gardening: observing, planning, designing, and editing
There are three natives in this yard that develop good-sized seed collections, which start getting distributed in July: twinleaf, trillium, and false Solomon’s seal. These plants did very well setting fruit this spring, but the nonnative Solomon’s seals, which seem to like similar habitats, did not.
Twinleaf seedpods are very silly—eventually they split open at that manic smile of a seam, ready to dribble seeds nearby.
The previous post dealt with mostly traditional, old-fashioned flowers. This one will cover the native ephemera and Iris cristata, which is native to the US, but not to Michigan, although it thrives here. Oh, yes—and a tiny volunteer rose—I have no idea where it came from. Continue reading “Mostly Native Spring Ephemera”
May is the showiest month in my garden. A lot of flowers bloom, including many natives. Which one is my favorite? The one I am standing in front of at that moment.
Take Dutchman’s breeches, for example. It’s in the same family as bleeding hearts, but far more ephemeral. They started breaking ground the first week of April, were blooming by the beginning of May, and completely gone by the end of May. That’s just two months of the year aboveground.
Indeed. A friend asked me this when I sent her a photo of the newly popped flowers. There is something very peaceful about them.
I put in a few nursery-raised bare-root plants several years ago and now have a nice little group. They are a sturdy little plant as long as you leave them alone. These are under one of my pawpaws, far enough away from foot traffic to be safe, but not so far that they are hard to see.
They broke ground about a month ago…
…and about a month from now they will fade, but beautifully. Trillium flowers go pink before they depart.
What a gorgeous time of year. My eyes have been craving the bright, grassy, green of May in everything from lawn to ferns to rose foliage and new fig leaves. Here are some of my favorites.
The ostrich ferns are more or less full size, and a beautiful shade of green. Some of them have moved into the small gap between the top of the driveway and the big planter that sits there, making it easy to look down into them. Now that they are fully unfurled, the leaves make beautiful patterns.
The rue anemone have lost or hidden all their red pigment—the flowers are now white and the leaves are bright green. Rue anemone spreads happily and shares space well, especially with eastern columbines, which have similar-looking foliage. The occasional pop of red is pleasant. Continue reading “The Green of May”
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.
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.
