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As I noted yesterday, it seems like such a relief that May is finally here and we can banish (most) thoughts of snow (and hard freezes) and concentrate on enjoying the rewards of Spring ...the bulbs are outdoing themselves so far this year and I feel like I can hardly keep up with them at this point, thus the "potpourri" format once again. Though I prefer the single focus on plants in most of my posts, that will come soon, because there are certain plants I definitely want to highlight, but for now, let's just enjoy the many colors now on display at Casa IVG.
Great weather in the high 60's is forecast for today (and no rain for a change!!!) and we plan to get a lot more of the clean up done and get some things in the ground, notably the entire flat of Snapdragons that Fernymoss brought home today after work! We also have a trip to Petco planned for Hanna (her favorite store!) and either today or Sunday we're going to hit our favorite garden center for more plants ... Tonight we vowed that we won't make any major purchases of plants without having gotten the previous ones in the ground first, so that means that we have to get 2 Serrano Pepper plants, some 'ginormous' Italian parsley and that flat of Snapdragons in the ground before we go bringing more things home with us ... we'll see how that works out!
So let's take today's tour ... these are some more of the many Grape Hyacinths we have planted around in the front boulder bed ... this little stand has multiplied nicely since they were planted several years ago (quite late as they were forgotten in the fall and I stuck these in the ground in December!). Though Grape Hyacinths aren't really Hyacinths at all, you can see two real ones in the background, the variety 'Peter Stuyvesant,' which is probably my favorite of all of them, and of course it has that lovely Hyacinth fragrance that perfumes the area, something we don't get from many of the spring bulbs. If you enlarge this photo, you can see the now withered remains of a few of the Species Tulip 'Persian Pearl' in the background as well. That's my only minor gripe with them, they only last a bit over a week, but they're so pretty while they do last!
Let's round the corner and enter the Woodland Garden area where the Daffodils are gradually winding down and take a look at some more Hyacinths ... this is another 'Peter Stuyvesant' along with the other variety we have planted, 'Jan de Bos.' For some reason a couple of the latter have disappeared this year (alas) unless they're just going to be up really late, but anyway, I really like the color of 'Jan' with its almost fuschia shade (though it's typically considered red). I love the combination of these bold colors with the Daffodils, but then, I've been known to appreciate rather "loud" colors once or twice in my life....
We were hopeful that our Darwin Tulips would finally recover somewhat after the disastrous last two springs that had late very cold spells after they had come up ... and though they're nowhere near as numerous as they once were (in 2006 there were about 300+ planted out front), at least they are making a comeback. This is one of the masses we have in the corner Boulder Bed and if you look closely you'll see a few Grape Hyacinths have survived as well (we lost a lot of those in 2007 and 2008 as well), so we'll just keep hoping for future improvement in these areas. I'll have more of these soon, once we can get some shots of them when they are actually open during the day (hopefully this weekend).
Here we have some newcomers to the Boulder Beds ... these are Fritillaria uva-vulpis, (aka, 'Fox's Grape') that were just planted last fall. Though they look similar to the Fritillaria michailovskii we have planted elsewhere, they are much taller (apparently they can reach over 12 inches at maturity) and the colors are a bit more muted, they do share the same sort of lampshade shaped blooms, and instead of single blooming, these little foxes of the garden often bear two or more flowers per stalk.
According to most sources I've read, Uva-vulpis also tends to naturalize much more readily than Michailovskii, so we are looking forward to seeing many more of these in future years. When they first emerge they look pretty insubstantial, much like a long blade of grass, but these have quickly matured over the last two weeks and are just now popping into bloom in various places, so you can probably expect to see (and hear more about) them again soon....
From the better late than never department ... we now have three Hellebores in bloom, two for the first time! Finally, our patience is paying off, and these tiny plants we put in way back in 2005 are starting to bloom for us. Since they were sold as a mix, I really have no idea what varieties they are, other than they belong to the "Royal Heritage" strains (which doesn't really tell one much). We're just happy to see them blooming! Though the plants have done pretty well over the past few years, only one has deigned to bloom for us until this year so this represents a bit of a milestone for this particular area of the Woodland Garden. And, as any garden blogger with Hellebores knows, they're not particularly easy flowers to get good shots of without literally getting down on the ground and looking up. Though they're beautiful flowers, they don't make it easy for us to appreciate that beauty, so hats off to Fernymoss for getting down and doing some "wet belly photography" to bring these to this humble blog....
Ok, I'll admit that this shot makes me feel a bit voyeuristic because my first impression was that I was invading the private space of this Hellebore bloom ... for some reason (maybe because I'm so immersed in iconic film imagery?) this reminded me of that famous picture of Marilyn Monroe with her skirt being blown upwards by a subway grate. Maybe I just have a dirty mind (heh, like I try to go looking up women's skirts!), this shot just seemed so overtly sexual that I had to include it in this post. Not that this is a prurient blog at all, but let's just remind ourselves that the whole reason that flowers bloom in the first place is to reproduce themselves, so we have to give them some (ahem) license in what they do! I do think that this is one of the more creative and stunning shots Fernymoss has gotten in a while, and hopefully we'll have even more Hellebore pictures soon....
Finally, I've gotten a few comments lately that I've been neglecting the "gratuitous puppy shots" in my posts, so we did some quick improvised "cuteness" shots tonight for this post. And just for Marnie, who remarked recently that she thought Hanna looked like such a calm dog when I had said that she was so often in motion that she was challenging to capture in still shots ... here she is running across the living room after having retrieved her favorite Kong. Though Hanna definitely knows when to be mellow (amazing for such a young pup), her usual mode is in motion and jumping and running. We love her all the more for that, and especially when she knows that it's inappropriate behavior and calms down. Once again, we thank our lucky stars that she chose to come and live with us and brighten our lives after our recent losses of Pepa and Rolly....
Make of this shot what you will ... though Hanna still doesn't spend all that much time on Pepa's old bed, she does take advantage of it on occasion, and here she seems to be enjoying some "loungy" time.... Hopefully, if the weather cooperates this weekend, we might be able to get some cuteness pictures of her outside this weekend, so stay tuned!
This is the same Hellebore I posted on June 21, though the photo was taken on May 12. So this has been blooming for almost two months! But it has changed dramatically over that time. (
You can see how it looked in early May here.) How many flowers can you think of that slowly morph from such a delicate pink as it was in May, to these definitely odd, but beautiful gradations of green in late June and early July? I'm hard pressed to think of many (if any) ... I know there are some other Hellebore growers who come by here, so please weigh in with your observations ... as I said previously, Hellebores are relatively recent additions to the Woodland Garden, so obviously our experience is limited with them at this point.
Actually we think it's pretty cool that it's bloomed for two months and shows no immediate signs of stopping, though the flowers do look a bit worse for wear, but definitely not ugly. But given all the wacky weather (flooding, then short term drought) it's had to put up with since May, it's downright amazing that it's still thriving! Our other Hellebores don't seem to want to bloom this year, but they're growing quite well and putting on some significant size (remember these were really wee ones when they were planted!), so maybe they'll do something when the weather's cooler in the fall or early winter. We're going to pay a lot closer attention to this plant for a while, to see what it does during the hotter parts of the summer now upon us, so if we have any more interesting results to post, you'll see them here.
I'm planning on finishing up that bit of the front boulder bed where I stopped on Sunday so I can finally put together that before/after post I've been planning. This week has been a hot and humid one, with substantial rains two nights this week, and more forecast for tomorrow night. If all goes as predicted, we'll only be in the low 80's Saturday and Sunday, so I can try to get a lot done out there! I have everything planned out in my head, I just need the energy and time to get to it ... I want my 4th of July weekend all over again! Then I could really get a lot of stuff accomplished ... yep, gardener's pipe dream.
Photos by Fernymoss, taken on June 24, 2008.
Editorial note: I've been sitting on this unfinished post since June 5, and it's kept getting delayed by the competition. Well, since a very work intensive couple of weeks are heading my way, I thought I should finally show off this little beauty before I find another reason to delay it!
These shots of one of our Hellebores (blooming for the first time in three years!), though a bit delayed, were taken on or about 12 May, 2008. Yeah, I'm way behind on this post, but so much has been going on in the garden, it just kept getting lower and lower on my 'draft' list! Sorry about that ....
Anyway, we've been working for several years t
o get about 6 Hellebores established and blooming in our Woodland Garden ... and, as I think a lot of mid-western gardeners can probably attest, it's slow going. We're just happy to see them reappear each year and if they just grow, they grow. If they bloom, so much the better. Most of our examples that we have planted are of the Royal Heritage strain of Helleborus. Their colors range from pink to purple, and in the case of some of the newer ones, we're not sure, because they haven't bloomed yet.
Part of the reason these plants are so small is that they were just barely out of seedling stage and very small when we got them. I have to admit they were bargain sale plants, but I think the deal was 4 hellebores for $10, (which for larger plants would be a steal), so I didn't expect much. But hey, the primroses (featured earlier this spring) were a similar deal, and they have done admirably so far ... we're not worried about these, they'll just take longer to reach maturity, but the very fact they are blooming in their third year is definitely encouraging. And the older, larger ones we have haven't bloomed, but they're growing quickly and increasing in size, so if that means sacrificing a few blooms, I say let them do their thing on their time ...An impatient gardener shouldn't certain plants, like hellebores, if an immediate gratification is the intent. That's what annuals are for ... plant some zinnias and Four O'clocks. Which reminds me, I need to get more of those planted this weekend, along with more nasturtiums and our other assorted annual plants (petunias, snapdragons, celosia, flowering kale).
And we still have one more peony to put in ..... mmmmm, peonies! The nearly immortal plant we love so much ... Summer's just begun and I'm thinking about next year already? Is that a hard-wired character trait in gardeners? I chuckle when I think that I'm already anticipating next year as this one is not completely planted (except for the veggies and herbs) yet ... but it will be soon! It's just that this little basement episode has been eating away at valuable (scarce) gardening time for us. We'll get there!
Hellebores (Helleborus) are a genus I knew nothing about until several years ago. Back when I was an avid Martha Stewart Living viewer, I saw Martha singing their praises on a gardening episode, and I thought, wow, these look really cool and we should try some in our woodland garden.
We planted our first hellebore (one of the Royal Heritage series) in the fall of 2005, and last year we got a good price on some mail order specimens and planted four more, one of which is the one featured in these photos. And, on a brief plant shopping expedition last Sunday (during which we got some really cool new stuff you'll be seeing soon) we found another nice specimen at the reasonable price of $8.99. If that sounds pricey to you, let me just add that finding good specimens can be an expensive proposition, especially if you venture beyond the mixes and go for specific species ... I've seen some priced at over $20 each for some of the more exotic ones, so any time we see a nice one under $10, we tend to snap it up.
Hellebores are, once established, really tough plants and often can remain green all through the winter. They're often called "Lenten Rose" because apparently (though not here yet) they will bloom in late February -- early March even if winter still has its grip on the garden. Given that we still don't get a lot of blooms from them, it does seem that they take their time to get settled into their shady spots and get ready to put on a real show. So it was a pleasant surprise a week or so ago when I was out looking at things in the garden when I discovered this unobtrusive bloom almost hiding near the holly where it's planted. I'm not sure about the color of this one and what to really call it ... most hellebores have rather odd shades of pinks, lavenders, purples and dusky reds, and given what little I know about the "Royal Heritage" mixes, we're not sure what we'll get, though I'm really hoping for some purple myself. Time will tell, and many times with mixes of plants, the anticipation of finding out its true color is half of the fun growing them. In our experience so far, they are pretty easy to grow ... they like a mostly shady spot where a bit of sun is tolerated, and appreciate the loamy, moist and well-drained area where we have them planted. In any case, they make a really woodsy addition to the shade garden and also boast deer and critter repellent properties.
I ran into a reference the other night (see above link) with the myth and folklore of Hellebores, in which I learned that they have been reputed to have magical properties ... among which a certain witches' application of using them to summon demons! We don't plan on any of that around here, but it's often fun to research certain plants to see what people in the past have thought about them ... you can learn some really surprising things that way!
The first photo shows the bloom in its usual nodding position (which tends to remind me of antique lampshades) ... the second (courtesy of Fernymoss) is a fortuitous from below P&S shot that actually turned out quite well. We knew Olivia would be demanding inner bits so we tried to head her off at the bloom, so to speak. We were both delighted that one turned out so well! Tell me what you think ...
So let's take today's tour ... these are some more of the many Grape Hyacinths we have planted around in the front boulder bed ... this little stand has multiplied nicely since they were planted several years ago (quite late as they were forgotten in the fall and I stuck these in the ground in December!). Though Grape Hyacinths aren't really Hyacinths at all, you can see two real ones in the background, the variety 'Peter Stuyvesant,' which is probably my favorite of all of them, and of course it has that lovely Hyacinth fragrance that perfumes the area, something we don't get from many of the spring bulbs. If you enlarge this photo, you can see the now withered remains of a few of the Species Tulip 'Persian Pearl' in the background as well. That's my only minor gripe with them, they only last a bit over a week, but they're so pretty while they do last!
Let's round the corner and enter the Woodland Garden area where the Daffodils are gradually winding down and take a look at some more Hyacinths ... this is another 'Peter Stuyvesant' along with the other variety we have planted, 'Jan de Bos.' For some reason a couple of the latter have disappeared this year (alas) unless they're just going to be up really late, but anyway, I really like the color of 'Jan' with its almost fuschia shade (though it's typically considered red). I love the combination of these bold colors with the Daffodils, but then, I've been known to appreciate rather "loud" colors once or twice in my life....
We were hopeful that our Darwin Tulips would finally recover somewhat after the disastrous last two springs that had late very cold spells after they had come up ... and though they're nowhere near as numerous as they once were (in 2006 there were about 300+ planted out front), at least they are making a comeback. This is one of the masses we have in the corner Boulder Bed and if you look closely you'll see a few Grape Hyacinths have survived as well (we lost a lot of those in 2007 and 2008 as well), so we'll just keep hoping for future improvement in these areas. I'll have more of these soon, once we can get some shots of them when they are actually open during the day (hopefully this weekend).
Here we have some newcomers to the Boulder Beds ... these are Fritillaria uva-vulpis, (aka, 'Fox's Grape') that were just planted last fall. Though they look similar to the Fritillaria michailovskii we have planted elsewhere, they are much taller (apparently they can reach over 12 inches at maturity) and the colors are a bit more muted, they do share the same sort of lampshade shaped blooms, and instead of single blooming, these little foxes of the garden often bear two or more flowers per stalk.
According to most sources I've read, Uva-vulpis also tends to naturalize much more readily than Michailovskii, so we are looking forward to seeing many more of these in future years. When they first emerge they look pretty insubstantial, much like a long blade of grass, but these have quickly matured over the last two weeks and are just now popping into bloom in various places, so you can probably expect to see (and hear more about) them again soon....
From the better late than never department ... we now have three Hellebores in bloom, two for the first time! Finally, our patience is paying off, and these tiny plants we put in way back in 2005 are starting to bloom for us. Since they were sold as a mix, I really have no idea what varieties they are, other than they belong to the "Royal Heritage" strains (which doesn't really tell one much). We're just happy to see them blooming! Though the plants have done pretty well over the past few years, only one has deigned to bloom for us until this year so this represents a bit of a milestone for this particular area of the Woodland Garden. And, as any garden blogger with Hellebores knows, they're not particularly easy flowers to get good shots of without literally getting down on the ground and looking up. Though they're beautiful flowers, they don't make it easy for us to appreciate that beauty, so hats off to Fernymoss for getting down and doing some "wet belly photography" to bring these to this humble blog....
Ok, I'll admit that this shot makes me feel a bit voyeuristic because my first impression was that I was invading the private space of this Hellebore bloom ... for some reason (maybe because I'm so immersed in iconic film imagery?) this reminded me of that famous picture of Marilyn Monroe with her skirt being blown upwards by a subway grate. Maybe I just have a dirty mind (heh, like I try to go looking up women's skirts!), this shot just seemed so overtly sexual that I had to include it in this post. Not that this is a prurient blog at all, but let's just remind ourselves that the whole reason that flowers bloom in the first place is to reproduce themselves, so we have to give them some (ahem) license in what they do! I do think that this is one of the more creative and stunning shots Fernymoss has gotten in a while, and hopefully we'll have even more Hellebore pictures soon....
Finally, I've gotten a few comments lately that I've been neglecting the "gratuitous puppy shots" in my posts, so we did some quick improvised "cuteness" shots tonight for this post. And just for Marnie, who remarked recently that she thought Hanna looked like such a calm dog when I had said that she was so often in motion that she was challenging to capture in still shots ... here she is running across the living room after having retrieved her favorite Kong. Though Hanna definitely knows when to be mellow (amazing for such a young pup), her usual mode is in motion and jumping and running. We love her all the more for that, and especially when she knows that it's inappropriate behavior and calms down. Once again, we thank our lucky stars that she chose to come and live with us and brighten our lives after our recent losses of Pepa and Rolly....
Make of this shot what you will ... though Hanna still doesn't spend all that much time on Pepa's old bed, she does take advantage of it on occasion, and here she seems to be enjoying some "loungy" time.... Hopefully, if the weather cooperates this weekend, we might be able to get some cuteness pictures of her outside this weekend, so stay tuned!
