I don’t know about you, but I’m having a particularly hard time with winter this week. I go into winter kicking and screaming like a toddler having a temper tantrum, but its actually the last few weeks before spring that really get to me. With seed starting and other preparations underway, its springtime in my …
They arrive early in the spring along with the hellebore, and the crocus, and the few other earliest of the early flowers. They are a gift. They greet us silently and yet there is an audible gasp when their bobbing heads are spotted above the debris. Oh thank god we’re gonna make it after all …
I have to say that while I had been feeling a bit extravagant in my fall bulb purchases, I don’t have an ounce of regret now that spring has come and I am able to enjoy them in bloom. It’s been a joyful surprise watching each bud emerge from the soil and open. In many …
They are out early this year, especially this plant, a variety named ‘Red Bells’ that I planted last spring in my own garden — it is already on its third bloom! Pasque flower (Pulsatilla vulgaris) is one of my favourite spring ephemerals and a wonderful perennial plant that thrives in full sun or part shade …
‘Yalta’ is another of the crocus varieties that I planted last fall. It has alternating purple and soft, silvery lavender petals with a delicate and long throat. Apparently it is a C. tommasinianus hybrid, which is another species that I prefer, particularly ‘Ruby Giant’.
Last month I showed you a picture of this particular variety, Crocus biflorus ssp. isauricus ‘Spring Beauty’ (aka Crocus sieberi), growing in a pot in my friend Barry’s greenhouse. Now here are a few photographs of the same variety as they came up in my own garden last week. As I said in the last …
I just wrote and deleted a lengthy paragraph dedicated to complaining about the snow that came and went and came again and the lack of snow that has been the nattering gossip of the 2011/2012 winter season, but then I deleted it because COME ON… I wonder, does obsessing about the weather come with being …
The new yard came with violets… lots and lots of violets. They’re blooming now and even though the yard continues to look like the excavation site of a dead body on a television police procedural… I’m in heaven. I have longed to have the space to grow enough violets to make cheerful springtime jellies. A …
Remember months back when I wrote about lampascioni, the Italian wild onion bulbs that are really a muscari (Muscari comosum) that I purchased at my local greengrocer? Click here for a refresher and more details. Well, here they are! Aren’t they fantastic? I love their feathery plumage (the tassel in their common name, Tassel Hyacinth) …
A few of the Fritillaria michailowski blooms are now fully open for business. I took advantage of the sun today and grabbed a couple of snaps before I head out to Milwaukee tomorrow and miss my chance to capture the plant at its peak.
Although the blooms are not quite fully opened, I could not resist posting a picture of my Fritillaria michailowski in bloom just this morning. I’m really excited about this plant! It’s the one I was most concerned about at planting time, so I figure it’s all smooth sailing from here… at least where the fall …
Do you become absolutely insufferable through the last dregs of winter? Do you cry, bitch, and moan that spring will never come and you will not make it out alive, not this time? Well then you and I are in the same boat my friend, and this post is for you. Last April I spoke …