Saturday, April 14, 2012

April Bloom Day





 After a March that felt more like late June, April's more normal temperatures are welcome.  The cooler temperatures haven't slowed down blooming around here though.

The 'Brushstrokes Strain' hellebore is still budding and blooming. It's nice to see the fresh blooms, since the older ones faded quickly in the heat.  Although the colors fade, this hellebore holds its blooms until late fall.










Virginia bluebells, Mertensia virginica are nearly finished.  They bloomed a month earlier than usual.









'Jack Frost' brunnera has been blooming for a few weeks.  I love this plant, with and without blooms.




Veronica repens was a favorite of my friend Meg's.  I have it here now in her memory.

Maple seeds are everywhere.  I'm so used to seeing them, I didn't notice these two when snapping the photo.  They  give some perspective on how dainty this plant is.






Anemone 'Sylvestris' is just getting started.   These languished until I moved them a couple of years ago.  Funny how a few feet can make such a difference.  They're happy in their new spot.



Speaking of how moving a plant a few feet can make a difference, Phlox divaricata  were moved last fall.  They were among the first plants to follow me here 8 years ago.  They barely survived, and bloomed only once in all that time.  These are the blooms I'm most excited about this month.  I'd almost forgotten what the flowers looked like, it's been so long since they've bloomed.  They were only moved a few feet, but it's made a huge difference in their health, and THEY'RE BLOOMING!
 




Celandine poppies have been blooming about a month.  I love the foliage as much as the flowers.






Candytuft started from seeds bloomed last spring for the first time, after waiting patiently for three years.






'Pink Pewter' lamium is another plant whose foliage is wonderful.  Lamiums can be pretty 'spready,' but here, after 6 or 7  years they're still well-behaved.  If they ever spread too much, they're easy to pull.


Speaking of  aggressive plants, I'm debating with myself on this dwarf comfrey, Symphytum grandiflorum from a plant swap last year.  Comfrey makes excellent compost tea, and honey bees love it.  Those two facts seduced me. I might chicken out and dig it up, or at least move it to a spot where it can be contained.  It's a pretty plant, and I love the blooms, but it will be watched very closely for now.  "Spreads by underground stolons" is a plant description that makes me shudder.




I noticed we have a few bleeding heart seedlings this year. Bumble bees are all over it when it's in bloom.

If any of the seedlings survive, they'll be great for plant swaps (not that I need any more plants!)

There's a 'Gold Heart' dicentra waiting to go in the ground this year, but it's somewhat the worse for wear after shipping, so it's being babied in a pot for now.





Golden ragwort, Senecio aureus is blooming.  This is a pretty aggressive plant in our garden.  So far, pulling the pieces that run seems to be keeping it in check.   There are several reasons to love this plant - it's a native, the blooms are sweet, the foliage is very pretty, and it's evergreen.






Geranium maculatum started blooming this week.  This is the bloomingest April ever in our garden.  So many things are blooming early.















Columbine canadensis blooms are just starting to open.  I love their graceful, arching habit, and long bloom period.



The strawberries were started from seeds from Renee's Garden last year.  We even had a few berries their first season.  They're tiny berries, about the size  of my ring fingernails, but so fragrant and delicious.  The seeds germinated easily with no pre-treatment.  The plants are pretty, and even stayed green all winter.  They're well-behaved too - no runners.  The clumps grow, but they don't spread.




There are a few other things blooming, but we'll leave it at this for now.  It's an embarrassment of riches in the garden this month. It makes me wonder if there will be anything left to bloom in the fall.  I'm pinching a number of plants to slow down their bloom.  In many cases pinching perennials also helps keep them from sprawling.

Happy Bloom Day everyone!  To see more blooms from gardens around the world, please visit Carol at May Dreams Gardens. 


36 comments:

  1. everything's gorgeous! I love columbine. Yeah, "spreads by underground stolens" makes me really nervous too! :)

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    1. Welcome, Wendy! I've been thinking about the comfrey alot in the last few days. It's supposed to do well even in deep shade, and in places where it's hard to get anything to grow. I have a narrow strip bordered by patio and a walk that fits the bill and would contain the comfrey. I think it's going there. I'm really afraid of what it will do where it is now. I avoid non-native aggressive plants that spread via stolens like the plague they are, and I think my skinny strip where it's hard to grow anything might be a perfect spot to contain the comfrey.

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  2. Beautiful photos, looks like you are well and truly into spring. I love bleeding hearts, must make a note to get some for my garden before next spring.

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    1. Thank you Ruth, and welcome!

      Old-fashioned bleeding hearts are nostalgic favorites of mine. When we moved from the city to the 'burbs when I was kid, besides the bulbs, they were the first perennials to bloom in our new garden. I thought they were beautiful, amazing flowers unlike anything I'd ever seen before, and they made me want to have my own flower garden when I grew up. Their delicate beauty is deceiving - they're tough plants, and the critters don't eat them here.

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  3. Hi GardenGirl
    Wow, what a beautiful hellebore! I lost some Jack Frosts this winter but only the once in pots and our winter was really cold with Minus 17 degree. Wonderful spring flowers you show in this post!
    Have a nice Sunday
    Alex

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    1. Hi Alex! I love that hellebore! It was the first one I got, and it made me want more!

      So sorry about your Jack Frosts. Hope you have more in the ground - they're so easy to divide. Happy Sunday!

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  4. I reconnised bleeding heart and strawberries. All your other flowers are new to me. It's what I love so much about GBBD - getting to discover new blooms.

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    1. Welcome, Missy! Discovering new blooms is one of the things I love about GBBD too. It's 'dangerous!'

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  5. Wonderful spring blooms! I wish I had more room, so many plants I have given up growing but I know I can fit in a few columbines. I had columbine in my last garden and I miss it peeking out over other spring plantings.

    Eileen

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    1. Thank you Eileen! I feel lucky having so much garden space. It was daunting at first, especially since most of the garden space lies in the root zone of silver maples. Dry shade is a challenge, but I've learned alot about what works here over the years.

      I've given up on most of the columbines. Most of them don't last more than a season or two. Canadensis though, is tough and keeps coming back every year. I was warned about its aggressive self-seeding and have always deadheaded them. This year I think I'll throw caution to the wind and leave some spent blooms to throw some seeds around. They're so pretty, and I'm working on some new garden space.

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  6. You have given me so many ideas for my garden. Thank you. And congratulations on the blooming of your gorgeous phlox.

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    1. That's wonderful, Mary! And, as Missy said, discovering new blooms is one of the things to love about Bloom Day.

      I'm so excited to see the phlox finally blooming and thriving. They were barely holding on in their old spot. Even back when they did bloom several years ago, they never bloomed this well. More sun has made all the difference, surprising me since their common name is woodland phlox.

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  7. Hello, I just found your blog over at GBBD. So many lovely woodland treasures you have! I especially like the combination of woodland phlox and epimedium - surprising combo but they look great together.

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    1. Welcome, Spurge! I was used to mostly full sun before moving here, but I've really come to appreciate all these woodland treasures.

      I'm glad the phlox and epimedium go well together. At the time when I moved the phlox I wasn't sure, and it was more of a practical consideration since the phlox were languishing where they were. I hoped a little more sun might perk them up, never expecting them to explode as they have. I'm thrilled!

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  8. April certainly has brought us an "embarrassment of riches" in the garden, Linda, and you have a lovely wealth of blooms. Thanks for showing the veronica repens "as is"; I've been looking for a groundcover, and the contrast with the maple seeds really show its size so much better than any catalog photo can. Such sweet little blooms. And I love seeing the columbine about to bloom--mine are definitely behind yours.

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    1. It's definitely an April bloom for the record books, Rose. Especially considering how little rain we've had, I'm amazed at how the garden looks this month.

      I just love the creeping veronica. I didn't even know what it was, and never asked Meg. It came from one of the containers she planted, and I learned it's name last year when I posted a photo of it for Bloom Day. I love having a few of her favorite plants here. They make me happy and remind me of her. Happy Bloom Day!

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  9. Lovely blooms! I really love the look of the brunnera. I have been thinking about getting one, I think your picture just convinced me! And it really is funny how just a few feet can make so much difference. I'm always reluctant to move plants, I should remember to do it more often! Congratulations on the candytuft blooms - 3 years is a long time to wait! Happy GBBD!

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    1. Thank you Holley. There are so many pretty variegated brunneras now. They're tough, pretty plants.

      I was reluctant to move those phlox. I thought they were in such bad shape I'd probably kill them if I moved them. Boy was I wrong. If I knew how much happier they'd be in their new spot, I'd have moved them years ago. I've had this happen so many times. Sometimes I've bought three of something, they'd all be languishing and finally, when two were dead I'd move the last one hoping to save it. So far, moving things that were struggling has been overwhelmingly successful. Often in a year or two I could divide the one remaining plant and be back to three! :) Here, part of the issue is sun, and part of it is tree roots. I think there are some spots that are just two dry and too 'rooty' for some plants to be able to compete. Trying a move is a good strategy, and has worked for me most of the time.

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  10. Happy GBBD. It looks like your garden is right on track now. Love those poppies.

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    1. Happy Bloom Day Lisa! Yep, after a lot of trial and error, the garden is coming into its own, (finally!) and thriving. Every year it gets better.

      I love those poppies too - flowers and foliage!

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  11. always a geranium fan.

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    1. Me too, Greggo. Some of the cultivars sure have come a long way from Johnson's Blue!

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  12. So much is blooming in your garden...just beautiful! I just planted my lamium a couple of years ago, and it is just now getting settled.

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    1. Thank you Sage Butterfly.

      The lamium did take a while to settle in here, but then, that seems to be the case with a lot of things since they have so many tree roots to contend with here.

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  13. We have a lot of the same flowers. I can't wait till my columbine bloom this year. The are always among my favorites.

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    1. Mine too, LJB. They have such a unique, beautiful form.

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  14. You probably should be embarrassed at all those blooms in April! Ha ha! Everything is looking great. I'm going to check out the phlox divaricata as a candidate to plant under our crab tree. Very pretty.

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    1. I think you'd like it a lot Victoria! I just moved some at my daughter's house from a couple of spots where it was getting mowed, and into their front foundation landscape. It was the first time I'd seen it there, since it was growing in an area that is usually mowed. Woodland phlox is so pretty, and the hoards of Red Admiral butterflies here this month are loving it.

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  15. Linda, What a fantastic April show! Glad I finally made it over here. xogail

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    1. Thank you Gail!

      I didn't welcome March's heat wave, but we sure are enjoying all the early blooms in April.

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  16. We have a number of plants in common, and mine are blooming early this year as well. I see you also used the word, "spready" and answered my question about the ragwort. Keep us posted. I don't mind pulling plants on the edges out to keep them in their space, and don't even mind pulling them if they come again, but there are some that are pretty persistent in coming back. I have a blue blooming dwarf comfrey that doesn't seem as aggressive as the larger, purple blooming one. I moved that out of a small area that I decided to have white and yellow flowers in, and after 3 years, am still digging it out. I do put it on the compost pile, since I've heard it is good for it.

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  17. Sue, Gail shared some of hers with me about three years ago (or was it four. . . ?) She's had it in her garden much longer, and it seems it's pretty easy for her to keep it in check. It's not a problem here so far. The root systems don't go down nearly as far as comfrey does so if you tried it and chickened out, it shouldn't be a a big problem to remove I don't think. I really like it, and it's worth the minimal maintenance it needs to keep it in bounds.

    Those comfrey roots should definitely be good for the compost. It's really a big reason why I'd like to grow it here - for compost, and compost tea. I did end up moving it to a very contained spot, in full shade to boot. It should be 'safe' there!

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    1. I am grinning at your reply, because I have planted things from my friend Janet, then chickened out after doing further research on them. I'll keep an eye out for the golden ragwort.

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    2. I have a friend (who wasn't too knowledgeable about gardening at the time,) who admired the creeping Charlie in her neighbor's yard and transplanted some of it (against the advice of the neighbor,) into her garden!

      I was gifted some soapwort several years ago from a friend's garden, and after researching it, chickened out and composted it.

      If you'd like to try some ragwort, Email your address to me: lintys2057@gmail.com. I'd be happy to share some starts with you.

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  18. Lovely collection.

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