Sunny Friday Bloomfest

Fernymoss had all the luck today ... since he had the day off and I didn't (what else is new?) he got a lot done in the garden and I didn't! By the time I was able to quit for the day, a storm front was moving through and brought us some brief, but torrential downpours (and yes, the intersection flooded briefly), so I wasn't able to get out for very long. He got several of our new perennials in the ground: namely, the Purple Campanula, the new red Columbine, and most exciting of all -- our new Tree Peony, 'Rimpoh' and one of the Elephant Ears (Colocasia) which just arrived this afternoon! The Tree Peony plant we received looked pretty healthy and of really good stock ... with a nice thick woody trunk and several shoots already beginning to grow off the central trunk. We have great hopes for this new plant already ... as I mentioned in a previous post, it went in the back yard in the peony bed we have at the northeast corner of the fence. I'll keep you all posted on its progress as it develops....

Thanks to Fernymoss, we have some really fantastic stuff he was able to shoot while it was still sunny, in the low 70's and dry. I'll be doing more detailed posts on most of these flowers soon, but here's another preview post of some things going on in the Boulder Bed out front....

We have two established stands of this 'Species' Tulip, 'Little Beauty,' which as I mentioned in my previous post on 'Persian Pearl' is a much later blooming variety. Now, you might be wondering if these are two different varieties, well honestly, I don't know what happened that produced those orange ones! I originally got these as a bag of freebies from Park's back in 2005 when I got a bunch of tulip bulbs from them, including 'Persian Pearl.' Some kind soul there must have figured that if I liked 'Persian Pearl,' I'd like these as well, so they threw in a bag of 10 bulbs! Like their cousins, these Little Beauties have naturalized quite nicely in the ensuing four years ... the odd thing is, the first two or three years they all came up looking the same, and then in 2007, these Orange Mutants showed up along with them, blooming at exactly the same time. We're quite fine with that, as they are very attractive as well and provide a nice contrast to the others and give even more diversity to this little area of the Boulder Bed by our front steps. We definitely plan on adding more of these in the fall, because they are small, quick and easy to plant and are excellent naturalizers. I've done some shopping research on them and right now it appears that McClure-Zimmerman Bulbs (of WI) has the widest variety and best prices I've found so far. So, if you're tempted, check there first!

And yes, we have a lovely bumper crop of dandelions in the yard and garden right now! They get dug from the Boulder Bed, but we let them go in the yard, because they are really beneficial to the soil (especially if you need clay broken up, which fortunately we don't), so we let them go in the grass and parking. Besides ... without resorting to nasty herbicides, we're never going to eradicate them anyway, and we're not willing to go that far ... and honestly, aren't they a pretty reminder it's really Spring for real?

Here's a teaser close up shot of more to come about 'Little Beauty,' and Fernymoss got some absolutely spectacular shots of these in their full glory (because, alas, like 'Persian Pearl' they only last about a week at the most and these just opened on Thursday, so they're currently in their prime). I'll have a full post with more information on these very soon, so stay tuned....
I mentioned in an earlier post that I had found a pot of two hardy primroses at a nursery last weekend and snapped it up, mainly because it had one of the elusive blue blooms (the other is red). I planted these same day I got them and they look as if they had never moved and appear happy already in the Primrose Bed, so I have great hopes that they will enjoy the company of the others and multiply as successfully over the next few years....


Finally, just look at this Pansy on fire! A few weeks ago we picked up about 12 Pansies and got them out while it was still pretty cool, and now they're starting to come into their own. Of course, once it gets hot, they'll fade away quickly (but not before putting on seed, I hope!), but as early spring annuals go, Pansies are a great thing to have in the garden because they give you color when everything else is just waking up, and can thrive even with the occasional frost risk that we have through about mid May. We've taken a few risks with a some annuals, but think what we have actually planted so far could survive any frost (Pansies, Snapdragons). Hopefully we're past that threat now, but May in Iowa can sometimes bring unpleasant surprises, so that's why we're holding off on getting the tomatoes and other veggies in the ground just yet. That will happen soon, once we get the rest of the annuals and perennials we've gotten in the ground. As always, at this time of the year, we feel that manic-panic impulse to scramble to get things in as fast as we can ... we vow every year not to put ourselves in this position, but inevitably do anyway ... I'm sure we're not alone!


MOVIE NOTE: Tonight TCM had two of the early (Connery) James Bond films on and though I recorded them both, we actually watched Thunderball in real time. I hadn't seen this one in quite a few years and had forgotten how much fun it was to experience the best of the series again, and wow, Sean was at his hottest in this one, even if he was the ever womanizing, scheming almost scoundrel Bond. Though the intrigue may feel a bit dated at this point, it's easy to see how these early Bonds established a paradigm that would be shamelessly copied in (often inferior) action films of successive years (and decades). According to IMDB, TCM is showing it again on Saturday, May 9, at 4:00 pm (EST), so if you read this in time and get TCM you can catch this again if you're an early Bond fan!

FINAL MOVIE NOTE: If you are interested in seeing Dinner at Eight, which I reviewed recently, TCM is showing it again on May 14 at 5:00 a.m., so set your DVR accordingly and you will be richly entertained by this outstanding ensemble cast!

I Just Love An Embarrassment of Riches!

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!

May Day Tidbits and Previews

Here it is May Day, and it seemed like it would never get here! Today, all over France, people are already celebrating the arrival of Spring (as well as Labor Day) with the Fête du muguet, when practically everyone gives someone they care for a nice bouquet of Muguet des bois, aka, Lily of the Valley. We're a bit behind here in Iowa (and regular readers know what a protracted winter we had this year!), so we don't have any just yet, but I'm sure it will be arriving soon in the odd spots around the house where it has always grown since we've been here. So, I'll offer you some other pretty tidbits and encouraging previews of flowers just arrived and more to come...

Remember when I posted this shot back in March after the snow finally melted in the Primrose Bed by the front steps?

Here's how it looked on this late April day (late afternoon when there was actually a bit of sun poking through) ... what a difference a month makes when the weather finally improves! After all the rains we've been having the past several days, the Primroses have been soaking it up and revving up to burst into bloom ... these blooms have just appeared within the last two days and there are many more yet to come. And the two rogue Tulips that I swear we never planted have emerged and are strutting their stuff proudly. The Snowdrops and Crocuses in this bed have finished their show for the year and only the foliage remains at this point, but there are other things preparing to take over the show ... the variegated Solomon's Seal is up (and multiplying) as well as the 'Gilt Edge' Toad Lily, Meadow Sage, Bee Balm and Lavender ...but for the moment, the Primroses will rule the roost for the next several weeks.

This tenacious little Muscari armeniacum has persevered for many years now, having been originally planted when there was still a bit of yard along the front steps before we dug it up and created the front boulder bed (back in 2003). We lost quite a few bulbs when we filled in the area, but a few have persisted (crocus and squill) and this little guy shows up in exactly the same spot every year, peeking out from under the rocks. This year it looks like he brought along a friend to keep him (and us) company, so welcome to the garden, little fellow!

Ah, consider the gentle little native wildflower that many consider the bane of their yards and garden ... but the humble Viola papillionacea is such a pretty flower that always reliably blooms for May Day (I used to put them in the May baskets I gave out as a child). At least it does have enough admirers that it was chosen (in a rather odd manner) as the Wisconsin State Flower. We love these little beauties but have to be a bit harsh with them in the garden after they are done blooming or we would have nothing but Violets remaining if we let them have their way. We do allow some to remain (come on, no one could ever really eradicate these!), but we dig as many as we can and dispatch them to the compost or to bare areas in the back yard, where they can perform a useful function without choking out our more prized plants....

Just a couple of weeks ago, our Dicentra spectabilis (Bleeding Heart) hadn't even broken ground, but look at our original plant today! It has just lept from the Woodland Garden and sprung immediately into bloom, and our others aren't far behind, so you'll be seeing lots more of them soon.

A couple of weeks ago I was fretting because I hadn't seen any signs of our Trilliums yet, but just in the past three or four days they have appeared magically and are gearing up to bloom. We originally planted three of them several years ago and last year we had five appear, so we know they are multiplying ... we've only seen five so far this year, but are hoping that more will join the party soon and start staking out their territory among the ferns in the Woodland Garden.

Fernymoss was thrilled to see these unfurling shoots today when he was out with the camera ... they're his favorite fern, the Maidenhair, and every spring we marvel at the many odd shapes they take before they fully develop into their mature fronds. Here you can see them surrounded by their neighbors, the Leatherwood ferns who have been steadily greening up in the past few weeks. Soon they will go vertical and abandon their prostrate ways of early spring and the Maidenhairs will take over the territory quickly for the rest of the summer.

Ok, for a bit of fun here, I'll leave it to you readers to guess what these emerging shoots are, although if you're familiar with the denizens of the Woodland Garden, these should be pretty easay to identify. Let me know in the comments what you think they are and we'll see who can ID these first!

For those familiar with the oddities of our garden, this last one should be really easy ... and it appears that it has successfully produced about five offshoots from last year's growth, so we are hoping for multiple blooms this year! We'll see if that happens, but this one has arrived quickly ... last weekend before the rains arrived, I was out looking for signs of this plant and found none ... so look at it now!

So happy May Day to all you fellow gardeners (and garden admirers) out there! I hope you're fêted with a lovely day to celebrate (looks to be another cloudy one here, alas) and that your gardens are springing back to life as vigorously as ours is currently doing! I've got lots more to post in the next few days, so do stop back for even more colorful flowers now taking their positions on the Spring Stage!

All photos taken on April 30, 2009. Courtesy of Fernymoss

Mad about Muscari ...

Here's another early spring favorite in many gardens, the common "Grape Hyacinth" (Muscari armeniacum). They look (and grow) great in many different areas of the garden, but really excel when planted in a mass as a companion bulb to more fire colored Tulips ... in fact, until this year we had a couple such plantings, but as the tulips went, so did many of the Muscari with them, so even though we still have a lot of them around and naturalizing, they're not as numerous as they once were.

And for naturalizing purposes in a bulb garden (or even your lawn or flower beds), they're hard to beat. They're quick about colonizing a small area for themselves in just a matter of two to three years, which for naturalizing bulbs represents a really nice feature of the Muscari. They are now sold in a wide range of colors from the standard blue/purple to white and even some newer varieties that have been bred into bicolors, though I have to say the latter aren't quite my cup of tea because they just lack the natural look of the basic species. Exceptionally hard, (from zones 4-8), once established successfully, they're pretty tenacious little guys as the first picture shows ... this particular specimen was probably one of the very first bulbs we planted originally back in 1999. When we built the boulder bed in 2003, a lot of the bulbs we had along the sidewalk were dislodged or buried completely, and this is one of two who faithfully emerge from the rocks each spring to grace the gap for the length of their bloom period. Ever since we first noticed them, we've been really pleased at how intent they are on delivering a colorful performance each spring. They're especially attractive planted in masses, as the second and third shots demonstrate ... and there's an amusing (at least for me) tale behind how they ended up planted in this particular grouping. After the first exhausting round of planting bulbs in 1999, I happened to find about six bulbs on the porch that we had forgotten to plant. Even though it was well after frost and there was a bit of snow on the ground, I figured well, if I don't plant them they'll rot over the winter, so I might as well just stick them in somewhere and see what happens ... so out I went into the snow with a trowel and dug a hole for them very near the sidewalk where they have continued to grow ever since ... They look pretty cool for an afterthought planting, don't you think?

Muscari armeniacum in various positions in and around the front boulder bed. The first two shots were taken on 5/06/08 and the third taken on 4/26/08 when they had just emerged and taking on color. Photos taken by Fernymoss, with the S700 of course ...

More survivors of the freeze ...

Though they started out this year with all odds against them, many of the tulips did make a good stand at providing an abbreviated late spring show. Dashes of bright color, amongst all the damaged daffodils and other victims of the recent freezes, they carried on in spite of it all ... I'm afraid these represent most of the better examples that managed to bloom this year ... our regular masses of yellow and red were pretty much decimated ... first by the cold and then by the recent heavy rains. And as the regular perennials start to make their presences known, it seems that the tulips were resigned to cede the show much more quickly this year, though through no fault of their own.

These two are from Darwin mixes that we have planted over the years ... the orange one has been around for at least five years and the yellow one (very close to an Olympic flame type) was planted two years ago during the big bulb planting fest. I'll refrain from my usual Darwins sermon ... just remember they're the best for naturalizing!

Finally (photo courtesy of Fernymoss), we've got a nice little stand of Muscari (Grape Hyacinth) along the walk ... also planted two years ago ... when I planted these, I alternated clumps of snow crocus (long since gone this year) with Muscari, as well as Scilla hispanica (Wood Hyacinth) all along the walk. Obviously I was really going for the blue, and as you'll see soon (when they bloom), the Scilla really carry on the show once the Muscari have packed it up for the season.

All three species of bulbs are great naturalizers, and my intent was that eventually the whole edge along the walk would be populated richly every early spring ... from a procession of crocus ... to Muscari and on to the Scilla providing at least two month's worth of changing blue hues. Of course, this year, everything is at least two weeks behind and these Muscari should have long since departed the scene ... but at least they weren't up very far when the freeze hit so they managed to bloom relatively unimpeded this year. And that's a good thing, since they've long been one of my favorite spring bulbs ... Related to neither grapes nor hyacinths, whatever we call them, they clearly deserve their place in anyone's garden ... especially along with tulips who they complement so well.