellent show as the cool (somewhat gloomy) weather is keeping them in flower and keeping their colors nearly as bright as the day they opened.

Corydalis solida squeezing in where they can amongst the snowdrop and winter aconite foliage. This bed is a free for all until the next thing sprouts up and takes over.

Back in the day this blogger made a better effort at providing somewhat useful information, but that day is not today so let me suggest this post from 2016 when I was still just dabbling in the corydalis world. The best moment for me in my 2016 flashback was my wonder at seeing the first seedlings and how they differed from the mother plants. Good times. I believe nearly everything in the garden now is a seedling, and the originals are all gone, so if you adhere to a strict color palette and mauve in your melon offends your vision I’d say skip corydalis.

A visit to 2016 also reminded me that there were just two pink and one white hyacinths in this patch, and just a single bunch of pink corydalis solida. Old me was much neater.

Since we wandered into the recent past I guess some more lessons learned are that other minor bulbs also spread freely. I’m thinking the blue Scilla siberica in the last photo, and I’m wondering if I should evict it from other parts of the garden before it really mounts an invasion. Grape hyacinths (Muscari) can also spread more than you might like but are easier to deadhead… until you miss a batch…

Corydalis solida in one of the snowdrops beds. Obviously I just walk past this section when I’m wandering the garden with a homeless new plant in my hand, there’s not a single spot left for new things.

Well this post appears to be wandering off track as usual. I hope everyone enjoyed a nice Easter weekend and didn’t spend too much time looking at bulb catalogs whenever there was a lull in the family time, and I almost made it through this post without mentioning the weather or snowdrops.

One of the latest to bloom, Galanthus ‘Peardrop’ would be a keeper even if she flowered in the thick of the season, before all the others had faded and she’s the only drop left standing.

Oh weather. We’re about two or three weeks ahead of a normal season and there’s two or three inches of rain forecast for the next few days. Ugh. It better straighten out before all the daffs and tulips open is all I’ll add.

Have a great week 🙂

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!

The Give and Take

Apr15

So spring is here. Maybe not spring for non-gardeners, because I have yet to see the flipflops and tank tops come out, but for a couple hours Wednesday they could have and that’s promising. Of course we’re not out of the woods yet, but each day the light is longer, and each afternoon the sun shines stronger, and every day there’s something new sprouting up in the garden.

My favorite patch of Corydalis solida. They started as named forms, but with seedlings popping up all over I’m less and less confident and less concerned each spring as to who is who.

The last two afternoons have been warm enough to almost feel hot (up to 78F Wednesday) and that can be a shock three days after snowflurries were flying, but so far the plants are taking it in stride. A few more days of this and things will all begin to fade and droop, but so far we’re not there, and so far the forecast looks promising for a return to digging and planting weather as opposed to porch sitting and iced beverages.

Being a little on the odd side, I always look forward to this very uninteresting patch of hyacinths flowering. They’re mostly seedlings of the bulbs I moved out a few years back, but I love the slight variations which have shown up from the original pink planting.

The rainy, colder weather in early April (without any more brutal arctic blasts) has made for an excellent hellebore season. I’m again telling myself I need more of them and have been out there counseling last year’s batch of seedlings to grow faster.

Some nice yellow seedling which hold their flowers outwards a little more. There’s a picotee seedling in there as well, which is nice, but it hangs its flowers much more.

There are some amazing newer forms of hellebores out there these days, and they’re so much easier to find than just a few years back. That doesn’t mean I’ve gotten my hands on them yet, but at least there’s a chance.

A plant of ‘Onyx Odyssey’ not being very showy but being very cool with its glowering attitude.

My biggest problem with new additions is convincing myself that a few older ones need to go. Sometimes it’s too easy to get attached to plants just because…

A nice springtime blend of colors on these seedlings. I don’t think there’s much hope they’ll ever be divided even though they should have been divided…

Ok, for the most part I don’t get too attached to plants, even the annoying ones which you fuss over for years and then they still don’t amount to much. Maybe if I keep telling myself that I can finally pull those washed out, muddy colored hellebores on the side of the garage.

Nothing muddy or washed out here. These are doubles from the Winter Gem series.

I won’t even bore you with the less exciting hellebores. They’re actually pretty nice, but when you need space you need space!

More seedlings. These qualify as ‘nice’.

Somewhere else in the garden is short on space and that’s the winter garden. A couple weeks ago I tossed all the succulents out from under the growlights and into the cold, as well as a few other things which don’t mind flirting with 32 degrees and a little frost. The amaryllis can handle a mild frost, and it’s about time they stopped overcrowding my indoor space.

It’s still about a month until our last frost date so I’ll be quite busy if another freeze rolls in, but a few flurries? a bitter wind? These plants will just have to get over it.

If worse comes to worst I’ll throw a sheet over them for a night or two, and if worst comes to tragedy it will free up a few pots and I just won’t tell anyone that I killed yet another batch of plants 😉

The cold frame, ahem ‘Sand Plunge’, did an excellent job last winter, and even my Sabal minor palm seedlings overwintered with just a few burnt leaf tips.

I wish I could say the garden, yard, and house have all emerged from construction projects as well as they’ve survived the winter. Progress is slow and our ‘guy’ is just a two person crew with other jobs always coming up.

The massive piles of soil are off about half the lawn, and I was able to dig up and rake off all the stones and fill which would have smothered the grass. You can see it’s a little yellow and lumpy, but at least I can roll a mower across and not throw up a rock every couple inches.

Sometimes the other jobs come up as little surprises here. Last fall just a small slice of the front garden had to be moved for the work to get started, and now last week just a little more ended up in the cross hairs. “We have to figure out what’s gong on with that sewer line” is how it all started.

A lot of dirt can come out of just two small, but really deep, holes.

“Wow that’s weird, the line has to be here somewhere”

Maybe you can make out the top of a ten foot ladder to the far left of this photo.

My only request was to be careful around the little weeping spruce, and since the excavator liked the small magnolia he tried to save that as well… but apparently bunches of tulips and daffodils, roses, iris, hellebores and clematis, do not make the ‘save’ list. Oh well. As I was watching the excavator rip up the quite hefty root ball of the rose ‘William Baffin’, and saw the teeth of the scoop slice through the iron roots of the giant reed grass I thought better him than I.

The next afternoon. More soil scraping, rock raking, wheelbarrowing, and lawn uncovering and it doesn’t look nearly as bad.

Hmmm. What can I replant there? I suspect enough things will come up that I really don’t have to even consider adding anything, but it might be good to get new plants just in case.

Actually my new budgeting theory calls for a plant tax on all major construction expenses. Kind of like a cost of doing business, and here’s how it works. $2,000 for a new bathroom vanity? A 5% plant tax means $100 bucks goes over to the gardening budget, and I think that’s a very reasonable rate. Between the new vanity and the sewer repairs I was able to visit three nurseries over the past week and added a bunch of plants I have neither the time nor space for. It was fun and I don’t even care if they don’t all get planted. It’s kind of like not finishing your dinner when you go out to eat I guess. Sure you paid for the side of fries, but why get all guilt ridden when they go cold and you just send them to the trash? At least unnecessary plants can be enjoyed on the driveway for a few months until they finally dry out one too many times 😉

It wouldn’t be the first time. Just enjoy spring, we’ve earned it!

The Night Before Spring

Apr22

This afternoon the cold front which has been sweeping across the country reached this end of Pennsylvania, and temperatures have been dropping since. Once again I’m wearing a long sleeve shirt and right now I’m considering wearing it to bed. The chilly thing got old real quick when the snow flurries started flying again.

Magnolia ‘Ann’ is a common and relatively cheap variety, and this afternoon it’s amazingly special and perfect and I’d still grow it even if every yard had one. I’m hoping tonight’s freeze doesn’t end this.

I’m 95% sure all the wisteria buds were fried by our last freeze, so this current one isn’t even cold enough to make me nervous. I was eyeing the tomato seedlings which sprouted on their own, and was thinking about using them for a big tomato sauce planting this summer but I guess tonight will decide how that ends up. A different gardener would have their seedings already growing indoors and nearly ready to plant out but this gardener is a little more go with the flow. He’s even too lazy to dig up a couple trowel-fulls to shelter in the garage, and in fact he thought a better use of time would be to browse daffodil offerings online and place orders. Hmmmm.

A few of the daffodils thinned and re-planted last summer, narcissus ‘Beersheba’ on the right and ‘not-Indian Maid’ on the left. How annoying that after years of growing, one online check and I find ‘Indian Maid’ is a supposed to be a multi-flowering jonquilla, and not a single bloom large cup….

I was sort of aggressive last year with bed building and daffodil thinning. I don’t regret it, but I do miss them all slouching around the back of the vegetable plot and moving on from the earlies to the lates, even if they did make me feel guilty for their neglected growing conditions. One plus to less tomatoes is that it opens a whole raised bed to fill with new daffodil varieties. So far I know there will be at least eight and of course planting season is still six months away so anything could happen.

Narcissus ‘Stella’ is a newer one for me, and I’m shocked by how much I love the old fashioned pre-1869 look of wavy petals and nodding blooms.

Even with a three year moratorium on new daff and tulip purchases, they trickle in anyway. Gifts, surprises, impulse buys, they slip across the border and I complain about where to put them, not having room, and whining about not giving the ones here already the care they deserve, but within a few years they settle in and make the garden a richer place. Sure there’s a point in caring for what I have, but honestly it’s been years, and if I was really serious about taking care of what I have…

Narcissus ‘High Society’ in the front beds. A well respected variety which just never thrilled me, and as ‘the cull’ continues I’ll need to re-home a bunch of these.

Part of my problem is (1)I like smaller clumps, and (2) I’m sloppy and always dropping a bulb or two in some spot where it takes off and forms yet another clump.

Don’t know how ‘Jetfire’ and ‘maybe Bravoure’ ended up here, but both are doing well in a spot I thought was too shady for nice daffodils. Actually the colors are stronger and fade less out of the sun, so maybe more of the orange and red cups here is a good plan?

Years ago I made the “mistake” of dumping a couple hundred moldy and rotten tulips on the compost pile, only to find them coming up all over the yard in every spot where a little compost was meant to help. Last year I was determined to not let a single daffodil repeat that fiasco. Extras and the unwanted were dug right after and during bloom, and after sitting out in the sun and rain in five gallon buckets I eventually dumped the stinky mess into black plastic bags which sat out in the 90F sun for another few weeks. Finally I dragged the bags behind the compost pile where various wild animals proceeded to rip through the plastic and root through the mess looking for all the tasty worms and maggots which were feeding on all the decay. Half rotted bulbs were scattered all over, and obviously these tortured and neglected bulbs thrown around and never planted grew just fine and even flowered this spring. Also somewhat obviously, many of the cared-for bulbs which were dried and stored and sorted somewhat properly, ended up molding or rotting. Sometimes I wonder why I bother.

Growing right where the skunk or raccoon left them, like an idiot I’m looking at these and thinking they’re so nice I should really plant them out and re-think tossing them. Every day I have to fight the urge to sabotage my grand ‘thinning the herd’ daffodil project…

Must. Stay. Strong.

‘Accent’ was divided a few years ago and is looking good.

I am liking how the divided bulbs are looking, and really need to keep going. Rather than review splayed and floppy clumps of crowded bulbs flattened by a windy day I’m enjoying sturdier plantings where the individual blooms can be appreciated more.

Daffodil ‘Firebird’

I’m serious though, I have to keep strong. Even bulbs divided just yesterday were actually last divided five or six years ago and it’s time to give them a little attention again. I feel bad being ruthless with such giving plants, but…

More clumps in need of thinning.

So that’s a pretty elaborate story to cover my latest daffodil purchase, and to be honest I’m pretty sure no one but myself would notice that there are any fewer flowers in the yard compared to last year. What they will notice though, and I’m sure share a few comments on is when they see me wandering around the yard in October with a concerned and confused look on my face and a couple bags of “even more” bulbs in my hands. I could get defensive, but I’ll just say you don’t even know my struggle. Tulips are still on a no-buy list and you can’t have too many tulips, even if they sprout up out of your compost.

‘Flaming Purissima’, a genetically streaked tulip, as opposed to the virus-streaked tulips of the past.

I’m possibly more excited about tulip season than I am about daffodils. A few antique ‘broken’ tulips slipped in while no one was looking and I’m anxious to see them bloom.

The virus which causes the streaked flowers of ‘broken’ tulips is also showing in the leaves. I didn’t think growing a virused tulip would bother me but it’s all I see when I do the rounds.

Tulip season will be awesome. I know this weather is just a blip in the spring arsenal but I do feel for the people suffering through serious snow and magnolia frying temperatures, and I hope they sail through it somewhat unscathed. Regardless tomorrow we start climbing back up into civilized temperatures and I’m sure we’ll be complaining about heat soon enough.

All the best!

A Bit of a Chill

Apr2

The low last night was 23F (-5C) and tonight promises more of the same, although possibly a little warmer… as if that matters… so I’m going to dwell on the warmer days from earlier this week. To the relief of many snowdrop season here has ended and we are hurtling forward through corydalis season but not yet fully into daffodil season. After the highs of the snowdrops it’s almost a lull, but then I looked at the photos. Not bad at all I thought, although a few more days of snowdrops would have been nicer.

‘Tweety Bird’ is my first daffodil to open making a ‘bold’ contrast to the pinks of the corydalis solida ‘Beth Evans’.

Weird how the sun and warmth melted the galanthus yet hasn’t really brought on much of the other stuff yet. I suspect it has something to do with the weeks of snow cover and some things growing up through the snow yet others waiting for the melt to happen first.

Scilla mischtschenkoana picks up right after the snowdrops finish, but even in a good year barely flowers for more than a week or two. One rough week of work sometimes means missing the whole thing!

It might sound like complaining when I lament how short a bloom season might seem but honestly I bore quickly, so this (with the exception of a quick snowdrop season) actually works in my favor. There’s always the excitement of a next wave approaching and as long as a hard freeze doesn’t ruin things… hmmmmm…. maybe I shouldn’t yet discount late hard freezes…

Pasque flower (Pulsatilla vulgaris) is one of the first perennials to bloom, right alongside the hellebores.

Pasque (Pulsatilla vulgaris, formerly Anemone pulsatilla) flowers are a full-sun perennial which I don’t think I’ve ever seen for sale on a nursery bench. Of course they flower too early for Mother’s Day and don’t last long, and in this age of “does it flower all summer?” the answer is no, and some people just don’t want to hear that. Actually many sensible gardeners aren’t crawling around their perennial beds yet, and the pasque flower’s early blooms pass perfection so quickly I don’t blame them for not bothering with this plant, but I of course love their fuzziness and optimism against cold and ice and always end up thrilled to see their blooms catching the springtime sun.

Same pasque flower, other side while a cloud passes.

I bet a few early, miniature daffodils in cooling lemon and white tones would be perfect alongside even more pasque flowers. Other species come in reds and pale yellows and whites, and they’re easy from freshly sown seed and… well I digress again.

Galanthus ‘Peardrop’ is one of the latest to bloom here.

Sorry for throwing in two last snowdrops. -I was doing so good!

‘Galadriel’ is an elegant beauty with a fitting name. I should move it to a more open spot where it can be a focal point… hahaha, as if any of those spots are still empty 😉

That’s it for snowdrops. I hope there’s something equally exciting on the horizon, and I think I have it here with this next sprout.

A plate-sized eruption of foliage means the cardoon (Cynara cardunculus) really is as hardy a sort as promised. Cardoons have always died away over winter here, so this is mega-exciting. I guarantee you’ll hear more about it in a month or two! (please ignore the sea of allium seedlings in the background)

Maybe the promise of a year filled with cardoon photographs wasn’t what you were hoping for, but at least I didn’t sneak in another snowdrop. Here. Corydalis are also not snowdrops, and after a few years here they’re also not as formally named as the latter.

Maybe Corydalis ‘George Baker’. The plant on the left looks rightish, but the other side of the clump looks a little different.

Honestly I can’t keep my corydalis straight. Besides being promiscuous they must somehow resent how I try to pamper named cultivars while overlooking equally attractive stray seedlings. Out of spite the $15 named corm disappears while a sea of seedlings comes up to surround the lonely label.

Last year the final named form in this bed opted out on renewing for another year. Maybe it was the weeds, but everyone else seems relatively happy.

I don’t mind. They come up, flower, seed, and are gone before I even think about the other perennials and annuals which share this same space later in the year. Maybe native plant purists and lovers of bare mulch beds will complain about weediness, but just come here I’d say, and I’ll show you some weeds you can complain about.

Ugh. One has even jumped across into the next bed. When I dig a few of the daffodils I’ll try and remember to weed out this corydalis.

I’d like to move a few of the nicest forms into a bed where they can clump up, but so far my clumsy attempts at moving them in bloom has caused more casualties than it has attractive corydalis plantings, but eventually I think I’ll get it.

Everyone here admires the corydalis. I’ve been informed this little guy lives under the porch and often comes out to sun himself on bits of trash while admiring the flowers. Word is he is really looking forward to meeting my friend Kimberley 🙂

So then this….

Magnolia are well known for how bravely they endure the ups and downs of early spring…

The weather started to “shift” yesterday.

Forsythia ‘Show Off’ which I planted next door. I’d show you mine but it appears the soil on my side of the property line produces more rabbaliscious growth and as a result it hasn’t broken the four inch mark because of its annual pruning.

And now for a few hellebores. I dug up a few as giveaways last week and have to say it’s a much nicer way to clear space for even more hellebores than sending them to the compost pile would be. It would be nice to think I’m “upgrading” but since the new ones are unflowered seedlings, who knows but at least it’s much more exciting to see something new next spring!

I think this was supposed to be ‘Pink Fizz’, a single pink, but sadly I ended up with this very un-single flower 😉

I have a little thing for growing hellebores from seed. A few get planted every fall, and eventually the pipeline is full enough that each spring there are new surprises from the years past.

I believe these were supposed to be a ‘slatey’ mix of seeds. Kind of average, and not really slate-ish, but still nice for a few springs.

Someone was too lazy to separate this pot of seedlings when planting. I like the effect!

I might have too many of these… a double pink hellebore, maybe ‘Nellie’ from seed I ordered 8 years ago from Australia. They’ve finally gotten some room and are looking great, but 6 plants of it!?

The hellebores will be fine with the cold. Most everything will be fine until it’s not, and even then it will likely recover for next year. *yes I’m talking about last year’s lost lily season*

A frozen peony (Paeonia daurica) this morning with other frozen stuff…. all recovered by 2pm.

I just noticed that the melting peony is back to almost normal. Maybe now it’s okay to take a stroll and see how everything else has made out, and briefly consider the wind and how likely it is that I’ll do any gardening today. I actually want to work out there, but with low 20’s tonight maybe I’ll wait one more day before transplanting a few little white bulbs around. They probably wouldn’t care either way, but choosing patience would make me feel a tiny bit better considering tonight’s cold will likely kill most of the flower buds on the wisteria (again).

Oh well. It’s always something and if worse comes to worse I know where the Easter chocolate is.

Have a great holiday weekend!

I Like Tulips :)

May8

There’s a freeze and awfully cold precipitation on the way, but the sun was out this morning and the tulips in the front border are at their peak. Whatever route the weather takes this Friday I think we’ll be ok… as long as I don’t think too long about all the fresh lily stalks and iris blooms that won’t easily shrug off real cold temperatures.

Out front the tulips are quite nice this year.

Whatever. I have a long established belief that protecting outdoor plants from outdoor weather is a lot of work, and I have an even longer established belief that more work=bad, so if you do that math for that one you can easily see that the plants here won’t be protected. Better to just enjoy the sun and admire tulips.

‘Marit’ is a favorite of mine. There are a lot of favorites, but right now she’s on top.

So I don’t know why the tulips do so well here. Obviously deer and other vermin aren’t a problem, but beyond that they last for years with little attention from me, and I hear it from many others that this is not typical for most gardeners.

Four years ago I planted the ‘Incendiary Mix’ from Van Engelen and they’re still going strong.

Most of the books would say this is probably not a good spot for tulips. The ground is heavy and thin, doesn’t drain well, and all kinds of other things grow over the tulips from June on. I think what they do like is the full sun and the compost and leaves which I (usually) mulch with in early spring. Also it’s fairly open and breezy which keeps moisture from sitting on the plants. The tulips do start to dwindle when they get overcrowded, but… well honestly they usually just end up dwindling… A better gardener would dig and divide when the foliage yellows, but who has time for that!? Plus a new bag of tulips in October really won’t break the bank.

Honestly. I deadheaded daffs and cut the grass, but only after I enjoyed the tulips and took pictures. Here’s the view from the mailbox.

All is not bliss in this tulip world. ‘Tulip fire’ is a fungal disease which is better or worse depending on how wet the spring is. It spots the foliage and scars the flowers, but from ten feet it’s easy enough to ignore. ‘Tulip breaking virus’ is also here, and it shows up as colorful streaks on a normally solid bloom. Three years after first noticing it I’m still hemming and hawing about pulling and tossing the infected bulbs, and as the years pass they still fascinate me too much to destroy.

Tulip breaking virus on a solid orange tulip. I can see why the red and yellow streaks could cause a mania.

Some tulips just carry the genetics for streaking. I’m not sure how one tells the difference, but according to the seller, ‘Spryng Break’ is a genetic sport and not virused, and last fall it was just what I needed to top off a bulk snowdrop order. Actually I didn’t need them at all. At 50 bulbs for $15 I just couldn’t resist.

‘Spryng Break’ fully open, flanking the front porch, and highlighting my beautiful little deadsedge .

I keep coming back to the tulips along the street though. In the backyard digging and moving have not done the tulips well, but out front they are excellent.

A driver actually slowed down the other day and when I looked up to see who it was they said they were just admiring the flowers. Lucky them, if it weren’t for social distancing I would have made them get out and take a tour.

The tulips this year are giving me bad thoughts. The raised bed construction in the potager is nearly complete, and I can’t imagine anyone wanting to use all those beds for just some vegetables that you could easily pick up at the farmer’s market…. without struggling for weeks to fight off bunnies and birds and bugs… so I’m thinking they would make nice tulips beds. Maybe. Just one. Or two. The tulips do need dividing after all.

…and Tulips

May11

The daffodil season was here and gone so quickly, I barely noticed. Hot winds wilted the mid season bloomers and singed any flowers just opening. It was all a little rude, but you’ll have that when you garden on a hilltop and the weather decides to finally heat up.

A few daffodils escaped the wind. Having too many helps in this regard.

Fortunately I have way too many bulbs coming along, so even if a few are less than perfect there’s still plenty more where that came from.

Narcissus ‘Conestoga’. You may notice the birch branches cut as holiday decorations last winter have found a new home as part of the parterre archway.

The daffodils were missed, but to be honest I wasn’t all that in to them this spring. They’re overcrowded and in need of digging and replanting and as I thought about it this week I decided many will find their way to the compost pile this summer. As long as we’re being honest here I may have even filled a wheelbarrow with a few hundred ‘less favorite’ bulbs yesterday in an effort to speed up the process.

As the daffodils fade the tulips take over.

I was pretty sure last year that the tulips around here were on their way out. Tulip Fire has hit the garden, and it’s not uncommon to find the spotted leaves and twisted stalks of bulbs affected by this fungus blight. Late freezes, hail damage, and a wet spring for two years running have helped spread the disease around the whole garden but this year’s turn to drier weather seems to have slowed the fire. I had my doubts last spring, but now I’m happy to say there are many more tulips surviving than I thought there would be 🙂

Although the heat brought the tulips on too fast and also fried many of the blooms, the color is still great. Don’t look too closely though, there are plenty of signs of Tulip Fire here as well.

I’m sure there’s a lesson to be learned here. Maybe I shouldn’t just plant any bulb I can find… maybe I should be more faithful to the ones I have… maybe I’m not a good person to look to for tulip advice, since all you’ll learn here is that playing around with too many tulip bulbs might just leave you with a disease.

I promised abstinence last summer, but by the time autumn rolled around there were again more tulips. Exotic parrots proved irresistible although these came up with a few fringed tulips mixed in.

Fortunately I have enough space to let these things run their course. Tulip Fire (Botrytis tulipae) is specific to tulips and shouldn’t bother anything else, and between thinning crowded clumps and removing overly infected leaves, maybe I can control it somewhat without resorting to chemicals.

Other parts of the garden still have plenty of the stray tulips which always seem to hitchhike in with the compost. The colors might be a mess but it makes me smile!

Enough about my problems. Out along the front border I didn’t expect much of a tulip show (given all of last summers rain) but to give in to a little bragging, I think they’re glorious. Not public garden glorious, but for me and my crappy soil, with all my weeds and mediocre budget, and lack of chemical support, I’m going to claim glorious 🙂

Even an ugly duckling which sprouted up out of a patch of shorter tulips can steal the show. It was supposed to be a ‘Pricess Irene’ mix…

I bought smaller packs of bulbs last fall from a new supplier and results have been mixed, but the year before that it was the ‘Incendiary mix’ from Van Engelen that earned a click on the proceed to checkout button. They were amazing last spring, but I think they’re even better this spring… who cares if the flowers are a little smaller…

Tulips in the front border. It’s perfect right now, the spring bulbs are up yet the weeds are still too small to notice.

Ok one more issue. I noticed a few of the solid orange tulips have ‘broken’. Broken color means the tulip has been infected with a tulip breaking virus which causes the color to streak. It’s the virus which brought on several of the most beautiful historical tulips ever, but it’s still a disease. I shouldn’t let them stay. For as pretty as it looks I don’t like the way it’s spread this year, and even if I don’t have a tulip growing livelihood to protect I think it’s time to do the right thing.

Orange tulips streaked with flames of yellow. It wasn’t there last year and is likely a tulip breaking virus.

All these problems are forgotten the minute I look at the next best thing. There are still late tulips on their way and I think they’ll be just as amazing… even if much fewer in number.

The twisted fat buds of the last of the tulips, the parrots.

We just had a “lively” thunderstorm barrel through and I wonder how the flowers made out with all the wind and rain. I’m hoping for the best but even if that’s not the case I noticed a few bearded iris nearly open. There’s always a next best thing at this time of year, but it still goes too fast.

Have a great weekend!

Corydalis… The next big thing

Apr2

How does such an awesome little spring blooming bulb (tuber if you want to get technical) fly under the radar for so long? Apparently a couple in-the-know gardeners have been growing these cool little spring bloomers for years, but I for one didn’t even know they existed until a few years ago. I believe I came across pictures via Ian Young’s bulb log (if you’ve never been, click here immediately to visit -it’s practically required reading for any bulb lovers out there) , and the impression was one which ate away at me until one fall I was finally able to get my dirty fingers on a few. Of course as my luck would have it these were promptly killed, but the following year a more determined try proved successful, and the next spring I was just as pleased as I thought I’d be when they bloomed.

One of the boldest reds, Corydalis “George Baker” blooms right alongside the blues of chiondoxa and Scilla siberica.

The Corydalis family is a large one with many highly collectible family members, but for me it’s the variations on Corydalis solida which excite me the most right now. This species ranges across Northern Europe into Asia and for the most part greyish mauves and blues dominate the color spectrum, but starting in the 1970’s and 80’s rich reds and purples began to find their way out of the woods and into the hands of collectors and growers. The Penza strain from Russia and the Prasil strain from Romania are the some of the best known groups for bold colors and many of the newest named varieties come from these collections.

A more common color of Corydalis solida, a smaller and slightly later flowering plant than the other Corydalis I grow.

As it is with many plants, once you get excited about one you get greedy and need more, so in addition to the “George Baker” and “Beth Evans” which were purchased from Brent and Becky’s bulbs, and the straight Corydalis solida from Van Engelen, I needed to add more. The blame for this shouldn’t lie entirely on my own shoulders though, since by now I had seen even more Corydalis glamour shots including the most enticing group shot which I found at Carolyn’s Shade Garden. Her tapestry of rich purple with pinks and reds would have to be imitated in my own garden and to that end I found Russell Stafford’s Odyssey bulbs.

The warm wine red of Corydalis ‘Rosula’, complemented by a nice underplanting of random weeds 😉

The new plantings from Odyssey were a mix of successes and failures and based on the excellent condition of the tubers, I’m going to guess the fault again lies with me. Even as recently as this spring one of the clumps failed to even show, and I suppose there’s something else going on which I don’t entirely understand… but ignorance is bliss, and I enjoy the remaining two cultivars more than ever now… even though the addition of a pure white or pink would have made the planting even more perfect!

A more common color but on a sturdier plant, Corydalis ‘Harkov’ scared me by nearly dying last spring after I optimistically dug it up for dividing. It wasn’t ready and it wasn’t pleased, and promptly dried up and went dormant.

I suppose I should try and make this a more useful post by mentioning something other than the many ways in which I’ve killed these plants. They’re actually fairly carefree in the right woodland conditions, and although I should suggest a fertile, moist shaded site, mine grow quite happily in sites I would consider downright dry, and in locations shaded only by the overhanging perennials and annuals of the front street border. I guess they don’t know any better.

Another thing I should mention is they bloom early and fade away quickly. Plant them in a spot where other goodies such as hostas and hellebores or rudbeckias and buddleia fill in for the summer. My best patch disappears under a carpet of aquilegia (columbine) and ‘Blue Cadet’ hosta two weeks after blooming, and you wouldn’t even know it was there in June, which is good, but you should definitely try to avoid forgetting they’re there and running a shovel through while digging.

Corydalis, hyacinths and hellebores filling in now that the snowdrops and eranthis have gone over. In another month columbine, delphinium, hostas and hellebore foliage will take over for the summer.

A final note is that for the first year or two in my garden I was convinced they couldn’t possibly be making seeds since they yellowed and died down so quickly after blooming. I’ve since found out I’m wrong. Seedlings are spreading quickly and this year I have a few of the first starting to put out their own blooms. I’m thrilled that they are as red as the parents, and even happier there’s some variety to them as well.

Some of the first Corydalis solida seedlings to make it to blooming size. One’s nearly as red as the mother clump of ‘George Baker’, the other’s a completely different dusky mauve.

So now the question is should I just enjoy what I have or should I keep trying to expand the flock? If I could only remember where I planted them (I think I may have finally spotted one or two this afternoon) I would be able to enjoy a few new ‘Purple Bird’ flowers this spring, but is that enough? It should be, but history shows little attention to common sense in this garden and I’m already well on my way to picking out just a few more indispensables. You really shouldn’t show too much restraint in spring, it goes completely against the spirit of the season and even when ordering bulbs for fall planting it’s still a celebration of the end of winter!

sorta like suburbia

more than you ever wanted to know about my garden

Tag Archives: spring flowers

Here Comes the Sun

A Weekend in Spring

Corydalis Solida

A Touch of Spring

The Give and Take

The Night Before Spring

A Bit of a Chill

I Like Tulips :)

…and Tulips

Corydalis… The next big thing