Garden news- May 30, 2011- And then there was color

Welcome to another 3 posts at once.

All of a sudden there is color in the garden. The hundreds of Siberian Iris started a week ago. Then along came the peonies and now the poppies.
It seems like there is a lot of blue. There are the blues and purples of the Siberian Iris. The big allium globes have begun and the blues of the false indigo, aka baptista is also here.

And amidst it all there is….. so much work to do. The spent foliage from the bluebells is the easy part. There are enough weeds to fill many containers. I give the containers of weeds to the city and have the black gold of their compost in return. What a trade.

I did finish my hosta blog. You will find it below this one. I also have posted some overviews of the backyard. Sometimes when you just get flowers you don’t see the big picture. I will try to show you glimpses of that over the next few weeks.

Here are four pictures for your voting pleasure this week, as the different colors check in.

First up is the color red, one of my clematis, I think Nirobe. I am encouraged by my 7-8 clematis at this point. They are all growing well. I will just have a few more years to go and they should do that “covered with flowers” thing.

Purple is represented by this Siberian Iris, with a great background featuring a ground cover euphorbia, that sometimes is a weed.

White is the simplicity of another Siberian Iris. White is good.

Finally here is this great picture of a single flower from the baptista. In case you did not recognize it, it is in the pea family.


The summer of color is only beginning.
Next week will feature some poppies.

In the voting from 2 weeks ago the first place picture was
The tree peony with 18 votes
Lady slipper orchid 10
Trillium 10
Camassia 6

Be sure to check out the extra posts.
Philip

Garden overview May 30, 2011

As I tell you about hosta this year I think I should show you the view from the sky- well actually the second floor. This is the backyard. I took out a screen so I could take pictures. Maybe next week I will tell you about the front and the sides.

It really becomes a patchwork quilt of hosta colors. The blues are best this time of year.

Hosta thoughts May 30, 2011

It is the end of May 2011 and as I look out at the garden from any upstairs window I see hosta. They really are the year round backbone of the garden.

I would like to do several things in this post.
1- I want to identify my own personal top ten hosta. I would like to do this so I can look back in 3-4 years and see how that has changed.
2- I want to give you a list of hosta that are newer and might move into that list in the next few years.
3- Finally I want to just tell you my hosta tips- or at least the ones that come to mind.


Top ten hosta and why.

Liberty- If you only have to have one hosta this is it. It gets big, but not enormous. It grows rather quickly and has great color contrast. It is still rather new, having only been around for maybe 5 years.

June- This one is real close to the top. It is a wonderful powdery blue, splashed with yellow, which will be more or less gold depending on how much sun it gets. (The more sun the more gold.)

Sagae- This one is a big hosta but stands up well. As with most of these favorites it needs space. It likes to be the center of attention. It can be all by itself.


Montana Aureomarginata- I sometime think of this hosta as the showgirl of the garden. It has striking color contrast. It is upright, meaning it doesn’t hug the ground like June. It is like a fountain shooting up.

Sum and Substance- This is the original giant hosta. I have a specimen in the front yard that must be ten years old. It is probably the biggest hosta in the yard. It is on the yellow side, has only the one color, and has big leaves. As a plant it has been around for a while and is a parent of a number of other hostas.

Pandora’s Box- this is the only mini hosta in my top ten. The individual leaves are maybe an inch long. It is no more than 3 inches high. (This is in contrast with the Sum and Substance leaf that might be 20 inches long.) While it is tiny it looks like some nicely striped regular size hosta. In the second picture Pandora's box is next to several other small or mini hostas.




El Nino- This is a smaller blue one with a distinctive white edge. Give it some dark mulch and wow. I really like the blue ones with edges. This is the best one I have found. While the top two listed above are at the top of the list the remaining 8 are in no particular order. I like El Nino more and more.

Guardian Angel- This is one of your streakers. It comes from Blue Angel, which is a big blue hosta. That means it gets big. It can take overhead sun. I have a mature clump that is gets a bed of its own.




Great Expentations- This hosta was on the cover of the main book about hosta 20 years ago. I had a really nice clump that I divided 7-8 years ago. It is regrowing but is still not the size it was. That is another way of saying it is slow. It is worth the wait.

Lady Isabel Barnett- This hosta came from Sum and Substance so has the size and shape of that plant. It is green with a yellow. It is another specimen plant. I mean it can handle a bed of its own. You want space around it so you can see the entire plant.


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honorable mention for old favorites
Abba Dabba Do
Love Pat
Krossa Regal
Spilt Milk
Whirlwind
Gold Standard
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Hostas to watch that are relatively new
Empress Wu
Sleeping Beauty
Mount Tom
Queen of the Seas
Winter Snow
Gunther’s prize
Mighty Mouse

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Hosta observations:

Except for dwarf or mini hostas, hostas need space. They display so much better if there is room between them. There is nothing nicer this time of year than a well tended hosta bed where there is space between the plants. Put down some mulch around the plants and stand back. Let the color contrasts between the yellows, greens, and blues provide the interest.

Hostas transplant easily. In order to get or keep that space between the hosta, you do have to move them. The best time clearly is early spring when they first come up. That is the ideal time to divide them. At the same time if you want to move an entire clump you can do that on a cool day at almost any time.
I did read a good tip this spring, which was actually for transplanting lilies. The tip was to prepare the in hole before you dug up the plant to move. While this is rather obvious you don’t always do it. Of course you should not only dig the in hole but you should mix in the compost or fertilizer first.

Hostas grow at different speeds. Some accommodating hosta will be slow. Sometimes this is a positive. Most grow so quickly I find myself wanting some shrinking product. I wonder if there is sort of an anti fertilizer. Someone suggested just mixing in some clay.

There are a number of hosta that should be displayed almost individually. Guardian Angel is one. You want a real circle around it with not much else.

There are times when I am overwhelmed with the garden. How can I possibly keep up, unless I retire and just garden?
At those times I think about simplifying the garden. Having these large hosta, that take up a lot of space, is one thing to do. Let them grow in the spring, give them some mulch, and that’s it. There is not much else to do before September.

Some hosta, like other plants, take a few years to really get going. I know we all understand that for something like daylilies. Well, hosta can take the same 3 years, particularly the larger ones. In deciding what hosta to plant check them out in an established hosta garden. The Dubuque Arboretim has one of the largest collections in the country.
It is a place to see lots of really mature plants. Make your decision as to what to plant based on what the plant will look like in 5 years.
Please understand I am not suggesting you plant your hosta 10 feet apart. That’s where the moving them comes in. Plant them with the understanding that some will need to be moved in several years.

There are lots of companion plants to hosta. I would start with early spring blubs. They will be finished by the time the hosta get big. Bluebells work quite well, and as you have seen from this blog, the work well with the big hosta.
Daffodils are fine, but you do need to leave the spent folliage longer than you might wish. I realize that some of those wonderful looking hosta gardens at the moment look good because they had zero spring bulbs. That is your trade off. And as we all know it is all about trade offs. You make your choices and there are consequences.

So enjoy this wonderful plant. I really do think it is at its best right now. The colors really are wonderful.

Garden news- May 15, 2011- The in between time

I think of this little time in Iowa as the "in between time."

Maybe I am just trying to find something positive to say. It got hot last week, way up in the lower 90’s for a few days. The heating/cooling system in our house really got a work out. And after it was hot for a few days, it cooled off, more than you would have wanted. I don’t think it quite made it to 50 yesterday. We did get a much-needed rain, for most of the weekend. There, that is positive.

The heat finished the bluebells and daffodils. The crabapple trees bloomed for maybe 2-3 hours. Several tree peonies bloomed and the flowers did not last more than a day.

But as someone said- that is life in the Midwest.

Now there is old bluebell foliage in with the other finished spring bulbs. Weeds, including the proverbial and perennial dandelion are all over the place. It takes a trained and discriminating eye to appreciate the garden at the moment.
We are in the midst of the May in between time. It will be several weeks before the old foliage starts to get out of the way. While the buds from the iris and peonies and poppies are coming, they aren’t here yet.

You have to wander around to find the color, as the green and blues of the hosta predominate. I will try to write sometime soon about hosta. They really are wonderful, particularly this time of year. They just can’t compete with flower pictures.

So what do I have for you this week?

First here is a picture of an underappreciated late spring bulb, that fills in this between time. It is called camassia. This dainty pale lavender flower is one of two colors of camassia that I have established in the backyard. Please see the bonus pictures for more camassia.

The second picture is one of the tree peonies. Tree peonies bloom earlier than their herbaceous cousins. Tree peonies are called that since they form shrubs, which can get to 6 feet high. They can last for a real long time. They have really big flowers.


The third picture is the lady slipper orchid called Gisela. It is one of the cypripediums, which live outside even in the north, and under some conditions can thrive. There is a pink one, reginae, which is the Minnesota state flower. Gisela is supposed to be one of the easiest to grow.

The final picture this week is a close-up of Trillium grandiflorum. When you saw it two weeks ago it was white. What a transformation. Check out the bonus pictures to see if change in the entire clump.

Have fun with your voting this week.

In the voting last week the totals were:
Primrose close-up 43
Busy tulip 15
Anemone close-up 12
Dwarf iris 10

For your bonus pictures this week first are more camassia.






Here is the grandiflorum trillium clump, before and after.
May 8, 2011

May 13, 2011

May 13, 2011


Finally I mentioned last week that I had lost several trillium. Well this one, trillium simile, just showed up, already in flower. I don’t know how I missed it. I was sure it had not made it. You just never know sometimes.




Have a good week.
Philip

Garden news- May 8, 2011- It is getting even better.

I keep thinking that it doesn’t get any better than this in the garden. Then it seems to get better. Yesterday was one of those days you would like to bottle up and bring out in darkest January. It was sunny, and warm but not hot. There were flowers at every turn. The blues and yellows of April were still there, as the late daffodils still mingle with the bluebells. (I am not even going to mention the occasional yellow of the dandelions, which provide me with enough work to keep me busy all by themselves.) What was different were the splashes of brighter color from the occasional tulip.
Tulips are good, with their purples and bright reds. A mass planting is good. But I like the occasional or even individual tulip, dancing all alone in a part of the garden where they stand out.
I sometimes think about the focal point flower. This is the flower than you see from across the yard, or the passing car. This is not subtle. Certain oriental poppies come to mind. They are the bright reds ones. We have a pink tree peony that some years has fulfilled this role. Then there is Ruby Spider, the daylily. But back to the present.
Not all flowers are focal point flowers. Some are so small that you have to wander around for a while before you even notice them. There was that last double bloodroot, whose bloom yesterday marked the 25-day since the first group bloomed in this little clump. That’s right- the first group of three, which I showed you, bloomed on April 13.

So what do I have for you this week? There are three more posts, as I have three groups of pictures. First there are the best pictures of the week, pictures I expect you will see again in the next picture contest way off in the future. Second there are additional posts for more daffodils and tulips. Finally there are pictures of everything else, which covers a lot.



So lets do this.

The best pictures this week, were the best from many. Let’s here it for digital photography. Remember when you had to take pictures to be developed? Gosh is that a long time ago or what. Was that before or after cell phones or email?


First up is a close-up of the primrose you liked from last winter. It is bigger and better this spring. I am not ready to divide it. It is still a keeper. When you have a good plant, my motto is “get more”.

Second is another close-up. This is anemone Sylvestris. This spreading little spring bloomer looks just like the fall anemone. The close up is just about the same. In the bonus pictures with this post I show you a close up of the fall flower.

Third is this wonderful dwarf bearded iris. The bearded iris have started their month long run. The short ones (dwarf bearded) start first, which only seems appropriate. I have neglected these plants somewhat. They needed dividing and replanting, which should be done in August. The problem is that when you divide iris you have something like seven million.
I do like the dwarf ones, as they completely do not need staking. They also bloom now which is sometimes a slower time in the garden, between the riot of spring bulbs and the riot of such perennials as daylilies and other lilies.

Finally I had a hard time picking one tulip. That is why they get a separate post with some daffodils. This one, with is not a monsella, has got the monsella colors and is even more busy. Imagine this picture blown up real big. For that matter put it on your full screen for an effect.

There you have it. What a selection this week.
Vote away.

In last week’s voting the results were:
Tulip close-up 20
Pulmonaria 13
Epimedium 5
Daffodil 3
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For your bonus viewing here are the non close-ups of the anemone and the primrose. There is also a close-up of the white fall anemone.(from last fall)



Enjoy the week. Here come the crab apple trees.
Philip

More pictures May 8, 2011

Here are other highlights from the garden this weekend.

First here are two different pasque flowers, which are pulsatilla vulgaris. While I am still waiting for them to bush up, they have come back for 2 successive springs and seem to be healthy. That’s not a bad report card. The seedpods are good too. I will try to show them to you in a few weeks.


Here are more primroses. There are quite a few varieties. I think I am just scratching the surface.







This is a forget-me-not. It is a perennial the has lasted for years now. I will always have a fondness for this family as I remember its two-inch tall cousin that grows in the alpine areas, even above tree line. We know it from Rocky Mountain National Park, along trail Ridge Road. That is one of my favorite drives, as long as someone else is behind the wheel.

Finally here are some trillium. These 4 varieties come back for me. I have tried to get more exotic types. They died. That happens.





Enjoy.
Philip