Category Archives: loki bed

Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day – May 2013

loki bed

It seems we are running a few weeks behind last year’s schedule for blooms. Nevertheless, here are some Bloom Day photos from the Lot for May 2013.

First up is the variegated Solomon’s Seal in Loki’s bed. This plant adores this spot, having nearly doubled each year of it’s residency.  I’m sure the fact the neighbor’s well-fed veggie garden is on the other side of the fence helps it along as well.

Solomons Seal

Next is a little English daisy planted last year. I thought for sure we’d lost it to the blazing hot summer sun last season. But the little plant popped up again this spring among the self-sown Forget-Me-Nots. Hopefully this season it will become better acclimated to the Lot and flourish.

English Daisy

Here is a photo from just down the street. Each spring, you can smell these lilacs from a half a block away. When the lilacs are finishing their show, the spirea hedge beneath them begin to bloom. It’s a nicely thought out combo.

051513_lilac

Also blooming right now are grape hyacinth, lenten rose, tulips, bleeding heart, and star of Bethlehem. Be sure to visit May Dreams Gardens to see what else is in bloom this month.

First Robin

birds, loki bed, spring

As I was making coffee this morning, I saw two robins on the fence beside our bird feeder. These little harbingers of Spring are a stark contrast to their frosty environment. It had rained over the weekend with the rain turning to some sort of sleet-like mess Monday and Tuesday. The forecast does not call for a break in the frigid weather until the first of April.

This year I’m going to take a shot at growing a lot of my flowering plants from seed. A gardening friend, Mr. D, will be bestowing Ms. A and I with a bunch of seeds  he harvested from his flowerbeds last Fall. I haven’t taken the time to assemble grow lights in the basement, so a lot of these seeds will be going straight into the beds when the soil has dried and warmed.

And finally, I noticed at the beginning of this week, the Lenten Rose will be blooming this year! It was introduced to the Lot during late Spring of 2009. Hopefully this icy weather will not damage the unfurling petals.

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.