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.

Random gardening joys

The common bugleweed (ajuga) in bloom by the Japanese roof iris in back - I am encouraging this to spread under the crape myrtle.

 

These strange insects on an old log - while I watched them swarm, they started to take flight, each one sparkling in the sunlight.

 

The oak tree garden now mostly blue and white with the self-seeded columbines and Japanese roof iris in bloom.

 

And the oak tree suddenly shedding its blooms all over the place.

 

What I did on my gardening vacation - Part I

A long overdue account of what I accomplished the week before last...

Questing after shrub borders against the fence, I've been reading "Continuous Color" by Pam Duthie.

She recommends shrubs with more than one season's interest. For each one she lists all the relevant details, including some gushing comments that undercut her authority just a bit. Nevertheless, based on her recommendations, I headed first to Merrifield and then to Colesville Nursery.

At Merrifield (in the pouring rain), I ended up with a Kerria japonica 'Golden Guinea,' which has single yellow roselike blooms and offers "bright green stems showy in winter." It's not an exciting shrub, but its yellow flowers are sweet. I was heartened to read Henry Mitchell calling it "common and unexciting" but going on to say,

And yet I well recall decades ago when I first saw this bright canary-yellow creature - golden quarters spangled the length of bright lime-green stems - in a Mississippi garden...I could not think of many good plants that would survive in dry shade, and besides, I wanted the green stems to be there in winter. Indeed, they are just as cheerful on a January day as I expected they would be.

Also at Merrifield, after surveying the yews


 






and the English laurels
 

with an interested eye, I came away with a Kirengeshoma, something I'd been interested in since planning the refurbished front garden. I've planted it under the oak tree in back and look forward to its leaves and blooms. It doesn't hurt to see Henry Mitchell saying

What could be grown in such a space, dampish and half shady, between brick pavement and the concrete wall of the pool? Well, if I moved the wild irises (Iris versicolor from a local swamp) out and dug in a barrowful of leaf mold and some peat moss and let it all settle down nicely, I could grow Kirengeshoma palmata. This is a perennial posing as a small shrub, growing three feet or so, with leaves like a Norway maple's and hanging yellow bells or trumpet flowers in October. I have never seen a photograph of it that would make anybody desire it. And yet I have never heard of any gardener who, seeing it in the flesh, did not want it. It's not the leaves and it's not the flowers -- it's the way the plant is put together with such refinement and freshness.

Here it is:
 

Also five Mahogany bugleweed to go under the oak leaf hydrangea, three white caladiums for pots, a Rex begonia, and a 'White Lady' hellebore to go somewhere...
Here's the wagon full:
 

Hellebores

This is the year I fell in love with hellebores. I've had a good-sized clump under the oak tree for so long that I no longer remember where I got it or what kind it is. I've transplanted an offset to the other side of the oak tree with plans to keep spreading them about under there. Here it is last February.

 

Then last year, I found a Pine Knot select at Winterthur that I planted in the front garden, and a 'Royal Heritage' hybrid that I moved from the walkway garden to the (formerly) white garden last fall.

Here's what I like about them: they bloom when nothing else does; their leaves are substantial and even (Royal Heritage) elegant; they make terrific cut flowers that last and last and give you a chance to actually view and enjoy their flowers; and they are modestly beautiful.

Margaret Roach likes them, too.

Easter

Today is a Sunapee day, bright blue sky and a brisk breeze. Here is the Easter table, set with blue and white mertensia and bleeding heart,

 

and here is the birthday cake for LMP, which sneaks in here because of the violets on top.

 

Everything looks beautiful on a day like this: the newly painted walkway garden bright with narcissus from Van Bourgondien,

 

the daffodils from Brodie Castle smuggled in the luggage and safely planted last fall,

 

and the always satisfying oak tree garden. Today in bloom are mertensia blue and white, bleeding heart red and pink, dogtooth violets almost gone by, hellebore, Sun Disc narcissus ditto, yellow epimedium and grape hyacinths. Still to bloom are tulips and English bluebells.

 

The February garden

Crocus and winter aconite under the oak tree.
 
 
 

Winter aconite and snowdrops under the oak tree, and the beautiful hellebore ditto.