Cornelian cherry dogwoods, scilla, and daffodils were blooming April 15, 2009. With our warm April temperatures, this year they've already passed, except for the little passalong dafs that moved here from K's garden last weekend. (I'm amazed they haven't wilted yet in our unseasonable warmth.)
The calendar says April, but our temperatures feel more like June. Monday's high temperature was in the low 70's. It was in the 80's yesterday, and today our high is forecast to be in the 80's again (before it drops into the more-seasonable 50's when a cold front passes through on Friday.) I hope the front brings rain - we can use it after a fairly dry March and early April, especially with the warm temperatures.
The gardening season in the Chicago area is definitely underway. Happy Bloom Day everyone, and thank you Carol at May Dreams Gardens for dreaming up Bloom Day!
What's blooming in your garden?
Thursday, April 15, 2010
April Bloom Day
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I was just thinking as I looked through my photos for bloom day that what I really wanted to do was make a slideshow. Great job. I love the bleeding hearts and hellebore.
ReplyDeleteI'm still waiting to see if my Brunnera will bloom at all, after thinking it was dead and gone last year. That pear tree is gorgeous!!
ReplyDeleteI so enjoyed seeing all of these gorgeous blooms. I don't have many of the woodland plants in my present home but I really miss them each spring.
ReplyDeleteEileen
I really liked your little video of your blooms. Nice touch. I must look into that. Valerie
ReplyDeleteYour flowers are lovely, great slide show. Supposed to be cooler starting tomorrow. Hope this isn't going to be one of those sweltering summers.
ReplyDeleteMarnie
Garden Girl,
ReplyDeleteThanks for stopping by my blog - and thank you for returning the favor and helping me identify the Epimedium I also have growing in my garden. I am coveting your Heartleaf Bergenia...
Love your slide show!!!
Our weather was lovely last weekend but gone back to being cold again which is a pity. Nice to have plants given to you from another blogger
ReplyDeleteYour blooms are lovely and you have done a good job with the video, something I've yet to master. Happy GBBD!
ReplyDeleteYou're not kidding about needing rain. I hope it pours tonight because I didn't drag the garden hose out. Great flowers!
ReplyDeleteNice to "meet" you and your blog - enjoyed seeing your blooms!
ReplyDeleteThat bleeding heart plant caught my attention! I didn't know that the plant can flower so fast. also, it is wonderful to see so many varieties and colours of blooms in your garden. I enjoyed your video and I can imagine it to be really lovely to be in your garden. Have a marvellous day garden girl!
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed watching your slideshow. I love those hellebores and the daffs. Please post some more!
ReplyDeleteSpring in Chicago is mighty pretty this year! We feel like June too but I'm not complaining-yet. Maybe we'll feel like April in June?:) Have a good weekend.
ReplyDeleteLinda girl that was LOVELY !!
ReplyDeleteYour Jack is blooming already while mine is just beginning to leaf out .. I have a few more coming by mail order and I hope to make a tiny "drift" planting with 5 different kind .. hope it works !
That was really soothing first thing in the morning to watch a bloom movie : ) Thanks !
Joy
Soothing because working in the garden all week .. well .. BIG OUCH now ! LOL
Your slide show is so appropriate for this Bloom Day, Linda--spring seems to be moving forward at such a quick pace this year; if you don't snap a photo of a bloom now, it might be gone tomorrow! Lots of lovely spring blooms in your garden. I see you have 'Looking Glass' as well as 'Jack Frost'; I was wondering if you can see a difference between them. I'm curious because I'd love to add another Brunnera, and I can find lots of 'Looking Glass' in the nurseries, but 'Jack' is a little harder to find.
ReplyDeleteI hope all your pretties do not get harmed with the cold front. I bet it is a nice surprise all this warm stuff so early up there. Strange Winter and now Strange Spring. I am loving our perfect spring temps now as I am getting so much accomplished I the garden…
ReplyDeleteThanks Bradzio - glad you enjoyed the slide show. Bleeding hearts and the hellibore are two of my favorites too.
ReplyDeleteI think it will bloom Diane. I'm pleasantly surprised by how tough they are.
Thank you Eileen! This is the biggest shade garden I've ever had, and I'm still discovering wonderful new (to me) woodland plants.
Thank you Valerie. The slide shows are fun, and easy to do.
Glad you enjoyed it Marnie! I'm so glad it's cooler today. It's raining here too - yay!
My pleasure Christine - glad I was able to help. Thanks for helping me identify doronicum! I've never seen them before this year.
I'm pretty happy it's cooler Helen, and raining now too. I love warm weather, but I love cool spring showers too.
ReplyDeleteThe daffodils actually came from my daughter K's garden. She and her family recently moved, and their house is in the woods. Several previous owners have continued to add more and more native plants to what was already a beautiful property. Her place is amazing - the vintage home and the awe-inspiring garden with it's treasure trove of native plants and wildlife. I'm so happy for her that she gets to live there. What a wonderful place for my granddaughter to grow up. And it just gets better - I get to take my pick of anything she has growing there. My garden and I very lucky!
Thank you Autumn Belle. Happy Bloom Day!
I hope it's raining in your garden Rachel. We're getting light showers. A downpour would be nice, but showers are helping.
Thanks for visiting JGH!
Stephanie, those bleeding hearts are fun to watch as they emerge in the spring. They start out kind of slow, teasing with how early they break ground, then once they finally start leafing out, it's only a matter of days before they're blooming. Have a marvelous weekend!
Glad you enjoyed the slide show Lily! I'll be posting photos of the gardens all season - it's so much fun being able to look back at how the garden is developing after a couple of years of blogging. I plan to keep doing it indefinitely.
It sure is Tina! I hope our unseasonable warmth isn't the harbinger of a hot summer. Have a great weekend!
Thank you Joy! I'm sure you'll love that combo of five brunneras. I feel your pain! I'm dealing with a shoulder injury after lifting 95- lb. George into the laundry tub for a bath. He's trained to step up on a chair, and I lift 1/2 of him at a time. He got a little chunky over the winter. He's on a diet now, and we devised a better way of getting him into the tub. My shoulder's on the mend, but the M-W this week I gave it a workout for my garden, a client's, and the nursery. Ouch!
ReplyDeleteIt sure is Rose! Our maple trees are already almost fully leafed out. It's usually May when that happens.
There's definitely a difference between Jack and Looking Glass. The blooms are identical, but the variegation on the foliage is much different. Looking Glass is almost entirely silver, with green edges. Jack is much more green, and much more variegated. I can't decide which I like better.
I think they'll be fine Skeeter. We have a wonderful microclimate here, especially when the maples are leafed out. The garden is bordered by the house, a very tall arborvitae hedge, and the maples' canopy above. There's a lot of shelter here. It has to get well below freezing before they see any frost. As of now our ten-day forecast shows lows in the upper-30's to upper 40's.
Glad you're getting so much done! This fantastic weather is calling us into our gardens. What a joy after being cooped up indoors over the winter.
Looking good, Linda. We're having the warmest April in 139 years! Sorry to see the Spring blooms fade so fast , however.
ReplyDeleteThanks Carolyn!
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry to see them fade so fast too, especially the Virginia bluebells I transplanted here from my daughter K's garden last weekend. I had to cut off the bloom stalks and some of the foliage because of the transplant shock. No amount of watering or shading was helping them overcome the heat and wind. Hopefully I'll be rewarded with lots of blooms next spring.
Wow - I knew it was unusual - didn't know it was THAT unusual!
That Bradford pear is huge!
ReplyDeleteI have and love Looking Glass.
It's definitely the biggest I've ever seen Sylvana. It's pretty old for a Bradford pear, but so far it's been very healthy - no falling limbs or splitting trunks.
ReplyDeleteThe brunneras are so nice! And yes it has been really dry. I've had to water multiple times already!
ReplyDeleteHi Rose, I'm beginning to wonder if brunneras will be the new heucheras - they seem to be coming up with more new varieties all the time!
ReplyDeleteI was just out watering a few things I moved, and the veggies - it's dry out there! I hope the rain they're forecasting later this week turns out to be a good soaking.
Linda, your slide show has beautiful blooms! I checked last year's bloom day post and found very little blooming here. Remember how cold and wet it was. My lilacs didn't bloom until the first of May after staying in bud for 2 weeks. But with the warmth this year we have had to enjoy everything in fast forward mode. But I'm loving the warm temps!
ReplyDeleteSome really charming shots you got there Linda. That heart leaf begonia bloom is going to have to be one I look out for.
ReplyDeleteThank you Beckie! Same here - not much blooming last March. I was loving the warm temps too - it's been more seasonal here the last several days - 50's and 60's tops. We still need rain though!
ReplyDeleteThanks MBT. I have two of them - Monica gave me one last year. I'm still waiting on that one to come up. I think she's still waiting for hers to come up too.
How lovely, Linda. Hasn't April been grand!
ReplyDeleteSeems as if everyone is having that crazy hot spring to be followed by more cool weather. It's really playing havoc with the flowers.
ReplyDeleteIt has Joey. I enjoyed those warm days, enjoying the seasonal temps now, and looking forward to rain in the next few days.
ReplyDeleteVictoria, some of the early bulbs were done pretty quickly with the very warm temps, but here nothing seems to have been adversely affected. Fortunately we haven't had any frost nipping all that tender new growth.
It's good to see your garden gradually coming alive for the season. Cheers! And Happy Earth Day.
ReplyDeleteYears ago, I used to pull out the Celandine Poppy. I thought it was a weed, until my neighbor told me about Indians using them for dyes. I learned to have more respect for this pretty little flower. Your gardens look wonderful.
ReplyDeletebalisha
Linda! I was sorry to miss you on my trip to Chi last week, but you can believe me when I tell you I did enough walking for both of us!! I think I'm the only person in blogdom who doesn't have celandine poppies... they'd be great in my nearly cleared areas. Will you save me some seeds? :)
ReplyDeleteAlso, that bishop's hat is sooo sweet. I really should get to know Epimediums better.
You've grown bergenia before, right? About when can I expect to see blooms?
Cheers Avis! Happy (belated)Earth Day.
ReplyDeleteI love Celandine poppies Balisha. Even the foliage is lovely. I'm glad you're appreciating them now.
I'm sorry I missed you too Monica. I'm glad to save some Celandine poppy seeds for you. If we can manage to connect again sometime this summer or fall, I could even give you some seedlings if they're not too much to carry. They self-seed freely, even here, where not much else does.
I love Epimediums - they have such sweet blooms, and I love the red-tinged heart-shaped foliage on the red ones. You're welcome to a piece of one of mine next time I see you.
The bergenia you gave me is the second one here - the other one was planted last spring, in early April. It was already blooming when I got it, and this year it bloomed again in early April.
Thanks for the offer of seeds/plants. Bananas! Maybe I planted my bergenia too deep. I had a TON of them, all divided off mature plants from a local park, so they should be all accustomed to blooming. They were bare root, though. Maybe they need another year or are just late. Bananas!
ReplyDeleteLoved seeing your slide show. ESPECIALLY with everything named. Thank You.
ReplyDeleteMy pleasure Monica. If it's any consolation, the one you gave me hasn't come up yet either. The tuber looked very healthy, so I'm thinking they need another year or are late. I've had other stuff here suddenly appear or reappear long after giving up on it, so I'm keeping the faith!
ReplyDeleteGlad you enjoyed it Beverly. Thanks for visiting!