Category Archives: backyard bed

Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day – May 2019

backyard bed, bloom day, bulbs, front bed, gate bed, loki bed, perennials, southwest bed, spring, the Lot

It has been awhile since I participated in Bloom Day over at May Dreams Gardens. But the weather was slightly overcast the other morning, so I brought the camera out into the garden with that goal in mind. This Spring on the Lot seems to be running behind previous years. When I attended a bare roots class the other weekend, our instructor commented we are about 2 weeks behind last year. Looking back at the blog at previous Spring blooms for May, that does indeed seem to be the case.

Out front in the south bed of the Lot, those classic red tulips are blooming. These bulbs were in the bed when we moved into the home. There are many not blooming beside and behind the overgrown yew which also was there on move-in day. I’m determined this year to mark area with popsicle sticks and dig them up in the fall and relocate them. The bi-color tulips are newer.

In this southwest bed are new tulips as well. The creeping phlox (Phlox subulata) is also blooming. I’d like to divide it after it is done blooming and distribute it more evenly through the south and southwest bed.

Pro Tip: To get a discount on creeping phlox for your garden, visit the nursery after the phlox’s bloom time. The nursery will have sheered off the spent blooms, so it is harder for them to sell to the public. If you know what you’re looking for, you often get a bargain!

And then I got momentarily distracted by these less-than-perfect looking tulip blooms. I do enjoy a good quirky, bug nibbled flower.

It also had rained the night before, so there were droplets of rainwater still on the plants. Okay, onward!

Here the barrenwort (Epimedium) is in bloom in the east bed. I LOVE, love, love this plant. It is so magical…like foam flower (Tiarella) magical. Those little flowers look like they are floating, and check out the foliage! This is a rockstar for dry shade or morning sun areas in the garden.

In the back garden of the Lot, the bleeding heart (Lamprocapnos spectabilis) is displaying its stalks of suspended blooms. I have a lot of seedlings from this plant to give away in a neighborhood plant exchange this year!

Here is a service berry shrub in bloom. This shrub is a favorite of any robins nesting nearby. They absolutely love the fruit.

A closeup of the shrub. I really enjoy white blooms in the spring. Whenever we have rainy days and overcast skies, the white blooms of this shrub seem to glow. It’s a nice reminder when looking out the kitchen window that spring is indeed in progress.

This Solomon’s Seal (Polygonatum odoratum ‘Variegatum’) colony, pictured to the left of St. Francis, began with transplants from Loki’s bed thanks to my gardening buddy Ms. A. I feel it’s filled in rather nice.

In the very back of the backyard garden, this barren strawberry (Waldsteinia fragarioides) is nestled between the rain barrels. Again, the lighter color bloom brightens up this area on cloudy days. It’s often grown as a groundcover, though it has been slow to spread in this spot. I think I’m going to grab a few more of these during this year’s nursery crawl.

Gah, I love this plant SO much!!! It’s prairie smoke geum (Geum triflorum). There are geum cultivars available, but I’ve never found any of them as interesting as this native gem. I feel this could be one of those magical plants as well. That’s a scientific classification, right?

A closeup shot of the flowers. So fuzzy!!!

And finally in Loki’s bed, the very first lenten rose (Helleborus) to grace the Lot is in full bloom with new grow on the way. It gets larger and more beautiful every season.

But Wait, There’s More

There are more plants blooming on the Lot I haven’t pictured above. A whole bunch of grape hyacinth bulbs (Muscari) and violets are adding purple dots of color. Cranesbill (Geranium) and more lenten rose (Helleborus) are also in bloom. A few primrose (Primula vulgaris) are still blooming. The brunnera (Brunnera macrophylla ‘Jack Frost’), lungwort (Pulmonaria), and rock cress ((Arabis sturii) are all beginning to bloom.

Migrating Party

backyard bed, birds, spring, the Lot

I’m not sure how to explain what was happening today at the bird feeder in the back garden. On the Lot, we have a site line from our kitchen window into the middle of the back garden. The Other Half and myself enjoy watching for birds visiting throughout the seasons. We enjoy it enough our friend Ms. A purchased us a backyard bird ID guide.

Across the backyard near the garage we have a tray feeder for sunflower seeds, a hanging feeder for jams and fruit, and a suet cage. Right outside the kitchen window we’ve hung a thistle seed feeder on one side and a suet feeder on the other. The thistle seed feeder is often crammed full of American Goldfinch (Spinus tristis), both to our delight and the four-footed management’s frustration. The little roof at the top of the horizontally hung suet feeder ensures the suet is reserved for woodpeckers, nuthatches, and any other bird willing to cling upside down to enjoy the feed. We usually find the downy woodpecker (Dryobates pubescens ) grabbing a meal.

Anyway, back to today. I had left my office and walked downstairs to refill my coffee mug. I always like to look out our window into the garden to see who is at the feeders. A normal day will bring the goldfinches, house finches (Haemorhous mexicanus), woodpeckers, northern cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis ), recently a pair of black-capped chickadees (Poecile atricapillus) , mourning doves (Zenaida macroura ), and a whole load of house sparrows (Passer domesticus).

But today was different. Hopping around on the ground below the feeder was a rose-breasted grosbeak (Pheucticus ludovicianus)! I have NEVER seen this bird in the back garden since we moved here just over ten years ago. Mom G has loads of them in her garden 2 hours north of the Lot. It was a juvenile male, but still quite pretty.

I excitedly texted the Other Half to tell him the news. When I looked up again, there was yet another bird I had never seen at our feeder! It was a block of the prettiest gray, with a slightly darker gray cap and narrow, pointy beak. Some minutes spent with the ID book helped me to identify the bird as a gray catbird (Dumetella carolinensis).

Returning to my desk for work, I felt giddy with having witnessed these new visitors to the back garden. As mentioned many times before in this digital journal, one of the reasons I garden is for wildlife. Even if they were passing through for migration, I was happy to have created a space the birds could stop in and grab a bite.

Lunch time rolled around and I headed back down to the kitchen to get a meal of my own. I about fell over when I looked out the back window. Four adult male rose-breasted grosbeaks and one female were at the feeders. One of the males flew right up to the back window to take a try at the finch feeder. Also, hopping around on the ground below the feeder were several white-crowned sparrows (Zonotrichia leucophrys ). This is a bird who has visited before, but often is only here a short time as they make their way north to Canada.

And then, as if this bombardment of diverse birds all in one day wasn’t enough, I spotted it. A baltimore oriole (Icterus galbula). I have tried every. single. spring. since living here to get this bird to visit the Lot. I ever-so-slowly reached into the kitchen drawer for the binoculars we keep there and took a closer look at it. Yes! It was an oriole!!! The recently sought after advice from Sister G had paid off.

When I again texted the Other Half, his reply was “Now you’re just making stuff up”. At least when he got home tonight he was able to see a Ms. and Mr. grosbeak. The whole experience was fantastic and I can’t wait to see what this season brings with our feathered friends.

Resources

Spring Arrivals

backyard bed, bulbs, spring, the Lot

We did it! We made it through another cold, dark winter. The Spring equinox has passed, the first robin was spotted, and now freckles of color are appearing on the Lot.

From left to right are the winter aconite (Eranthis cilicica), crocus (Crocus tommasinianus), and snow drops (Galanthus).