May Sunshine

Another beautiful day, but more humid, and warmer.  In the high 70s.  Rain is on the way for tomorrow.

I planted the zinnia seedlings.

The blue eyed grass is blooming.  I divided two plants six ways earlier this spring, so they haven't filled in completely yet.

The red peony 'Blaze' is out --- such a sight.  Columbines are blooming, and the purple iris planted by the new bridge over the dry creekbed is open.

Jim got some great shots of the peony.  The salvia 'May Night' is in full rich purple bloom.

Iris 'Immortality' is opening, despite being moved all around multiple times.

And . . . I have had two ripe strawberries, despite all the plants being moved around this spring.  They were sweet, not overly flavorful yet.  More to come.

Glorious May Day

70s, cool, dry and sunny.  Everything in the garden looks perfect.

I've seen this all over Pinterest.  I thought it would involve digging and setting the pot in carefully, but I just plopped the pot on the ground and was done.  Kind of cute.

The alliums are big balls and the viburnum in the background has been blooming for weeks now.

The Birch Garden looks good, although at this early stage things are lumpen mounds.  A lot of purple.  The Carolina Moonlight baptisia I just added will give some yellow highlights.

Salvia May Night.  These seeded themselves, two side by side in front of the clear red peony which is about to open.

I love the wild lupines and daisies on the back hill.

I'm not sure the green director's chairs add anything, but it does put a little color in the gravel garden, and several people can sit there.

The Birch Garden from the other side.  Husker's Red penstemons look good and full and will be blooming shortly.

The Birch Garden from the right side.  The Orange Dream golden foliage really does pop from afar, mitigating some of the purples.

Yummy Salad

I had the best salad ever, with lettuce and a little bit of fresh basil from my pots on the deck.  Delicious.

It's not crispy lettuce like Romaine or Iceberg, but very flavorful and the basil added just the right spark.  I added chicken salad, some olives, peas, and lemon pepper seasoning.  Yum.

I could have added chives.  They are in bloom in a little pot among the rocks in the gravel.

The big alliums are in bloom.

This view reminds me how limp and awful the sweetbay magnolia looks in spring.  It keeps its leaves over winter, and the waxy evergreen foliage looks ok through the cold weather.  But then, just as everything else is perking up, it gets droopy and sparse looking.

I always think it is declining, and won't make it, but it is just shedding the old persistent leaves and getting ready to put out new ones.  It always looks wonderful and full later in spring, but in early May it looks terrible.

PS - isn't the light awful?  So many days of rain and gloom and overcast.  I adjusted these photos in Aperture, and still can't get the coloring to look decent.

Pink Knockout

Humid and warm today, in the 70s.  Rain on the way for the next few days.

The pink knockout rose is blooming.  This knockout is a very pretty, clear pink.

The hubrichtii amsonia is blooming now too.  The other amsonias are not quite open.

Right now the 'Crimson Queen' Japanese maple is a deep mahogany, but it will get browner with warmer weather.  The same thing with 'Bloodgood' in back.

I wandered around today and pruned things.  I controlled the redtwig dogwoods a little and limbed up the stewartia, the Dawn viburnum, and the Bloodgood maple.  Nothing very severe, just a little clean up of lower branches, but it improves things. 

I took branches off of the Crimson Queen maple after I took the picture above, just to thin it out.  When the leaves are down next winter I will need to go back and recut the branches that I chopped off, many were just cut at the midpoint since I could not see what I was doing.

Mother's Day

A very warm, summery day with humidity.  In the 80s.  But rain is coming in the early part of next week.

I planted the plumbagos inside the twig towers today.  And I put the climbing nasturtium Moonlight seeds in around the tuteurs by the meters.

Jim mowed and it all looks so good.  Alliums, including the rosy garlic along the front walk are out.

A very pretty Mother's Day.

Pretty Petals

Unsettled weather for days, more rain, clouds and wind.  Today started nice, then got very windy and cloudy.

I had one of those moments when you walk around the corner, lost in thought and suddenly see something so pretty it catches your breath.  The dogwood had dropped its petals.

The sprinkled pink petals were so artistically arranged, spread evenly and delicately all around.

It is a delight to see this vignette every time I go out to the driveway.

I took out the Forest Pansy redbud that was decapitated in the October snowstorm.  It had buds, but never leafed out.

I moved the Valley Valentine pieris to a spot on the east side right along the side of the house, next to the remaining Golden Peep forsythia.  It can get big and tall there and fill that empty space.  When I dug it up it had almost no root system.  Hmmm.

The inkberry hollies look terrible.  I thought they might be windburned or stressed from the dry weather in April.  Or freeze burned, particularly as the tips of the flowers are black.

After admiring how glossy and green and sparkly the foliage was all winter, I am distressed to see the leaves browning now. 

I think they have some bug.  Bartlett did treat them the other day.

Kiwis are blooming now (the females).  The leaves are browning at the tips, more than just frost burn from earlier weeks.  They have some kind of problem.

The male kiwi vines are showing some white tip splashes, and they are blooming too.

I planted the Moonlight climbing nasturtiums on the half round tuteurs by the meters today.  The sweet peas there are just coming up.

And I planted out the Lady in Red Salvia seedlings, by the patio.

First Hummingbird

We saw the hummingbird at the feeder today, the first of the season that we have seen.  A female.

It continues to be drizzly and wet.  Another 4 tenths of an inch of rain overnight.  There have only been a few hours, one day and an afternoon here and there, of sunshine to admire the beautiful doublefile viburnum.  Mostly I am seeing it through mist and gloom.  But what a sight ---

Wow.

The blackhaw viburnums are less showy, but they both bloomed this spring.  The one with the twisted trunks in the garden in front of Meadow's Edge got a severe pruning.

Surprisingly, with major branches removed, there was little difference to be seen in the canopy.  It's still a full, leafy, little tree.  The removal of a third of the twiggy denseness did not diminish it at all.  I can't get a good picture of its shape, though.  The backgrounds are too difficult.

I didn't prune the other one in front of the bathroom window as severely all at once, but I have been removing wayward large branches here and there.  I probably took a quarter of it off, and it is looking nice and tree like now too.

The pagoda dogwood looks rangy and skinny, but is healthy.  The new American holly is putting out lots of new leaves!

Some Sun

There have been moments of sunshine in between the clouds and drizzle of the past days, and Sunday was actually pleasant.

I got the turtlehead cut back, and sedums, and I potted up the cuttings.  They are both supposed to root easily.

Jim cut off the cracked branch on the river birch behind the berm, and we trimmed a lot of the wayward branches.  It's better.

The doublefile viburnum is in full bloom, and the camassias are coming out.

I love how the bridge and dry creek bed and the whole back of the property are looking.

Aronias are blooming and the Orange Dream Japanese maple continues to be bright and colorful.

The entire Birch Garden looks a little funny, with small mounds of everything.  The wood hyacinths, scillas, are blooming but are all a muted silver purple, very somber.

The large alliums are opening.  They are striking, but the foliage and the sheer size don't do much in front of the patio wall.  After blooming is over, I might move them to the empty spot near the butterfly bush at the back of Meadow's Edge.  The foliage will be covered by the buddleia as it emerges, so late in the spring.

Tiarellas look great this year.

Both of the gauras in the front walk made it through winter and are leafing back out.

Cloudy With A Chance of Rain

The forecast for the next TWO WEEKS, each and every day of the next fourteen days and nights in May is:

Cloudy with a chance of rain.

Overcast with a chance of rain.

Patchy drizzle.

Mostly cloudy with a chance of rain.

Partly overcast with a chance of rain.

Drizzle.  Mix of clouds and rain.

Etc.  No breaks in between.

They can't forecast that far in advance and this must be iffy, right?  Right?

I know, I know, I complained about the unrelenting sunny dry days of March and April, with no moisture for the garden.  Now there's too much.  It rained again last night, another 4/10ths of an inch, but nothing had dried out from two days ago.

The doublefile viburnum is almost all open, and all I want is a great view and photo of its beautiful blooms.  And the camassias, and the alliums.  There won't be a single sunny day to see them.  I want to sit in the sun in the gravel garden with a glass of wine and gaze at the viburnum, so big and gorgeous finally.

Complain, complain.

I have plants to put in, I need to pinch back the chelone already, and the sedums, get some more edging done . . .

And I need to find another weather forecast.

Dreary Start to May

After all the weird warmth and unseasonable weather in March and April, May has started out cold and dreary.

We got half an inch of rain yesterday, and today was damp and overcast, in the 50s. I did not want to go outside, it was chilly, and I had no plan for what to do, but once I got outside, here's what took place:

On a whim, sort of, I removed the Elfin Pink penstemons from the edge of the Birch Garden.  They are not elfin, and they are too pink.  They flop, and they are too tall for the side edge / front of the border.

They hide the very striking Husker's Red penstemon, which I really like.  In 2010 (early June) you can see how crowded at the front they were, with the darker Husker's Red hiding behind them.  And they flopped.

So I dug them up (easily) and put them in the big empty stretch of the Drive By garden, on the far side, flanking the baby Rosa glauca (can you see the tiny rose in the photo?  It's there!!).  They can be as bubblegum pink as they want there, and as big and floppy as they want.  Until the rose and the nearby spruce grow, there is plenty of space.

Now, without the Elfin Pink penstemons crowding in front, the more refined Husker Red penstemon with its dark foliage and pretty white flowers will shine at that side of the Birch Garden.  I like it so much better, even before bloom.

What a great combo with the dark maroon foliage and the bright Orange Dream Japanese maple.  It's a better look.  The green clumps are coreopsis, which won't bloom until summer.

I edged part of the Birch Garden, I planted some cosmos seeds (no luck last year) in the back of Meadow's Edge Garden, and I put some dwarf sunflower seeds in the old orange pot which is now under the paperbark maple.

I also planted dwarf (2.5 feet tall) sunflower seeds in the empty parts of the persicaria Dimity patch, where winter  debris had smothered the foliage and a gap developed.  Also some dwarf sunflower around the patio, to fill in when the alliums go by.

Alliums, camassias, rosy garlic, all want to bloom, soon.

I planted the clematis Henryi in the front garden in front of the trellis.  I found out just recently it is one of the clematis types most susceptible to wilt.  Mmmph.

I planted the tiny male American holly, Jersey Knight, in the meadow, just behind the red twig dogwoods that I put along the dry creekbed (from cuttings of the original Isanti redtwigs by the front door).

And speaking of them,the Isanti redtwig dogwoods by the front porch are blooming. How full and lush they are.

The aronias are blooming.  So delicate, so pretty, and a very nice combo with the Orange Dream Japanese maple and the light green emerging foliage of the Iteas.

Hyacinths are blooming.  They are a subtle soft purple, and in the gray overcast light they look grumpy.  The whole Birch Garden is lumpy and moundy, and the hyacinths never show to good effect there this early in the season.

How nice to see the Viburnum prunifoliums with real flowers finally this year.  They are pretty, but still a little sparse, but it's exciting to see blooms.

The viburnum along the west walk is now blooming with white lacecap flowers, along with the white fothergilla, which is just going by.  How I miss the contrast of the saturated magenta redbud Oklahoma along that strip.  It would have  pumped this white and green strip up!  But look at the Blackhaw flowers from the little plant by the A/C units!