Category: Spring

Looking Back on May Flowers

May is always remarkably busy in the garden. It goes from largely native spring ephemera to the big blowsy traditional flowers that people associate with old-fashioned gardens: roses, peonies, bleeding hearts and allium.

But before talking about those more traditional plants, perhaps in the next post or two, I would like to talk about Iris cristata. Today, the foliage is doing its ground cover duty, but at the beginning of the month, the Iris cristata were just leafed out and showing flower buds. Continue reading “Looking Back on May Flowers”

Bluebells Going to Seed

The bluebells have reached that awkward stage; the flowers are just about gone, but the plants haven’t keeled over. They are not at their most attractive, although from the street, they are back to being an amorphous blob of green instead of a haze of blue by the back fence. There are hostas and arrow-leaved asters among the bluebells, so that when the bluebells finally do keel over, they will be hidden. It’s a little hard to believe right now.

Bluebells going to seed. Photographed May 11, 2017.

Continue reading “Bluebells Going to Seed”

The Wild Ginger Is in Bloom

Back on April 8, I mentioned that the wild ginger had poked out. They’ve completely leafed out, and they have started blooming.

Wild ginger. An ant’s-eye view. Photograph taken May 3, 2017.

On the far left, you can see parts of maple-seed wings—one coming out into the foreground, and the other just partially in the frame, more or less at a level with the flower.

Herbaceous Changes

Things change so fast at this time of year. I’m going to arrange this post by plant, as these photographs were taken over a few days.

Tulipa tarda, a Species Tulip

I was puttering around Saturday morning and spotted these little tulip buds. I was certain it would be a couple of days before they opened.

Tulipa tarda on the morning of April 15, 2017.

Continue reading “Herbaceous Changes”

Showy Spring Bulbs

I love my little spring natives because they entice me out of the house, but I also love the more standard spring bulbs that you can see easily from the house. I just cannot bring myself to say “average”; spring flowers are our reward for enduring the dark and cold of winter.

Scilla

The original bulb was probably planted by squirrels, but it is one I had been wondering about putting in, so I left it where it came up. That one bulb has turned into a small patch just far enough away from the bluebells to foreshadow their blueness. They are both a remarkable blue.

Squirrel-planted scilla patch. It started as one plant. Photographed April 14, 2017.

They are in a spot that is remarkably shady most of the year—under the Annabelle hydrangeas and hemlock that are under the silver maple. It’s early enough in the season for them to get dappled sunlight. Continue reading “Showy Spring Bulbs”

Spring Ephemera Are Changing Rapidly

It’s been just a few chilly, rainy days since my previous post on spring ephemera, and the changes are dramatic. Yesterday brought wet snowflakes that melted on contact; I’m hoping that was our April snowstorm. We did not get the 1–3 inches that the meteorologist postulated, but the ground is quite soggy. There will be no plant rearranging this weekend. Revisiting the same plant species as in the previous post, I find bigger plants and lots of flower buds. Continue reading “Spring Ephemera Are Changing Rapidly”

Happy Spring!

It didn’t take long, and it didn’t take much warmth. Things are popping in the garden. Today’s topic is native spring ephemera; the hallmark of spring ephemera is that they come up early and then disappear completely sometime in the summer. They are also usually very small plants.

Virginia bluebells, Mertensia virginica, are an oddity size-wise: even freshly germinated seedlings are large; they bud in shades from bubblegum pink through mauve, get fairly big very fast, bloom prolifically in a beautiful clear blue, and then keel over. They need to be planted where something even bigger and more distracting will come up because they literally keel over and linger, yellowing, before dying.

A young Virginia bluebell budding up. I suspect it is a second-year plant. The new seedlings have just two leaves, and are 1–2 inches tall; there’s a seedling just peeking in the lower lefthand corner of the photograph.

Continue reading “Happy Spring!”

…and Snow in March

So why am I relieved? We had about 5 ½ inches of snow yesterday, which will protect the plants from the worst of the temperature swings. The bulb part of hardy spring bulbs will survive anything that erratic late winter weather can inflict on them (so far). The flowers may fizzle and sometimes the foliage looks roughed up, but the plants are fine the following year.

Daffodils, finally protected by snow.

The tips of the daffodils are mostly what’s visible today, although there are some leaf tips of dwarf irises poking out here and there. What else is under that snow? Continue reading “…and Snow in March”