This has devolved into the best thread ever.
Seriously loved the Putin bed!
FIRST FLOWERS OF SPRING!!! Post your pics!! April Edition :)
Unfortunately I was not as informed on invasives before meeting Greenthumb, so there are several possibilities in the yard. The burning bush has provided many extras, and I was pulling up some of the vinca minor today to give the emerging hyacinths room to breathe.
Hope Speedy is making note of everyone's ideas for use at the garden center! Some presidential beds would give the customers something to talk about.
Now *that's* a garden bed, Ecnalg! :-)
I just discovered today that I have vinca minor growing under the old hydrangea bush on the side of my house. Fortunately it's a fairly confined area.
CatMint - "Fortunately it's a fairly confined area" is unfortunately a delusion with Vinca minor.
Haha...you guys are too much with all these different 'bed' ideas
Came home today to a bunch of things to take pictures of. I'm really digging that Muscari Latifolium in pic 3. Pic 1 is Jetfire Daffodil. I have no idea what type of tulip that is. It's part of the Peacock tulip mix from von bourgondien.
Wow, your muscari's blooming already! Is Muscari latifolium earlier blooming than M. armeniacum? Mine aren't close to blooming yet.
Maybe Seq uses electric blankets on his beds.
Ecnalg, is that bed in your yard? It's amazingly full of flowers. What a creative idea!
Unfortunately, it is not ours, Muddy. Anything that grows in full sun is likely not in this yard. I would like to get the headboard of an iron bed to use as a trellis or some other way as an accent.
More flowers are in bloom, and hopefully Greenthumb can get pictures tomorrow.
Cool two-tone Muscari, Sequoia.
Nice, Seq! I love the muscari. Danged squirrels managed to bury a couple of my muscari bulbs across the yard near the Right Rosebush Bed (shall I rename it the 'Queen Elizabeth Bed'?)--they're blooming now, along with the one purple crocus dragged from the front yard. :-o
LOL Greenthumb about the vinca! Fortunately it did not jump beds last season, but maybe I should pull it up and use the space for something I like better.
This muscari is in my micro climate xeric bed. The bed is tilted toward the south sun and full protected by all north winds. Everything in this bed blooms faster here than in other areas of the yard. The same muscari in the back yard aren't even close to blooming yet.
CanMint, you can "pull it up and use the space for something I (sic) like better" and change your mind in the future, letting the pieces you missed fill the bed back in. ;-)
Variegated vinca is the only one to have survived my full shade Death Bed next to the front door. It's barely hanging on and not spreading. I just need it to spread a *little* more and then stop.
I feel like all of the early, mid, and late spring bloomers are all about to bloom at the same time.
SSG - non-variegated vinca will do better....want some? :-)
SSG, you can stop by and get all the additional variegated vinca you want... I bet there's a ton of it under the leaves along the edge of that bed.
Haha, but I'm afraid of non-variegated vinca! It probably won't stop after spreading a little bit! LOL
Jill, the ones I have now actually came from you! What I got was this very pretty clump of vinca but what has survived is... not as pretty!
well, if you want more, you're welcome to it! I don't think it would take quite such a beating in a less cold winter.
I think you're right... early & mid season daffs are definitely blooming together,
SSG variegated vinca major benefits from the same treatment as liriope. Pull up all of its strands and trim off just as new growth is about to emerge from the main plant. Pin down one or two of the new stems as they grow where yo want a new plant to root. Annual cutting back helps 'containment'. Lol, one single stem I removed last year after several years of not trimming back was over 20 FEET long.
Had one customer who mounted containers of vinca major to the apartment patio just above hers and enjoyed a living shade screen from same all summer long!
My vinca minor has spread vry little in the 20 years I have had it. Maybe it can't compete with the other more invasives?!! Another of my customers annually plants and then pulls up an assortment of plastic and silk flowers and foliage that comprise his Mailbox Bed. Only the mailman and I know the truth.
Coleup, I see a lot of those fake flower landscapes around Baltimore. Thought it was a local thing.... ugh.
Although it does make me wonder why there aren't high quality fake flowers for outdoor use. Like the people who sell those clay orchids at the orchid show every year. People pay a huge premium for those orchids that REALLY do look real. What if people with true Black Thumbs could go out and buy fake petunias or salvias and "plant" them in their yards. I'd rather see that than empty garden beds of people who have just given up altogether, or the people who buy indoor fake flowers and put them outside.
*million dollar idea*
I'm pretty sure at some point in the future, you'll be able to buy a hologram plant. Sure would beat the pants off the other fakes.
One can only hope.
I'd still rather a real plant though but it would be good for the people who don't give a rat's patoot about their yards.
Oh yeah I'm sure everyone here would agree that a real plant is better, and that we don't garden just for the flower.
But for those who don't or can't grow things, I think there is a market for fake stuff.
My parents live in Phoenix and have fake flowers in pots on their patio. I think for them though, it reminds them of PA a little.
Green thumb it sounds like you have some feelings about vinca minor? ;-)
SSG you can stop by here for some as well!
Some blooms here and there....not all came out well enough..
1-donner's VA clustered Bluebells. haven't found the other clump yet.
2--My attempt to get a shot of the dark purple Helles... Karen did a better job.
3--The Purple Hellebore from the top.
Not much to show--as I cannot get decent macros of some blooms....
G.
I also have a good-sized clump of variegated Vinca major to offer to anyone
that would like to have it. You can cut it apart and get many clumps...
This was dug out of my ""doomed bed"....it has been growing there for a long time.
Still have to dig up a clump of wayward Tulips. Don't know how they got there...
This "doomed bed" is old! Who knows what has been resurrected in it?
Also showing you some shots of my neighbor Olga's bare Fig tree...a Skeleton!
--Vinca up for grabs
--Mystery Tulip--will dig up
--My neighbors bare Fig Tree
--An "elegant" branch growing way too low--waist high from the ground.
--Amazing--the Fig seems indestructible....a branch dies--and a new branch grows around it...
CatMint - I didn't plant the vinca, I married into it. I'm told that it was originally in one small area, but now it has spread hither and yon all over the property to locations hundreds of feet apart. Grows in the woods as well as in some of our sunnier areas, and walkways and driveways did not contain it. Slowly reclaiming areas as we expand plantings.
LOL Greenthumb--that's quite a treasure from the bridal dowry, huh? :-)
Not to mention the Russian/Autumn Olive, English Ivy, Burning Bush, Rose Of Sharon......
poor ecnalg and her misspent gardening youth with invasives!
the four stages of Vinca minor,= sleep, creep, leap, INSINUATE SELF INTO EVERY NOOK AND CRANNY. my gawd I am getting it from the neighbor, and then there's another patch, I don't know when it started, but it's gotten thick..
My vinca major variegated look really awful now.
Managed to get out with the camera this afternoon and snag a few shots;
Windflower, Anemone blanda 'Blue Shades' scattered here and there.
Daffodils
Mahonia with inconspicuous blooms which will become very ornamental clusters of blue berries.
Some of our Bloodroot. Two hours later the temperature had fallen and the flowers had closed. Can't wait for the large, distinctive leaves to unfurl.
Hyacinth 'Miss Saigon' is almost dressed and ready to strut her stuff.
Some more:
Bleeding Heart building steam.
Cut-leaf Toothwort now in bloom.
Jacob's Ladder mounding nicely already.
Some of our basic yellow Daffodils. These are one of our patches in the woods, helping to brighten up the early spring forest floor.
Pulmonaria, looking bedraggled but starting to loom in ernest.
It all looks lovely, Greenthumb!
Greenthumb, I think the Bloodroot looks lovely without leaves; there's nothing to distract from the flowers.
Greenthumb, is that 'my' baby Mahonia? I should get a picture of Mama. Normally we'd have a warm spell in February and it would start to bloom then. Let's see how my picture came out of my Anemone blanda today. There were about three dozen blooms- up from just a few last year, from cheapo on sale bulbs in fall of 2011.
I love the woodland look, Sally.
Great pictures, Sally. Ours are more spread out throughout a couple of beds, and I like the large cluster you have.
Too true about my misspent youth with invasives. Along with them, though, I did bring azaleas and that clump of daffodils from Connecticut.
My poor Endless Summer Hydrangea--the Endless Winter did it in--major!
Cut it back to pretty much close to the base---looking for signs of life (buds)
and then cutting above them. There were some, on some of the canes.
I saw a lot of totally new growth coming up from the very base---NOT on stems.
Seems it is re-generating itself...
Fertilized it with Holy Tone--and some old Acidifier--(to keep it blue) and
mulched it really well.
I KNOW for sure that in 2 years it will be just as big as it was. Maybe even sooner...
Now--I wait...........................and wait..................G.
What a gorgeous purple color, Sally!
Your anemones reminded me: I planted Anemone coronaria a few years ago, not A. blanda.
Not nearly as many came up the second year. How I wish they would be more invasive : )