Showing posts with label lilac. Show all posts
Showing posts with label lilac. Show all posts

Thursday, May 23, 2019

Garden happenings

LOTS of rain this spring. Just sayin'.

May 21: iris poised to bloom, and allium looking good

May 21: baptisia starting to bloom, and poppies sending up buds

May 21: dianthus looking gorgeous, and lilac starting to fade

May 21: remember the weird allium that sent up only a bud, no leaves? It bloomed anyway! Small but sufficient.

May 21: Sweet pea seedlings direct-sown around the lower lamp post.

Today: front left. Iris looking great!

Today: front right.


Today 

Saturday, May 11, 2019

Wave Hill

We visited Wave Hill, in the Bronx, today, with my dad who was visiting from Wisconsin. It was a lovely place and a lovely day. Some things that struck me:


This is the same bonsai viewed from afar, through the window

Love the bright green


The rhododendron in this picture is the one in the label above. It's a cool color.

I love lilacs. Love love love.

Might be fun to grow lupins?

This terrace was like a collection of fairy kingdoms



Thursday, May 9, 2019

Garden happenings

I am sort of aching for my garden to kick into high gear, but progress is good.

May 6. Daffodils and Spanish bluebells in front of the shrubs directly in front of the house. The other daffodils are done, but these littler ones bloomed later.

These are actually in front of Emma's school, not my house. I took a photo because I liked that they looked good on May 7.
The rest of these were taken today.




Sunday, May 5, 2019

I made this seed bed...

A week ago Emma and I transplanted what was left of our mini-greenhouse seedlings (none of which looked too robust; I would say we waited too long), and I threw a lot of random seeds into the garden just because a moment was here and would pass and they'd never get planted if I didn't take immediate action. I remember foxglove and poppy and pepper and sweet pea seeds but was overall just not worrying about documentation. Sometimes you just have to see what happens, because you don't have time for careful plotting and recording.

But now I spend some time every day staring at the ground and wishing things would appear, and I'm fuzzy about what I'm expecting. There's a lot of green stuff sprouting, but who knows whether they are weeds or seedlings? I made this (seed) bed; now I must lie in it.

In other news:

Perennial tulips wide awake on Apr 23

Perennials tulips waking up on Apr 25

This is actually the first time I have spotted a rabbit on my property, remarkably, even though I have occasionally seen them elsewhere in the neighborhood. Just another critter to eat my beloved plants. Sigh.

A more welcome creature: mourning dove with fluffed feathers. Note the allium getting taller on April 28

Last year, I got a free pot, and when I emptied the soil, I found mystery bulbs. So I threw the bulbs in other pots just to see what would happen, and two of the pots sprouted these things. Lilies? Random weeds not from the bulbs at all?

If you look at the photo below, you'll see our azalea being glorious in front of the house, but my new favorite part of it is this random branch that has grown back through the other shrubs toward the house, such that I can see it from the front window, though not from anywhere else. Lovely!

May 1

What the heck made this huge hole on the right side of the front garden? Was it something burrowing, or just a deer stepping into a soft spot?

Poor dianthus

Lilac, obviously, but also transplanted Shasta daisies on the left, in front of hydrangea. The daisies have been getting a little uppity on the left side of the garden.

In front of the street number sign, there used to be a thriving anemone - now it is just sending up a very few tiny leaves. Will it recover? Close-up below. Interestingly, this was the anemone that replaced the one that didn't make it after the first winter when we redid this front garden.


I think this shrub is pretty, in front of 14 Brookside Dr., in Maplewood, on May 2

Another view

I passed these pots in the city on May 3. Love the Columbine.

The cherry tree blossoms are now more on the ground than the branches, like a fluffy pink carpet surrounding each tree. This is in front of the library.


Sunday, April 21, 2019

Easter = Spring

Happy Easter! I am enchanted by all things spring in my neighborhood right now. The grass is so green you would think it is not real, and trees are starting to explode in leaves.

As you are facing the house, this is on the left, but I'm looking down the hill at the three new allium I planted in fall, plus the foxgloves and anemones returning for action.

This is a previously planted allium but what's interesting is that behind it, there is a single stalk of an allium that did come up and bloom last year - but it has no leaves this year. Wonder what happened, and will it bloom?

Apparently I should have pruned the baptisia to the ground last year. Must get on it now!

The backyard hydrangea starting to leaf, and the ever-reliable bleeding heart, which will probably perish when work begins on the yard.

Daffodils close to the house.

Daffodils along the back wall of the back yard, planted my first year in the house and returning strong! Not all of them did so.



These may be the only hens and chicks that survived the winter.

I am still hoping these are self-sown Larkspur in the foreground - also note the healthy-looking allium transplanted from the back yard!

Hydrangea and mystery weeds.


Remember I was worried this peony wouldn't come back? Wonder if it will bloom this year, unlike last year?

Lilac is preparing to bloom

Glorious lungwort in the back plot, about to be displaced with our planned yard work.

This phlox patch grows every year, to my delight

Robust poppies, but not sending up any flower stems yet

These very little purple-flowered weeds (a violet variety, perhaps?) are scattered around the back yard and we like them


This is one site of the seedlings we transplanted earlier this month from our mini-greenhouses. Frankly they were too little to transplant but the timing of our vacation last week was such that I thought we might as well stick them in the ground and see what happened. I bet a few of them will make it.

Another seedling site

The foot of one of the back yard trees. I like this scene. Kind of fairy-friendly.

The perennial tulips are returning!

The viburnum is blooming beautifully. Both bushes.