Garden news- May 3, 2010

Editors note (As I have not posted for a while I wanted to add this picture free post.)
It was a remarkable April. We had a constant snow cover from December 1 to early March. Once the snow was gone the foliage beneath it was still green. The pansies emerged with still green foliage. The were blooming within two weeks and have put on an April show as never before seen.
I had a ornamental kale that was down by the curb, that was mostly covered by the snow. It survived the winter and is now blooming. That has never happened before in my garden.
There was one frost in all of April. On April 9 it got down to 29. It later warmed to 67 that afternoon. I took the impatiens outside that I had started from cuttings, in early April, to harden them up. They stayed outside, only seeking the inside of the garage that one night of April 9.
Everything was glorious, from the crocuses to the daffodils and then the bluebells. There were epimedium and hellebores and pulmonaria.

Most of that is over. The spent foliage remains from the bulbs. There are little wonders here and there. The blue camassia is a keeper. The Gisela cypripedium orchid has bloomed for the first time. (It was its second spring.) The clematis are doing well, which for me is a marvel. If you just keep putting them in the ground a reasonable number will survive.
Indeed lupine will start this week. They are mixed in with the yellow of several types of euphorbia.

But there is so much work. There is the spent foliage and the weeds. They do grow too.