Garden Report: March 3
Hey, it's spring here! Let's take a little walk around the garden and see what is in bloom!
Let's start here! Because I have no idea what this is! I mean, it's in a place where I planted some bulbs, but I thought what I planted there were mostly species tulips, which this is definitely not. Mysterious! It could also be a volunteer seedling of one of my many allium species, so it's not like this is definitely a mislabeled bulb.
In the back of the garden, the Edgeworthia chrysantha is in bloom, looking ridiculous. I kind of love this little tree, even if it is soooooo slow growing it is killing me. When it gets larger I will probably remove the buddleia behind it to make more room for it.
This is what the blooms look like close up. They're kind of cottony but stiff. I've never seen any local insects take any interest in them at all.
At the front of the garden, the crocuses are out. In the fall our friend Kate came over and helped me plant somewhere in the neighborhood of 500 crocus bulbs, and now that work is paying off.
I especially like these dark purple ones. They are not as easy to spot as the lighter ones, but the contrast between the orange stamens and the purple petals is very attractive.
This is a new bulb for me this year: Ornithogalum balansae. They really are supposed to come up on stems; I'm not sure what's going on with them. The information on them says that if they like a place, they will naturalize and be moderately invasive, which would be just fine where they are right up by the sidewalk.
In the same bed, these Tulipa turkestanica also seem to have forgotten how stems work. A little reading tells me that can be because of warm weather and no water, which would pretty much describe the winter this year.
The poppies out front have been blooming for quite a while. Alas, during the winter I end up leaving the house before daylight and coming back after sunset, so I've seen very little of them. Here's hoping the ones out back give a little bit of a show when these guys are done.
These are about to be freesias in the sidewalk beds. I planted a bunch of these because I just love the ones my neighbor has at this time every year. Hers are maybe 5 days ahead of mine; there are several swollen buds on each of her stems. But we're getting there.
Another spot in the sidewalk beds: in front is the pluot tree, first in bloom again this year, and I guess that's its thing. Behind it is a Salvia semiatrata in bloom, which has been sustaining our local hummingbirds all winter. Behind that in the rose hedge are some narcissus.
These look like Narcissus "Silver Chimes" though to be clear I'm not sure which of the three narcissus varieties I bought were actually planted here. By the time I got to this part of the garden I was running on empty and just shoving bulbs in anywhere.
They work just fine for me. This is part of my grand scheme to hide the pruned rose sticks by covering them with greenery: the leaves from the Amaryllis belladonna that make up the bulk of the concealment, and a row of taller spring bulbs planted in there as well.
Finally, as a record of when things bloom, we have the first open blossom on the apricot. Lots of little buds on there, too.
posted by ayse on 03/03/13