Thursday, April 15, 2021

My early spring daffodils are fading, but the parade of flowering shrubs has begun


My early spring daffodils are fading, but the great joy of the garden is the succession of bloom--some flowers fade and others emerge.

Pieris , with its lily of the valley like flowers, is usually one of the first flowering shrubs to bloom. The flowers may be small, but they are fragrant and long lasting.
Next comes Cornell Pink, a deciduous rhododendron. The flowers are very showy but rarely last more than 5 or 6 days. Unfortunately, you can't get everything in one plant.
Quince has delicate and very beautiful flowers, but the plant is virtually indestructible. It is impossible to kill a quince.
Quince Contorta
Quince is especially beautiful paired with Forsythia which is the queen of my early spring garden.
PJM rhododendron is another tough early spring beauty with gorgeous magenta flowers which unfortunately, like so many early spring blooms, are here today and gone tomorrow.
These early flowering shrubs will soon fade but will be replaced by mid-spring shrubs and trees. It’s the greatest show on earth!

Friday, April 2, 2021

It never really feels like Spring until the Daffodils bloom!

Right now it is peak daffodil time in my garden. It’s too cold to sit out and enjoy the show, but I take a break from my spring cleaning every hour or so and walk around the garden. It’s also peak hellebore time.

Hellebores are amazing flowers. They comeback year after year—-each year bigger and more beautiful. They power through ice and snow and sometimes are in bloom for two months or more. The flowers don’t get hideously ugly when they’ve finished blooming like daffodils often do. Hellebore flowers just quietly fade away.

Then there are the so-called minor bulbs; they may be minor in size but when planted in mass, they sure have a major impact. Right now little blue scilla and chionodoxa are popping up everywhere in my garden.
blue scilla

The hyacinths with their specatacular fragarance are beginning. The most beautiful hyacinth of all, Miss Saigon:

I am so looking forward to next week's warm-up so I can get to the spring clean-up I truly enjoy--the one desperately needed in my garden.