First shoots

The winter aconite peaked while I was away. Early March brought the first of the miniature daffodils in the front garden,

 

the hellebores in all their glory,

 

 

and the first year of the chionodoxa under the oakleaf hydrangeas in the corner. I feared that the flooding that plagues that corner might have made the bulbs rot, but as usual I was simply too impatient. Not quite a sea of gentian blue, but over the years I hope it will have the same effect as Mom's sea of blue under the crabapple.

 

More emerging shoots:
oakleaf hydrangea

 

bluebells (mertensia) blue

 

and white

 

anemone blanda under the oak tree

 

sweet woodruff whorls

 

and the foliage of bleeding hears.

 

The Moon of the Bulbs

October is, if you're provident, a good time to plant bulbs, although you should really wait till November to plant tulips here. This year I was on the early side with my orders, and have planted the following to date:
96 chionodoxa (deep blue) in the corner garden among the oakleaf hydrangeas. No, it won't look quite like this picture, but my hope is that the corner will eventually be a sea of blue in early spring
6 fringed yellow tulips under the aucuba (golden echoes)
8 dozen more Tommy crocuses under the maple tree
2 dozen more English bluebells (hyancinthoides non-scripta) under the oak tree
4 dozen Scilla Siberica in the walkway garden

Still to be planted are General de Wet tulips (fragrant, orange, probably under the butterfly bush), and a mixture for the front door pot that I lifted from one of Emma T's columns (it's the In the Still of the Night collection). It is supposed to be a mysterious, elegant mix of black, cream and mauve tulips and hyacinths. We'll see.

Also planted are two flats of pansies and a flat of spinach in the raised bed.

Because of the impending Paris trip, I called Brent and Becky and asked them to ship the order right away. With any luck, I'll be able to get them all in the ground next weekend.

Notes to self

Wandering around the garden, the following notes:

These allium triquetrum continue to be my favorites, and I love them popping up among the perennials in the front garden. They add a little delicate color that is welcome once the narcissus have gone by. More, more, more!

 

These little alliums (?) are darling but in the wrong place - they will do better transplanted in front of the trellis.

 

These Sungold narcissus bloom with the English bluebells, which was why I got them in the first place, but they are charming all over the garden. Get more next year and scatter them about.

 

The oak tree garden benefits from just a few tulips at this time of year, adding spires to the prevailing mounds. This area in particular could use a few Ivory Floradale.

 

A riot of color and what's in bloom

Note to self: the first flurry of color in the garden is yellow: winter aconite, forsythia, kerria, daffodils, crocus, all blooming from March into April. The next flurry (happening now, the third week in April) edges into pink, red, blue and white: azaleas, tulips, bleeding hearts, bluebells, columbine, tiarella. The baptisia and amsonia are just barely starting to come out.

Another note to self: the front garden is much more successful this year, thanks to the miniature daffodils and species tulips (speaking of yellow).

What's in bloom on April 19:
columbine
bluebells (hyancinthoides non-scripta)
tiarella
sweet woodruff
star of Bethlehem
mertensia (just going by)
azaleas (pink and white)
tulips
Solomon's seal
shasta viburnum
fothergilla (just going by)
ajuga (bugleweed)
lily of the valley
epimedium niveum
hellebore (still)
mazus reptans (thanks, Martha!)

Tulip frenzy

After almost a week of hot wind, we had a delicious rain and cooler, sunny weather. Just about as perfect as it can be.

Though some of the daffodils and tulips got cooked, the later ones and the ones in shade are still doing well. Alison was telling us last night that she thinks tulips are too regimented. I protested, but actually, I think she's right, and there are just a few ways to use them effectively:

*to draw attention from a distance
*in drifts of color
*as cut flowers

Up close they are somewhat overdone.

On the other hand, I am falling in love with the species tulips, which are a delight close up. Here is 'Lady Jane' in front of the akebia trellis.

 

And here, by the way, are the muscari meant to provide some socks for this garden. More socks needed desperately!

 

I love these pink fringed tulips ('Davenport'??) from the cutting garden, just in time for Weezer's birthday.

 

The front garden is much more successful this spring, with the mixed miniature narcisssus from WFF and this beautiful species tulip 'Batalini.'

 

Failure

This is the year the indoor bulbs sat and sulked. I've been forcing paper whites for thirty years, and for some reason I lost my knack this time around. Out of half a dozen bowls, maybe three actually bloomed. The others began to stink and die. And these were from WFF, usually quite reliable, so it must be operator error.

Amaryllis are a bit harder, but I've been able to winter them over fairly well, and the ones you buy ready to sprout are usually easy peasy. Not this year. Here are several of them in a row, refusing to grow, let alone bloom.

 

The only one that's showing any signs of life is one I've wintered over for several years. I guess it knows the drill better than the others.

 

The week of the daffodils

This is the week the daffodils suddenly burst into bloom. The first was one of the miniatures I planted in the front garden, planning for more color and interest there in early spring.

 

Next up was a clump of these under the oak tree...

 

And now the King Alfreds (or Carltons?) in the cutting garden are starting to take off, too. Here they are plopped in a vase with some hellebores.

 

Spring beauties

The early spring bulbs are much appreciated this year after all that snow. It's amazing how the winter aconite can show off after a few days of sun. Here they are under the oak tree, just opening...

 

 

and here they are at the end of a sunny day.

I have also loved the tommy crocuses that Mom liked so well. I hate planting bulbs, even though these are as easy as anything to stick in the ground, but I had no idea how much I would love their smiling faces:

 

 

If I just keep planting another 50-100 each year, the front lawn will soon be filled with them.

What a difference one letter makes...

Planning is much more fun than planting. Planting bulbs reminds me of how much my garden needs soil amendments. Digging down even six inches is not easy when you reach hard clay almost immediately. Poor me.

Anyway, despite this whingeing, I did manage to plant most of the bulb order this weekend: 50 'Lilac Beauty' tommy crocuses under the maple tree, 5 'Claret' crocuses in the front garden, along with 3 colchicum autumnale alboplenum and 25 mixed miniature narcissus. Along the trellis that hides the compost pile went 24 mixed narcissus, 'Bahama Beach,' 'Ceylon' and 'Serola,' along with 20 muscari. That bed, being new, also got a mixture of Rappahannock Gold compost and leaf mold. 30 more muscari along the terrace by the akebia trellis in an attempt to add socks to that bed.

Also, uprooted the enormous caladium and elephant ear from the pot on the front steps, and planted a mixture of mixed perennial tulips, 'Bahama Beach' and 'Ceylon' narcissus, and purple and yellow Johnny-jump-ups. Whew.

Still lots to go: tulips, including the species, fall crocus, allium triquetrum, etc., etc. It helped that yesterday was breezy and warm in front of a half-inch of rain, and today was a real fall day, with the soil workable from the rain and a cool breeze.

The Bulb Order

This has been looming for months, but somehow I never get to it as early as I should. This year, I took a new approach: identify the locations and types of bulbs you want, and only then turn to the catalogs to fill in the blanks. What a concept!

Under the maple tree will be more crocus tommasianus, five of the special 'Claret' (at the top)
and a bunch of 'Lilac Beauty.' Was hoping for a sea of chionodoxa, but Van Bourgondien was out so will have to look further.

In front of the trellis that hides the compost pile will be three narcissus, 'Ceylon,' 'Bahama Beach,' (at left) and 'Serola," all a soft yellow, and muscari armeniacum for contrast.

Added to the cutting garden is a mix of Scheepers Sport tulips, the WFF perennial tulip mixture, and 25 fringed tulip 'Bell Song,' a soft pink. Planned for a pale yellow, but they were out of stock.

The front garden needs more low color in the spring, so have ordered the WFF miniature narcissus mixture, some species tulips 'Oratorio' and batalinii 'Bronze Charm,' (below)
and Allium triquetrum (at bottom). Also sternbergia lutea for fall color.

In front of the trellis with the akebia will go more muscari (when Brent and Becky referred to muscari as the "socks" of the garden, I perked up, since this area needs it) and some 'Lady Jane' species tulips.

Plus more English bluebells for the oak tree garden.

Fall planting

So behind in my posts, but in pretty good shape for fall planting. Several weekends ago, I planted the hundred daffodils from Van Bourgondien, and replanted the day lilies. Planted the ipheion to extend the existing patch (forgot that I had meant to plant them in the front garden, but next year is another chance). Tommy crocuses under the maple tree and in the front garden. Dogtooth violets in the front garden. The four very expensive daffodils from Brodie Castle (smuggled in the luggage) next to the trellis by the terrace. Narcissus 'Dreamlight and English bluebells amongst the hostas in front of the trellis...

Ran over to Alison's with the bulbs that had been sitting in my back seat for weeks, somewhat the worse for wear, but managed to plant at least a few Jack Snipe, Sun Disc and Sweetness narcissus under her Chinese holly, plus the anemones I bought from Sydney as a fundraiser.

Tomorrow promises to be rainy all day with up at a quarter inch expected, so I have just left everything in the ground and trust to the weather gods.

Fall cleanup

It's been sunny, warm and dry - almost drought conditions - all month until finally, Thursday night, we had about .3" of rain and a cold front moved in. Frost warning for Stafford County tomrrow night (October 19), so I moved things and transplanted things and cut things back.

First, the big pot on the front steps got its annual haircut. By fall, it's usually spilling over, and this year with the purple fountain grass (Pennisetum 'rubrum'), it also waved in your face. I decided to move the grass, along with a smaller version that had been in a pot on the steps, to the other side of the walkway, where they can wave in the breeze without attacking anyone.

In the pot I put some hastily chosen bulbs from Roxbury Mills: 5 each of February Gold narcissus, Apricot Beauty, Beauty Queen (said to be pale salmon, we'll see), and Black Beauty tulips. I topped it off with these pansies,

 

which echo the color of the dark red chrysanthemum in the front garden.

From the pots in the back, I took out the two caladiums, knocked off the dirt, and left them on the table to dry in the sun. Theoretically, you can then store them in vermiculite and start them next year, though one source said they're not as vigorous the second year. I have loved them in pots this year and noted that Dave's Garden people suggest a Florida company, Caladium Bulbs 4 Less, as a good source.

The gorgeous dragonwing begonia I cut way back, as Mom suggested, and brought inside. I also potted two of the pink Babywing begonias and brought them in. I'm not too hopeful that they'll make it through the winter, but it's worth trying.

Finally, I made cuttings of the two coleuses I liked this year, 'Dipt in Wine' and another whose name I've lost.  

I'll try to root these and pot them up.

Fall orders

Have just ordered the "Crescendo" collection of daylilies from White Flower Farm for the pathway garden, and ordered a less pricey (and probably less elegant) collection of daffodils from Van Bourgondien to go with them. The plan is to have flowers and foliage from spring through late summer. The collections are about twice what I need, so I have the delicious problem of deciding where to put the extras - in the cutting garden along the side of the house? Or along the back fence?

I also ordered paper whites, Tommy crocuses and more English bluebells and feel very smug that for once I am not, like Henry Mitchell, having to take a drill to the ground in January to plant the bulbs!

Catching up

June is just a blur, which is too bad because so much happened in the garden. Here's an attempt to catch up just a bit.

Lots of rain and mostly cool temperatures made for a beautiful spring. Favorites include allium triquetrum, which lasted and lasted along the walkway;
the seedpods of the baptisia;

the always-reliable clematis that Betsy gave me twenty years ago as a housewarming present;
and the absolutely gorgeous peonies that threw bloom after bloom this year. The clump's gotten quite big, it might be time to move some of the daylilies, as I keep threatening to do.

This year the rhododendron was incredibly floriferous and was really beautiful for the first time ever (this is an inherited plant that fills up some space quite nicely though I might not have sought it out myself). No pix, just imagine it. Then I finally caught up to Adrian Higgins' article in the Post that notes this is the "best spring ever" for azaleas and rhododendrons, thanks to last year's drought. Apparently, too much moisture promotes leaf growth over flowers - who knew?

Winterthur in spring

I knew of Winterthur as a house full of furniture, collected over decades by one of the Duponts. What I didn't realize until I visited this week is that Henry Francis Dupont, or H.F., was an avid gardener. He created acres of naturalized woodland gardens that are at their best in spring. A great believer in the succession of bloom, he planted acres (another highlight of his gardens is their scale) of early spring bulbs like Siberian squill, chionodoxa, winter aconite, snowdrops and daffodils (which we missed) followed by anemones (the Italian ones, they seem to grow taller than mine), bluebells, forget-me-nots and trillium (which we did see), all punctuated by flowering trees and the dark greens of the pinetum.

Here's a picture of the saucer magnolias, above a carpet of forget-me-nots.






And then there were the sweeps of anemones



and the hillsides of Virginia bluebells (alas, he had only the common blue, unlike some of us fortunates who have inherited the white, smirk)



to say nothing of the multitude of trilliums, mostly the white ones, but also a few yellow and the dark red of the wake robins.



The flowering trees and shrubs were intoxicating, cherries, magnolias, intensely fragrant Carlesii viburnum,



even the redbuds, whose color is hard to work with, I think. I usually prefer them in someone else's garden.
Well, see where HF put them and how well they do.
The weather was absolutely perfect - blue skies, sun, mid-70s - and all was right with the world, if only for a few days...