FIRST FLOWERS MID MAY 2015

Cryptomeria Sekkan Sugi has new growth that's nearly white.

Japanese painted fern and Heuchera. I love this combo.

Dappled willow.

Arundo donax. Peppermint Stick.

Cornus alba.

SS--WOW! That dappled Wilow is so pretty!

Wow, I love that 'Batik' iris. I've never seen iris flowers like that before.

Gita, do you use peony hoops with yours?

Oops, cross posted. Thanks, Gita! I was worried because it took awhile for the white leaves to develop. I got it last year at Lowe's for a really good price (~$10, I think).

No hops! They are too small. My peonies are old, wide and big.

I use the tall folding fences--and, as the Peony stems grow, I try to pull
them inside the wire fencing for support.

I do not remember WHERE I got the Crazy Iris's. I know they were both
in a bag. Maybe Wall mart?
Glad to get the name of these. Have to go check ATP to see if the other one
was also ID'd. They are similar in color.

Also--the one I have been calling "Snow Cap"--was ID'd as "Stairway to Heaven"...
Cute name--very appropriate.

What a mind-boggling array of plants!

Holly, that little Azalea has spunk! Are you going to leave it there or transplant it?

Beautiful pics everyone.
Muddy, Think I will leave it and see what it does.

Hey Donner, I love your bouquets! I always cringe when Darcy asks me to cut some flowers to bring inside. I don't like bringing them in but to see yours, it's quite lovely. Gita, I can't believe your spiderwort is blooming already; mine isn't even close. And Muddy, I'm excited to see my M. bradburiana bloom. You're looks lovely :-)

Aster
Salvia Pratensis 'Madeline'
Nepeta 'Walker's Low'
Camassia
Geranium 'Ballerina'

This message was edited May 17, 2015 9:49 PM

Weigela 'Sonic Bloom' Red
Rhododendron 'Polar Nacht'
Rhododendron 'Catawbaniese Alba'

Bumble bee workin' the Bevan's
A sea of Geranium 'Bevan's Variety'
NOID columbine
Tiarella cordifolia 'Susquehanna'
Penstemon shmidel 'Red Riding Hood'

This message was edited May 17, 2015 9:51 PM

WOW, everybody!

I have first flowers on my new Azalea Nacoochee Princess. Light pink, very sweet. I think what I should do is make room for her between the two other deciduous azaleas, which means, she's now up-potted to wait for fall and some plant moving there.

Sally, that's exactly what was recommended for the decid azaleas you, Seq, Chantell and Critter got at the Swap from me! Up pot them until the fall or next year, and keep them close so can make sure they don't dry out!

Iris tectorem alba

close up of Monarda bradburiana

Mountain bluet

Clematis 'Snow Queen'

Clematis CF Young

"Wow everybody!" is right, my goodness!!

Gita, thank you for sharing that shot of the 4:O'Clock's seedling, that is SUPER helpful. I think I have seen those in my Big Bed, so now I know to leave them alone. =)

B E A U T E O U S to the Nth degree!!!!!!

Please don't be mad at me, BUT..... I took Jane, the missionary, who LOves plants and quilting to Longwood Gardens today. Not a planned thing, but, a hey let's do this today. One walkway was bordered on both sides with a mixture of columbines, large purple alliums, a tallish hyacinth-looking flower thinking it was camassia. Spectacular doesn't begin to describe it. NOW, I know why you all are excited about your columbines. The columbines were a good 2' tall. Mine have never looked like that. I am glad we got to see them today, because just down the walkway they were transitioning them out to replant with other things. Our hearts went flipflop when we came upon the workers ripping out beautiful plants.
I saw some throat wort for the first time. I Need to do some research on this. VERY interesting plant.
They are renovating and restoring the fountain area. It will reopen spring of 2017.
We are off again to visit a dear lady from the church who is recovering from a broken hip. She is 93.

Wow, sounds like fun Jan.

Don't they just reuse the plants next season when they take them out? I hope they don't throw them away...

Longwood Gardens is beautiful! I don't think I've been in the spring.

Jan, did you take any pictures while you were there?

Jan, I've never heard of "Throatwort" before, so of course I had to look it up. WOW that thing is pretty! Now I want one, of course. ;)

I looked it up, too. Just beautiful, Speedie you could plant it in your Zone 7 but not in my Zone 6.
Jan, what a nice day you must have had.
Here are a few blooms from my garden.

Beautiful, everybody!!

The Dappled willow is lovely. I saw quite a few of them in a neighborhood next to mine, but never knew what they were.

NoIdidnoti'msorry...she said sheepishly. Jane took some.

It looked like they were cleaning off the allium bulbs, etc and putting them in buckets. Couldn't really tell what they were doing with the columbines, but it looked like just a big pile.

I had never seen columbines en masse like that. I have a better appreciation for everyone's pretties.

I wonder how many greenhouses they have.

I'd love to find the compost pile where all those beautiful things might end up, nya ha ha. I remember going to some small historic place in VA once and finding a compost /garden trimmings heap...tempted to swipe iris..

Holly, that white and orange iris is nice!

I hope the white Siberian that I brought turns out correct. I am surprised by how much I still have, now that it is in bloom.

We were Sooo tempted to ask what happens, but, I think we were dumbstruck at what we were seeing.

Also saw a trailing spike moss I think it was. Very textural.

they're probably sick of gardeners giving them grief over tearing out plants!! lol

Speedie, did you say that with your pinky finger pointed to the corner of your mouth while petting a hairless cat?

Hehehe

I'm still trying to figure out the lighting for taking pictures and it gets so frustrating for me. The colors seem to get washed out and it always looks better in person. Hmphhhhhhh aggravating. I need to get in the habit of using the tripod too. You wouldn't believe how many I took that are blurry. Anyway, this spring the new tulip bed with 300 ADR tulips was spectacular, you should have seen it LOL.

Right now the cottage garden by the side entry is hitting its peak. The bearded iris 'Mary Frances' was the first to bloom and is still going strong. The Siberian Iris from a DG swap came along next, and the Peony 'Vivid Rose' is just starting.

Lookin' great Terri!! How do you keep the critters off all those lovely tulips?

Beautiful gardens, Aspen, and great pics... not a bit blurry ! :)

Yeah, I have to put in some peonies this year.

Thanks for sharing !

They looked especially beautiful in person. What you can't really appreciate is that there are 2 flowering trees that anchor the tulip bed, one I believe a weeping cherry and the other a redbud, and the colors in the trees and tulips worked so well together.

The last photo of Terri's is just a tease of what that iris area looks like. Amazing with the two kinds of iris, some baptesia and the peonies in the back. Worthy of a garden tour experience.

I sprayed the tulips with deer repellant and it worked - either that or the bed was so new they haven't seen that particular buffet yet lol. I was trying to time the tulips with the weeping cherry and the redbud. The first tulips started to bloom just as the weeping cherry was winding down. The redbud kept blooming though, so the whole thing sort of worked out how I planned. The redbud is a brand new baby and the weeping cherry is really mature, so it looks a little bit like David and Goliath. I went with mostly Darwin hybrid tulips, which are supposed to perennialize better than most, so I'm hoping next year the display will be back.

I'll try to get a good picture of the whole row of peonies with the La Brezza statue in a few days when they reach their peak. CAM, I picked the peony cultivar sight unseen just for the name in memory of my grandmother, but I couldn't have gotten any luckier with the fragrance on these.

Thanks for the compliments guys!

That peony is a really rich color, too. So you lucked out x 2. :) I definitely lean toward the dark reds... again, the memory of carrying the ones from my grandmother's garden in the memorial day parade sways me in that direction.

Just beautiful

I love that tulip bed! It's amazing that the deer didn't eat any of them.

I wish I could have seen your tulips in person, Terri!

I'm loving everyone's clematis pictures.

Seq, I thought it was so odd that your aster was blooming already, then I noticed flower buds on my Lady in Black aster. o_O I didn't realize they were summer-to-fall bloomers, not fall-only bloomers.

Did anyone else get Lady in Black? This is one of those plants that's truly fully-sun. I have a couple in part sun that are looking sad compared to the ones getting 8 hrs of sun.

N I C E combos.