The garden is mostly cleaned up, with those parts that seem always to have to wait until the end, still waiting. Last weekend I raked and raked and still never finished. There is a lesson there somewhere.
Last week's voting gave us the final contestant in the finals this week.
The voting was
Double Bloodroot 27
Cactus 13
Dancing Anemone 12
Daylily 9
The final four
So here they are. Which do you choose for the picture of the year?
Here is tricolor crocus, with all its different colors. I actually count four colors.
The first of these crocuses bloomed yesterday, March 28, 2015.
Here is that very involved Iceland Poppy, with that great shade of...what color is that exactly? Orange?
Just you wait for May this year. I have dozens of little Iceland poppies growing in the basement. Some of them got to spend the day outside yesterday. I think they may get to stay outside all week. I put them right up against a south wall, sheltered from the wind.
Here is pure white, the double Bloodroot. Maybe white can prevail with the dramatic color fans splitting their votes.
I do resolve to spread this clump this year. They should be enjoyed in more than one location. That also has them bloom over more time. Different parts of the yard are ahead or behind other parts, particularly in the early spring.
I do not know if I have ever had a photograph that captured this color of red as well as this picture. This is Beauty of Livermore. If you find it in the nursery, get it.
This is one great group of pictures, that you picked, several times. Good job.
Bonus section
For a while this week it seemed that the temperature became permanently stuck at 37. It did not feel like picture taking weather. But the warm weather will be back soon.
There was this wonderful piece of garden news. Tree peonies are peonies that become shrubs. They do not die down to the ground. They can get to be 5 feet tall. There is then the expression, "in someone else's garden."
I have tree peony seedlings.
Here was the blog entry from April 20, 2014, with a picture.
"I found one little plant and then another with little colored straws next to them. (In the picture below the old straws have been replaced with new and more vibrant straws.) This tells me that last year I marked that place as one that I might forget. I wasn’t quite sure what I was seeing. It looked a little like peony foliage. There were two little tiny plants, just a single shoot, that were not more than 2-3 inches tall.
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| April 20, 2014 |
Then I remembered. They were tree peony seedlings. I had brought some seed back from the east coast 3-4 years ago. They never germinated in the pots when I tried to get them to sprout. Finally I just threw some seeds in the ground and forgot about them. Sure enough, 2 years ago they sprouted. And here they were, surviving the worst winter that Iowa could throw at them.
I do figure it will be only about 10 years before they will bloom. But I will keep those colored straws out there and make sure I do not weed them in the spring.
As a postscript, since I found those two seedlings, I have found 3 more."
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| March 22, 2015 |
Fast forward to March 22, 2015.
Here is this picture. This plant did not die back to the ground. I should add that the other three plants are also alive. Their shoots are down by the ground. One of them survived being transplanted last year.
Gardening with an eye towards something that will bloom in maybe 5 years gives you a different prospective.
Gardening when you have grown something from seed gives you another. I should go work with my seedlings from this spring.
Enjoy the sunshine and the warmer weather.
Philip
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