Mostly Hyacinths Spring 2010

What's truly vile is that this is in JULY!!!

Growing annuals from seed around them helps too: avalanche white petunia in bloom, and seedling verbena bonariensis and nicotiana alata do a nice job.

Hey Donna that foliage is yellow enough I would be YANKING it! LOL

A sensible person would, but I'm a fretter.

As pretty as spring bubs are, I could never put up with a garden bed that had them and then nothing else. I like a lot of color and blooms in my garden.

NYR, I'm with you.

That said, I still don't have anywhere near the spring bulbs I would like to have in my garden. The problem is that they always have to be planted in the fall. By the fall most years I am so tired of all the work I have put in the garden that I only put in afew bulbs, not the big bunches that I had been thinking of when it was spring.

Donna Mack, I really love that photo with the petunias, etc. So pretty. I'm enjoying this part of the thread, because dealing with ugly bulb foliage is a real issue. I've planted all these daffodils and narcissus for the first time this year, and I'm not looking forward to the masses of dying foliage that are part of the package... Some of it may be somewhat disguised, but lots of the flowers are right out in the wide open spaces. Seeing your petunias is giving me new hope and resolve, to come up with ways to keep things from being too ugly later on.

I hear you Rita, but perhaps you could put in the kind of bulbs that are pretty, tough, start spreading after the first year, and have foliage that fades gracefully. And better yet, are planted quite shallowly. One of my favorites is chionodoxa, which comes in three slightly different blues, pink, and white. They are planted perhaps two inches down, seed readily, and look great. Here is chionodoxa alba. I plant the pink ones around my pink and white daffs. The idea was simultaneous bloom, but the chionodoxas bloom first - early April here. And they are not expensive.

Chris, interesting you post that your bloomtimes are about two weeks early, as mine are a week or two later than usual! Mine are just now coming into peak bloom. Here is "Gipsy Queen"

This message was edited Mar 16, 2010 6:14 AM

Nlaw - what a nice thing to say. The foliage thing is something we all struggle with. But I've found another great filler that can be started from seed - Feverfew Tetra Strain - double feverfew. Select Seeds and Johnny's Selected Seeds both have it. I was very surprised that I grew it as an annual, but it comes back every year. The foliage is nicey, and it blooms and blooms and blooms pretty much until frost here if you deadhead it. I'm not sure how it would work further south. It tends to both seed itself, and grow from the original plants - last season's are greening up here.

Great blender and mixer, too. Good morning Steve!

These three little guys have been blooming for four years now in my side bed

Your Gypsy Queen is gorgeous. The best part about the great displays you and Chris are showing us is that they are in real gardens. Lots of people claim that they don't like to plant hyacinths because they are too stiff and formal, but your gardens show that its possible (you make it look easy) to display them with grace.

Hi Donna!!! Thank you :-) I love your "Chionodoxa" as well! I need to try those - never have grown them.

I agree about hyaconths - they really add tremendous color long before tulips, and the fragrance is great as well. I don't know how anyone could not want them. I find they perennialize well also.

While I like individual colors, I also really like the look of them mixed together. They still bloom nicely after three or four years.

Wow, now that's something I've never done. Both you and Chris do these fabulous cool color mixes - blue and purple and pink and white - all colors I use extensively in my garden. It never occurred to me, but I'm starting to think I actually prefer them that way. And if you bunch them, the singles look fuller. I only grew doubles to get around the problem, but now I realize there is no problem to get around.

The great thing about chinos is that they are relatively cheap. Scheepers is a tremendous source. They offer pink, white, three blues and a violet (although I have read that the violets are relatively weak). 50 white ones for $11.00, 50 pink for a bit more, the blues for less. If you want an intense blue pop, go with sardensis, smaller than the other blues but a more intense blue with a white eye - 50 for $8.75. Sardensis I have in my peony beds next to white lilies for early season interest. And they are listed as being zones 3-8.

They really start to spread after year two. But they are very easy to pick up and move around, even in the spring - just moved some yesterday.

Those are all awesome photos and very nice to look at. Well done!!!!! Great mix of pink, blue, purple Steve. This winter I discovered how great pink, blue and purple look together. Sorry, this has nothing to do with bulbs, but here's a photo from last week showing that color combination, with other flowers, on the side of my house. This winter I discovered that I really like blue flowers. The surprising thing is that blue mixes well with just about every other color. It doesn't look quite right with lime green, and a little awkward with red. But , if you add white with the red you have red, white and blue and there's nothing wrong with a patriotic look.

Jon

I agree Jon, great pic. I'm expressing my bias here - my garden is blue, pink, purple and white. But I liven it up with splashes of red (I agree, you have to be careful about red and blue). From what I've read, a lot of people don't consider white to be a color but I love it and think it really pops. I really like buying the same plant in blue and or pink, purple and white and spreading it around the yard to unify it. And white is wonderful at night. Some white flowers have incredible scents. There's nothing I like more than coming home after a long day and taking a walk through a white flower lit garden with a glass of white wine.

DonnaMack, the Feverfew sounds like something I'd love to have. I like to use a lot of white, partly as a "unifier between areas where the other colors change gradually. Thanks for the tip!
NLaw

Everybody's pics are gorgeous, I love seeing them! I'm so ready for things to start opening up here! I got my first crocus bloom of the season today - they are always the first. No sign of the hyacinths yet though (except for grape hyacinth foliage that's been around all winter).

Steve, your pictures are inspiring me to add a LOT more hyacinths for next year.

Steve- They do look good in a jumble of mixed colors like that. Very nice pictures.

Thanks everyone - and lisa glad I could inspire you! Hyacinths are great and return pretty well too. And Rita, I know you mentioned somewhere you didn't plant many spring bulbs though I know you are really into the lilies - hoopefully all of everyone's posts here will inspire you to delve more into it!

Thanks Donna for the advice and suggestions on the bulbs - I buy from Scheepers every year and really like them, so I will see what they have and try some.

Jon, love the pic - that is a beautiful setting - what are the flowers in the foreground with the shiny leaves? Some type of hibiscus? I have a few of those in large pots I cart inside each year but not sure how well they'll do this year - they're not hardy outside so it is either bring them inside and hope they make it or lose them. That is one thing you can grow perennially that we cannot and the tropical varieties are so much more attractive IMO than the hardy hibiscus we grow in the ground here.

Steve and all -

I love spring bulbs and each fall I do plant some. This past fall planted 200 daffodils but I don't consider that a lot. I always have plans each spring to plant lots of bulbs in the fall but somehow each year, I am too tired by the never ending garden projects that go on all during the summer that by fall, I am too tired to get the bulbs that I had in mind. I really want to do better this year.

I would like to plant lots and lots of daffs and crocus, thousands if I could. Then also tulips and I would also like to add Dutch iris. I have daffs, tulips and crocus here and would like to have more, more more.

Thanks Steve. If you're referring to the pink/yellow/lime green flowers those are petunias that come from Italy. They are a new variety named "Sophistica Antique". There is some shiny foliage in the front/left side, but the flowers haven't started blloming quite yet. It's an Alstroemeria (Peruvian Lily) named "Freedom" and it has pink blooms.

I do collect the multi-colored hybrid tropical hibiscus and have between 50-60 of them. Some in pots and some in the ground. Steve, my parents over winter some tropical varieties in their house in NY State. They don't need much light to remain green inside during the winter. You could probably move yours back outside now, or wait until you're sure you will have no nights below 40 degrees. Most are ok as long as there isn't a frost, but some are a bit sensitive to temps even in the mid 30's. The key is to water them well prior to a cold night where it might dip into the 30's. That added moisture in the soil and plant protects it somewhat. It will probably take them 2 months to bloom again once you get them outside.

Here's one in my collection named Hibiscus "Nightfire".

Jon