Category Archives: bulbs

Belated Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day – March 2012

bulbs

I had such high hopes at the New Year to stay on top of Bloom Day updates for 2012! Ah well. Several days later, this Hellebore is one of the stars on the Lot. At this time last year, it was still asleep underground beneath a layer of soggy snow.

Hellebore

As for the rest of the Lot…
Blooming: crocus, hyacinth, snowdrops
Budding: daffodils, periwinkle

There is still a lot of dead and winter damaged foliage to prune since I didn’t tend to much of that except the irises last Fall. I’m just not sure if I trust this strange, warm weather.

The Other Shoe Drops

bulbs, spring

March 20th is the first day of spring. I exclaimed this while my Better Half and I were munching on breakfast yesterday morning. We both looked out the window into our backyard, looked at each other and started to laugh. It was snowing.

Last year at the beginning of March, all the snow melted away and temperatures reached into the upper fifties. This year during mid-March, temperatures warmed in the same way. The star of Bethlehem, tulips and daffodils broke through the ground. The crocus were blooming. In a fit of gardening withdrawal, the butterfly bushes were pruned! Then it snowed.

This is a good thing. I feel like I can let out the breath I’ve been holding ever since the weather turned spring-like these past two weeks. Although I do enjoy winter, this is it’s last gasp before leaving us and spring truly arrives. I can’t wait. Neither can the plants.

In addition to the above mentioned bulbs, there are other plants stirring on the lot. While poking around in the beds, I noticed the sedum, lilies, irises, jupiter’s beard, lamb’s ear, poppy, delphinium, bleeding heart and lenten rose all showing new sprouts. I feel like it’s Christmas morning.

Bloom Update

backyard bed, bulbs, fence bed, gate bed, loki bed, ,

Wow. I had not realized how much time passed since I last made a post to the blog. I have to get better about making regular updates if I want this to be the handy garden tracker I’d hoped it to be.

Here are several more bulbs that popped over the last few weeks. This first is an Azure Grape Hyacinth ordered from Breck’s. I snapped the picture around the 15th of this month. The size of the mulch is a good indicator as to how little and dainty the flower is. The flowers pictured are planted in the main backyard bed, receiving sun all day long. The other five bulbs were planted in Loki’s garden, receiving a very small amount of sun in the morning hours. The buds of those are just breaking up through the leaves.

Saturday was absolutely gorgeous with sun, a nice breeze, and temperatures in the high 60s. My Ice Stick Tulips, also ordered from Breck’s, finally opened up. The blooms had been ready to do so since Easter. As shown here, they seemed to enjoy the sun as much as we did. These guys are very sensitive to the weather. Today was very chilly and rainy, so the buds were sealed up tight. This fence bed receives more sun than the neighboring gate bed where I planted the other half of the ice stick tulip bulbs. Again, the bulbs in the gate bed, receiving a half of day’s sunlight are several days behind the fence bed tulips.



This next flower was an absolute surprise when it started emerging. Two purple hyacinth are living in the southwest corner bed.


Finally, the Scilla survived! These bulbs, picked up from a local nursery, are part of my experiment in naturalizing an area with flowers. I planted the bulbs in the fall as directed on the package. However, instead of placing them in a bed, I cut circles into the turf and planted the bulbs directly into the back lawn near the alley. I can’s wait to see what these will look like in a few years.