When does snow start for you?
Is it spring anywhere?
It's spring here. Viburnum carlesi.
Thats nice.
Arabis caucasica. The more I neglect it, the better it grows. It's spreading every year.
This message was edited May 9, 2010 8:37 PM
NYRita, yep, the first picture is cute and then they eat the top of the tulip buds off and nibble the lilies and I'm ready for rabbit stew!
Ge, that bear is magnificent! Sorry to put him ahead of the flowers, LOL! You have a great yard and beds! I love the Picasa. I need to download the program because I love the slideshow. What a time saver! I've never heard of a tree peony. It has strong growth! Show us a picture of it blooming, when it does.
Babette, you must be in the mountains. Show us some of your snow pictures! I'd love to see what your blooms too!
I'm hoping we're done with frosts and freezes. It was 42° when I got up this morning, but it's going to be cloudy, so a cool day. That's ok. The 80's were a bit hot!
My day is going fast, so I better get up and get something done.
Apple blooms
Gorgeous, Billy Porter!
Donna, I just missed you, LOL! I was going to say the same for yours! That color of white is so clean!
I'm off to get a walk in before the sun get up too far. I thought it was going to stay really cloudy, but it just brightened up.
Later all!
Hey Billy.
SIL gave DD the bear for xmiss 2 years ago.
I am an artsy fa-tsy so it was a bit of a pill to swallow.
I live with my DD and SIL .he is the sweetest man alive so I smiled and said I liked it.
In the 2 years it has grown on me. There will be poppies around it when the tulips aregone.
Its a feamale holding a cub.I wanted to see her in a field of flowers and it has worked out great.
Last years poppies
Now I know it's spring. No one around me has virginia bluebells, and I've always loved them. So for the last few years I've been developing a little microclimate and now I have...
Hey Tracey, what the heck is garlic mustard?? I wonder if I have that too, LOL?
Donna, love your bluebells. I have never seen leaves on them like that. I would say you definitely have a unique specimen there and very pretty.
Billyporter, love the tree and the rabbit :-) I have a picture of what I think is a hare because the ears on mine are much longer. Either way they're all still rats with cute tails, LOL
An GE, I for one think the bear is cool and I would bet no one else on DG has one like it!
I am in that "middle" bloom period - the only thing really holding down the fort are Dutch irises and the peonies are just starting for the most part. I do have some salvia starting to bloom. Has been raining here for several days and we finally got a break today. Lilies are really shooting up, though.
Looking forward to your lilies Steve.
Stevie,
I don't have it, but I remember Scott Kunst of Old House Gardens taking a group I was part of on a tour south of me in Illinois and pointing some out. I got the distinct impression it was a scourge in Michigan. It's a cool season biennial herb that outcompetes spring flowering plants like trillium and sanguinaria by producing thousands of seeds, and the seeds are viable for years. YUK!
The virginia bluebells are just a pebble's toss away from Burma Ruby, which has a ton of buds!
And ge, love your bear.
I'm looking forward to Steve's lilies too!
Everyone here looks forward to Steve's lilies :-))
Thanks all - they are rapidly towering up! Another two or three weeks and the blooms will start...
Ooops look what I found in the back yard in my new bed tonight....
Cheezus the dread Lollipop Asiatic. Its everywhere in my garden. I have to toss the bulbs in the trash the town pick up in order not to get them into the compost and spread them everywhere.
Thats how they got into parts of my garden in the firat place.
Lollipop is so sweet and cheerful Steve. And it means your lily season is starting :) Keep them coming....
Ge, the bears are right up my alley. Instant love!! Especially standing in flowers! The kids like to garden too? That's great! I love the shirley poppies. I have the double pink, and red. I used to pull the singles when they came up, but not any more. The pink is such a pure clean color.
Donna, we went to a conservation area and pilfered a few bluebells. They have popped up everywhere and I like every one of them :o) I had one bunch stay pink for a long time. The grandkids were sucking the honey from them and I asked how the pink tasted. The five year old said "Oh, it's a little sour. It's not ripe yet."
Steve, you got the rabbit right. They're cute and loveable till you grow up and have a garden and flowers! I still love a baby bunny tho :o) There will be plenty of them in a few weeks. I was weeding in the rock garden one year, grubbing around and all of a sudden a weed squealed and got out of the nest. He was too tiny, so I grabbed him and put him back. Adorable! It reminded me of the time our neighbors little dog found and brought a couple out of our pasture. They weren't too little. We got them from him and me and my sister put them in a box in our room. We would wake up in the middle of the night and see if they wanted any milk from our doll bottles. We did not know rabbits fed at night. They survived and we let them go. Boy, be glad for the rain. Our dirt is just wet if you dig down. The top is rock hard so a dandelion digger is a must. Nothing pulls very well! I love salvias! I also planted the common Hyssop. It reseeds very well, and it's a bee plant. I want bees! Lets see your dutch iris!
Donna, people wail over garlic mustard the way I wail over the wild garlic. The bulblets are so tiny there is no way to get all of it. I even exchanged the dirt when I planted the new bed. It still showed up. I keep plucking the onion like leaves off hoping to deplete it's food supply.
Steve, aren't lilies a powerful flower? I can't wait for them! Oohhh, I can't wait to see your peonies too. Look at them standing tall! Wow, those sneaked in! They're pretty!
Ge, seriously? They are a pest?
It's been cool and WINDY here. There was so much dirt in the air yesterday that I gave up and came in. I swear the gravel they put down is the dirtiest stuff I've ever seen. They started using it last year. We have a gravel road that leads into town and the grain trucks and semi's will bring it to the end of the block. Then the fertilizer company across the road put down new gravel. Yeah!
If we're lucky, rain might be here tomorrow.
Clove current bush
Oh happy day, the 2010 Lily season has officially opened! Way to go Steve.
BP, what exuberance! Your thread was fun to read. Wicked one - foraging for bluebells! Well, I can understand. Those and japanese primroses are some of my most coveted plants, and I create microclimates on the plains to grow them. I drive through woodsier, old treed sections of Lake Forest or Barrington and there they are, by the dozens - hundreds!
Ge, you must have incredible soil. No lily performs that way in my yard, although I have a bumper crop this year. Between thiram and minature daffodils and VolBlok, I have not lost a single lily this winter. There was a minor vole present in one spot near my Silk Roads and transplanted Silver Sunbursts, but no damage to the lilies. This is a FIRST. A rabbit lived in my yard most of the winter (no, it was not invited) but places normally ravaged were untouched. The only lily that ever came close to that was Artistic, and I discovered that I had a vole problem when dozens of artistics were reduced to tiny bulbils - they've never recovered.
Tracey, how are yours? You always have an amazing display - I suspect I'll see them other threads.
And Steve, thank you!
No rabbit danage?
Its the good karma from a life of virtue and chastity. Thats what I always chalk it up to.LOL
I have clay soil, ihave a black compost box but use more than we make so I buy compost in bags.
There isnt a hole I dig that doesnt get a plop of compost before the bulbs go in.
I also use Bulb Boost when planting and feed with BulbTone. No wonder the lilies are overweight.Just like me. lol
Well, I don't know about the virtue and chastity. Of course, I probably just don't remember my previous life!
Yes, I have clay too and I'm the compost queen around here. If not, the ground tends to harden. I was getting compost from the organic farm we have on site but I've started buying it too. Hauling it from Ace has become part of my weightlifting regimen.
Hey Stevie, I went into the garage to retrieve my potted Rococo (you advised me to leave it there) to find that it has huge sprouts! I had tucked it into a corner of the garage and given it a trace of water once a month and it has thrived.
And Tracey, I am thrilled to tell you that your delphinium has returned, is growing, and I can't wait to see it bloom. There are NO plants anything like it here. It joins the David Austin Rose Tess of the D'ubervilles and and digitalis grandiflora I got in trade. I will send pics when it blooms.
What an incredible time of year!
Does anyone know of or have photos of "Chill Out" I have Googled to no availe.
I'm liking it and have planted it with Shocking as well as Brandisi.White goes with everything.
Donna, I am so glad to hear "Rococo" is doing well. Will you be transplanting it into the garden?
Aww ge, ya can't hate Lolipop! I don't even remember buying it but somehow it made it there, LOL.
Billyporter, yes lilies are fantastic. Much of my encouragement for them early on came from magnolia (Tracey). Now I am an addict. And since then met other addicts like Moby, Donna, and Ticker in person, and then Rita, polly, Pard, leftwood, and more online. I love seeing lily addicts around the country and seeing what and how they grow. I am enjoying all of your blooms when mine have long since passed.
I will post some more pics tomorrow....I have a feeling lots will be opening up this weekend, especially peonies! Last year they opened up strongly in late April.
This message was edited Apr 23, 2010 8:09 PM
Ah, Steve, more of those stunning Dutch Iris. What a lovely shade of blue that one is.
Steve - absolutely. It's one of my weekend projects. It's going in front of Tess of the D'Ubervilles, near a digitalis grandiflora Pam gave me, and near Tracey's pink delphinium as I described above. I want it close to the house where I can see it every time I go out on the back deck. I will definitely send pics.
See, I'm getting into color. Tess is RED!
And Steve, can't wait to see the pics. I promise to reciprocate!
Donna, thanks, my exuberance could be described as being a chatterbox :o) Oh, I'm more wicked than you think :o) The ditches are full of flowers if you hit the right spot. Our first flower was Hesperis, taken from a homestead outside of town. I grew up next to the people who moved to town, from the farm. To this day there's a new color aster or garden phlox escape I need. I only take one. I love primroses and there are so many kinds! Wow, get THAT bunny to reproduce!
Ge, overweight lilies. I'm cracking up!
It looks like we all have the same compost problem. Never enough.
Donna, I like that weightlifting program.
Chill Out, like lemon and ice! Beautiful!
Steve, it is great to see the blooms of others when yours are done! I like that too! We get the same catalogs and the same listings all the time. Very little new. I did order trumpet lilies from Jung. They had to overwinter in the garden in a pot because I don't have a place ready for them yet. I got the 4 common ones. Yellow, pink, white and copper. But wait. There's a fifth! I think, and am very happy, to have gotten Anastasia!! Gorgeous Dutch Iris!!
Thanks for the tip on Chill Out. I have never had it. New to me this spring.
I couldn't get pictures to post the other day,but they are today.
Here's what I think is Anastasia. It smells good and is beautiful!!
Thanks, Billyporter! By the way I love your "Anastasia" as well as the gorgeous yellow ones (I am partial to yellow flowers).
Rita, yeah that blue is really cool so thank you. Somtimes the camera doesn't pick up the colors as we see them but that one is pretty close. I like the purple ones behind them too in this shot.
Donna, I am proud of you for getting into "colors" - LOL though I must say red is not my favorite color in flowers except for peonies and I love it in those. I tend to go for pinks, yellows, blues and purples. Though I have Crape Myrtles which are bright red.
I really love Dutch irises because they seriously bridge the season between spring bulbs (tulips, daffs, hyacinths) on one end and peonies and then lilies on the other. My Dutch irises bloomed about a week later than normal however due to our funky snow-ridden (for us) winter.I think we got 16-18" of snow here this year which is a lot for this area.
Peonies almost there - !!
And I see some lovely yellow dutch iris in back of the peonies.
Any pictures of Dutch Iris Steve?
Steve, the Dutch Iris are a different color than the Siberians, which are different than the different sizes of Iris. I love them all! I'm partial to the deep purple one you have and the siberian I have! The color is just electric!
To laugh at myself, I named my no ID Siberian Iris 9 Volt. Sounded so cool! Then someone said that isn't a nine volt battery a pretty small voltage? Yep, I was ROTFL at myself. I renamed it ''Lori'', for the person who gave it to me.
A few years ago, I didn't care for white. Then middle age hit and I found I like all colors now :o)
Those are going to be gorgeous Steve!! Mine are still tight balls, but the Fern Peony is popping open. I love the yellow iris back there!
Lori, formally known as 9 Volt
As a painter I can tell you its important to have white in a composition.
Go for it!1!
Steve,
I basically have pink (and variants like rose), blue, purple, white and splashes of red. (By the way, Rococo is in the ground and has exploded in two days). I particularly like purple, and things with a two tone effect. President Lincoln lilac (mildew free!)
How could I forget! I have tons of white. If a plant comes in pink, purple, blue and white, I always have the white version.
This message was edited Apr 26, 2010 4:43 PM
And cool pinks - I love growing the same plant in two colors and putting them together..
