sprig to twig

Are you new to this? If so, here’s the deal: on the 15th of every month Carol of May Dreams Gardens hosts a forum where gardeners from all over the world share pictures of what is blooming in their gardens. Sound like fun? It is! So come along with me for a tour of my garden, then skip on over to my blogroll and click on May Dreams Gardens to be taken to the portal of all things blooming.

Can you see the bumblebees in there? I counted seven in a single blossom. They seem to sort of drowse in the cardoon, which is way smaller than last year, but more floriferous.

Whenever something blooms for the first time, it is cause for celebration, even if the show is less than stellar. Campsis tagliabuana falls into that category for me. I brought several from my former garden and placed them at five consecutive fence-posts. You know the feeling. This gives me hope that my vision of a fence line covered with vines is not a mere pipe dream.

I bought my Clerodendrum trichotomen specifically for the steely blue balls that form after the blossoms fade. So far, no luck…but the fairly inconspicuous blossoms do have a heavenly fragrance that kicks in just as the lilies breathe their last. Here it hovers above the Hydrangea ‘Limelight’.

And here is a close-up of ‘Limelight’.

The dangling pagodas of Leycesteria formosa combine fruit and flower over a long season. I hear that the fruit can be used in jams and such, but have never tried it.

I remember ‘Red Hot Pokers’ from my grandmother’s garden. The newer varieties emerge sporting a single color, like this ‘Primrose Beauty’, which, as you can see, fades to bicolor as it ages.

But ‘Percy’s Pride’ holds on to its monochromatic pale yellow, making it my favorite of all the kniph’s.

See the deep colored dahlia in back of the paler one? That is the most vigorous of all the dahlias I have ever planted. The paler one in the foreground seems to be a sport, as it is springing from the same tuber…ain’t horticulture grand?

August seems like an odd time to be buying plants, but I couldn’t resist this Rudbeckia ‘Henry Eilers’ at the farmers’ market. It is said to reach a height of 5′, so it fits into my plan for the fence line between us and our nearest neighbors.

This Rosa rugosa ‘Buffalo Gals’ is another introduction along the fence line.

Our extremes of weather have made August feel a bit strange…not so much interest in getting out there to sniff, cut and snap pictures. Thanks to ‘Bloom Day’ there is a little extra motivation, and look what we found…

This year is a head-scratcher. Some things are early, some are late. Whatever. Plenty in bloom, so come with me:

The day lilies are in full stride. This one came as a reward for volunteering at the HPSO plant sale.

And the plain old orange variety has as much charm as the fancy hybrids.

I took any number of shots of Verbena bonariensis, and this is as close as I got to capturing the see-through quality that makes it welcome as it seeds itself all over the place.

Borage is another prolific self-seeder. It has a cucumber-y flavor and pretty pale blue flowers, so I will just try to keep ahead of it and hope for the best.

The Hydrangeas are coming on. This one is ‘Preziosa’.

This sedum has lovely bronze foliage, now completely obscured by the flush of almost-red blossom. Can you see the eggplant developing on the plant in front?

Another sedum dressed in pink.

Rosa ‘Dortmund’ is finally making her presence known climbing up a fence post. The deer can no longer keep up with her…or maybe they have lost interest.

The Calmagrottis at the pond’s edge captures the light.

Wild field daisies crop up wherever allowed.

I thought Bloom Day might get a little boring, with the same things blooming year after year. Just as if to prove me wrong, this butterfly found the lavender walk irresistible and spent a good part of a morning working it over. To see what is blooming all over the world, go to my blogroll and click on May Dreams Gardens.

After a slow start, things are really picking up…just in time for Garden Bloggers Bloom Day. This post contains a few questions that I am hoping will turn up some answers as comments (always appreciated).

Sambucus negra ‘Eva’ anchors an entry berm that is just starting to come together. It is blooming for the first time this year. Here you see it nestled up to Hydrangea quercifolia, which is just budding up (also a first timer).

Looking at it from the other side of the berm, Allium caesium is just pushing through the dark foliage and beginning to unfurl its sky blue balls.

An unknown Euphorbia is crowding in (can anyone identify it?). I seem to have fallen into the old trap of over-planting, but right now it is perfect…and isn’t that what shovels are for?

After having been moved several times, I hope the Eremurus has found a happy home. These are in the very early stage of blooming, but by next Bloom Day they will have passed their peak. They will be a vibrant shade of pale orange. I planted ‘Cleopatra’, which should be a deeper orange, almost red, but it shows no signs of putting up flower spikes this year. I am willing to baby Eremurus and do whatever it takes to see her thrive.

So here’s my next question: when a friend gave me this red lily three years ago, there were two blooming stems. It has grown into an ever larger clump. Should I be digging up and dividing the bulbs? It seems to be doing a fine job without intervention, but I would hate to lose these fireworks through neglect.

In my last garden, I allowed Nigella to get out of hand. It’s obvious, from the heavenly blue petals and feathery foliage, how it was able to insinuate itself into this one. I just must keep repeating to myself, over and over, “I will not allow ‘Love-in-a-mist’ to set seed.” The seeds are actually quite a nice alternative to poppyseed, with a peppery crunch; the seedpods themselves have a whimsical, alien life-form appearance…making the aforementioned oath harder to carry out than one might think.

Another prolific self-seeder is Lychnis coronaria. I took the above picture in early spring, when the foliage formed a velvety, dense carpet.

Now it is stretching out and putting forth the first of a summer’s worth of blooms. And now the fun begins: deadhead, deadhead, deadhead.

The shallots have formed these drumsticks, about to shed their papery casing and unfurl like their allium cousins. So…am I supposed to let this happen if big, pungent shallots are the goal? I read that digging should wait until the leaves begin to wither and die. These escaped last year’s dig, when the resulting shallots were disappointingly small. Those are Marion berries along the back wall. They mostly fall prey to the bears every year. The yellow flowers on the left are kale.

Two flats of Blue Star Creeper, or Laurentia fluviatilis, plugs purchased from Home Depot went into the east berm early on. Now they form an ever expanding carpet of green, spangled with tiny pale blue blossoms throughout the summer.

Has anyone seen a foxglove do this before? They volunteer all over the place here, sometimes surprising in their choices of where to put down roots. Several of them have done this thing, where the uppermost blossom on the stalk blooms out to form an up-facing cup. The rest of the stalk sports the customary drooping gloves for foxes. I have never seen this before this year. Anyone know what’s up with that?

Last, this exotic bloom graces what is essentially a houseplant. I have no name to go with it. Help me if you can.

I should have taken my pictures yesterday, when it was overcast, but I used up all of my gardening chops digging, weeding and hauling rocks in the cool weather. Not that I reject the beautiful sunshine of today, but I might have gotten some overall shots of the berms as they are developing. Ah, well…we may end the day exhausted and sated, but never quite ‘finished’. Georgia O’Keefe said something about never being quite ‘there’ with the recently completed painting. It was always the next painting that drew her along her life’s path.

I seem to be running hot and cold about posting…kind of like our weather. We go for a stretch where the nights barely sneak above freezing, the rain comes barreling down, and then we’ll get a few days where the temperature zooms up to 86. Not to complain, mind you. The cool days are great for planting, and for photographing (more about that later). Today is Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day, so take a virtual stroll with me, then go to my blog roll and click on May Dreams Gardens to see what is blooming in the rest of the world.

Everything is late this year, so the lilac is just a smidgen past its peak. Normally it would be finished by the first few days of May.

You may have noticed little dots of pink at the feet of the lilac in the last picture. It’s Bistorta ‘Superbum’ (don’t ya love that moniker?).

At the woodland’s edge, the Soloman’s Seal is looking stately, backed by native ferns. All of my woodland plants lag slightly behind the wild versions seen on daily walks.

Epimedium ‘Lilafree’ has dainty purple flowers right now, but it is the heart-shaped foliage that gained my admiration. I think I will be on the lookout for one with creamy pale yellow flowers, the better to see them in their dark woodland setting.

Volunteer forget-me-not’s create a haze of blue around the base of an ancient cherry tree. I have to force myself to yank some out, or they will overwhelm the shy Ipheon ‘Wisley Blue’ I put there on purpose.

The drooping clusters of blossoms on the Enkianthus are so dainty and subtle that I like to keep it in a pot close to the house…both for up-close enjoyment and because the deer are not bold enough to venture so close…at least so far.

The Euphorbia population grows steadily, but with so many available it will probably never attain the status of a “collection”. ‘Tasmanian Tiger’ sports pale, variegated foliage year-round, but right now it is topped off with a cloud of even paler blossoms.

The newest arrival is ‘Blackbird’. Unlike its sprawling cousins, it remains a compact clump of dark foliage until it erupts with a cap of acid green cups (officially bracts, I think)

I have shown this little ‘Lipstick’ strawberry before, but this is what I mean by taking pictures on dark days. The pink of the flowers always came out pale…not at all the vibrant hue that earned the name. Nothing like trial and error(s) to drive home advice previously ignored. I stuck one of these in last year and it seems happy, so more will be added…one day…ground cover.

These are the highlights this mid-May (or at least the pictures that turned out best). I counted 41 different blooming plants as I made my rounds. Thanks again to Carol at May Dreams Gardens for dreaming up a format that keeps us alert to what’s going on out there.

Even with our rainy reputation, the downpours of early November were extreme. It brings its own kind of beauty, though, as evidenced by the raindrops caught in the remains of the plume poppies and beading up on the last of their leaves out my studio window.

Stepping outside, more sparkle is gathered by the Euphorbia wulfenii.

The grasses do their part as time marches on. This is the first year that this one has tasseled up.

Don’t know the botanical name for what I call Japanese Lantern. Maybe someone can set me straight. As the season wears on, the orange tissue wears away, leaving a delicate tracery of veins surrounding a bright red-orange fruit.

A few bloomers are still hanging on, and even putting out new buds…at least until a hard frost hits. Among them are dahlias, agastache, hellenium, lavender and lychnis (testimonial to the effectiveness of deadheading). Limping along is more like it, but the nasturtiums are still going strong in the bed where tomatoes gave up the ghost weeks ago.

And one last intrepid torch lily thinks it can beat the odds.

‘China Girl’ is proving her versatility by hanging on to her flaming raiment til the last.

I tried for red twig dogwood, but the deer keep them cropped close to the ground. Not so the ‘Excaliber’ Euphorbia, which leaves behind these glowing pink stems.

Another Euphorbia, ‘Tasmanian Tiger’, keeps its showy variegated foliage year-round, to stand in for missing blossoms.

Are you as surprised as I am to find November to be such a rich month in the garden? I wonder what we will find in December and January. Thanks again to Carol at May Dreams Gardens for inspiring us to focus, observe and share.

Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day comes around on the fifteenth day of each month. Carol, over at May Dreams Gardens dreamed it up. If you visit her site, you will find links to gardeners all over the world, showing what is blooming in their gardens at the time. But first, please take a virtual trip through mine.

The leaves are bronzing up for the final show:

Would you believe that I picked up this Japanese maple at a yard sale for a mere $15?

The tree peony leaves are great bouquet fillers all year because of their beautiful shapes, but when they begin to color up like this, they can stand on their own in a vase or in the yard.

In the case of the Limelight hydrangea, it’s the blossoms that go from white to pinky-bronze as the days shorten.

Berries punctuate the landscape:

Gaultheria procumbens is sporting the red berries that follow the shy white bell-like flowers. Pop one in your mouth and recognize it as wintergreen.

My beauty berry is ‘Profusion’, a name it earns by producing lots and lots of pearlescent purple berries. If the wildlife deign to leave them alone, they will decorate the entry long after the leaves have fallen.

Quite a few perennials come on strong in late July and keep up the good work until the first frost.

Hellenium, or sneeze weed, is one.

Agastache is another.

And then there are the Dahlias. So often they are grouped together in a bed, where they come off as the floral equivalent of fruit salad (the canned kind, at that). I hope to develop the knack for using them as they did at Heronswood…as dramatic highlights in mixed borders.

A few divas arrive late to contribute to the garden’s swan song:

Next year, there must be more asters. This white one is from a friend, and has no further identification. The three foot high, shrubby plant has feathery foliage all summer, then erupts into a froth in early October.

Liriope edges a woodland bed, peeking out from overhanging hosta leaves.

Orostachys furusei, a ground cover in the dry berm, sends up fuzzy little spires.

Spiranthes odorata, still in its nursery pot, is a rare and endangered hardy white orchid native to North America. This is the sort of special plant to be found at the Hardy Plant Society fall or spring plant sale. The woodland will become an even more magical place if the ‘Nodding Ladies Tresses’, as these are called, agree to take hold and multiply.

As the days shorten and the light takes on that golden quality, making the end of the growing season equal parts poignant and glorious…the bloomers that strut their stuff late are especially appreciated. Here are a few from my Portland, Oregon garden:

Solidago‘Fireworks’ has been working up to this moment for weeks. It is at its most photogenic right now, but I treasure it earlier, when the blossoms are still in bud and close observation reveals strings of small yellow beads along the arching stems. It will become downright blowsy over the next two or three weeks, before it is time to cut it back for the winter.

Hepatacodium miconiodes is a small tree with shaggy, peeling bark and an arching habit. The flowers are just coming on, and will leave behind feathery “whatchamacallits” in rusty shades that rival any blossom for showiness.

Towering Joe Pye Weed, Eupatorium maculatum set up housekeeping along the fence line with no encouragement. I could not have planned it better. Luckily, it increases every year.

The plume poppies, Macleaya cordata, look a lot like the smoke on a smoke tree. This is another passalong plant from Amy. I have moved it around to several locations since ‘99. This is the first site that has met with its approval…on the south side of the house with full sun, plus reflected heat from a concrete patio.

My favorite use of Rosa glauca was in a garden where it had been cut back hard in early spring. The resulting flush of foliage was dense and lush, with that bluish cast above and pinkish undersides. I can never bring myself to wield the loppers as necessary for that effect, because it would mean forfeiting these luscious hips after the fairly insignificant little pink blossoms have faded. The only pruning this shrub gets is done by the deer…not known for their artisty in such matters.

‘China Girl’ Kousa dogwood is lovely when flowering, but even better after the petals fall and the fruits redden. They are actually quite tasty, but I prefer to let them dry to use decoratively.

One of my favorite plants blooming right now is Belamcanda flava, but I am going to save it for a separate post in a day or two. Please come back to see it. If you have an interest in seeing what is blooming in gardens around the world, click on May Dreams Gardens in the blogroll at right. You will be glad you did.

I’m late, I’m late…for a very important date! If you haven’t a clue what that means, pop on over to May Dreams Gardens (use the link at right) to see what Carol has cooked up to put together gardeners from around the world. In the meantime, here is a peek at some of the beauties in bloom in my patch right now.

The first Japanese anemone ‘Honorine de Jobert’ popped just in time. I can’t get enough of her, and a good thing, too, because she is a prolific spreader.

The cardoon reaches for the sky.

‘Casa Blanca’ is the last of the lilies, after ‘Muscadet’ and then ‘Star Gazer’ have taken their turns perfuming the air.

Echinops banaticus ‘Blue Glow’ holds its steely balls high above spiky foliage in the east berm.

Fragraria ‘Lipstick’ is a groundcover strawberry I am trying out. So far, the deer have left it alone.

I know this only as gooseneck loosestrife. Anybody know the botanical name? Whatever…these witty little clumps of loosey goosey flower heads will always have a place in my shade garden, and in long-lasting bouquets.

The deer bit off every hosta blossom in the woodland at the bud stage. It is only this ‘Guacamole’, planted close to the house, that was allowed to progress to full flower.

This supermarket hydrangea holds its own with the named cultivars.

‘Limelight’ is a spectacular hydrangea…almost tall enough to qualify as a small tree.

‘Preziosa’ has varying shades of flowers on the same plant. I had some success with layering it, so I now have several at the woodland’s edge.

‘Percy’s Pride’ is my favorite of the Knifophias. It is crowded into the east berm with grasses, barberries and Echinops. Come spring, it will be divided and spread around. One of my favorite scenes from the movie The Queen was the long walk completely bordered by knifophia in full bloom. Another was the great pile of leeks in the royal kitchen…might there be a pattern here?

This lonely little balloon flower plant cries out for more of its kind.

Looking beyond the realm of our industry, Queen Anne’s Lace sprinkles the landscape with no encouragement from we diggers and connivers. Sometimes I wonder why I even bother…but not often.

Let’s go the alphabetical route this month, shall we?

I have two types of Acanthus. This one is spinosa. Note the spikiness of the leaves and the reddish-purple cast to the flower spikes. It is slightly hardier than mollis, whose leaves are large, shiny and lobed (a more likely inspiration for the decorative carvings on ancient columns). The plant I chose to photograph volunteered in its spot, and is much happier than those I tried to bend to my will in their placement.

Lysimachia ‘Alexander’ has variegated foliage coordinated with the grass behind it. Like its cousin the purple loosestrife, it wants to take over. Leaving a moat of mulch around it makes digging out aggressors fairly easy.

I call this Amy’s geranium. You have seen it before if you read my foliage post, but here it is in bloom. I might have thought the colors clashing, but Mom Nature knows her stuff, doesn’t she?

Robert Maplethorpe, move over.

A berm with minimal watering finally gave Eremurus the home it could settle into after much moving about.

‘Lucifer’ is the first of the crocosmias to bloom, and there is only the one, as apposed to drifts of the small orange variety yet to come.

A couple of Lysimachias, creeping Jenny and ‘Walkabout’, mingle in a pot at the feet of a tree waiting to grow strong enough to face life in the ground. I will be sorry when the time comes, because the combination at this moment is perfect.

Yellow was a color to which I gave a wide berth for years. Phygelius ‘Moonraker’ lured me in, and now yellow has found more bit parts than this director would have thought possible. Do you think there is a seductress out there plotting to do the same for pink?

Moth mullion is such an evocative name for this member of the Verbascum family, and highly appropriate, as it seems to hover here in the shade of the plume poppies.

When I walked around making a list of everything in flower, I counted 25 continuing bloomers and 21 that have come on since our last bloom day. That’s a lotta color and delight, but way more than you want to see here, even as lists.

I will close with something that is not blooming now. It went through its entire cycle in between the 15th of June and the 15th of July (very frustrating). Is it Pam who shuns red? I think so, but whoever you are, this bloom’s for you!

Welcome to all visitors from Carol’s May Dreams Gardens site…as well as to all ye who enter here from parts unknown. It is a bit frustrating to note the few blossoms that put in a brief but glorious appearance between the days we have committed to posting (15th of each month). They shall remain unheralded, unless they rise to the level of meriting their own posts.

This Aquilegia ‘Swallowtail’ was an exclusive offering from High Country Gardens. Note the long spurs, which can reach 4″.

Allium karativiense ‘Ivory Queen’ is low-growing and long-lasting. It has been blooming for a month, and it’s furry balls are just beginning to show signs of exhaustion.

The alliums keep coming up with aliases. This one used to be called christophii, but now goes by albopilosum, and I can’t begin to decipher what’s up with A. bulgaricum aka Nectaroscordum siculum. It remains one of my favorites, even if I don’t know what to call it. The Alliums, with their pungent bulbs, foil whatever is tunneling through my beds, so I will continue to experiment with the many offerings, along with the killer (and I mean that literally) daffodils. My A, schubertii was drowned by late rains, but I will simply move it to one of the berms rather than give up on its Sputniky, space-agey presence.

This is the last blossom on the tree peony ‘Chinese Dragon’. I use a combination of cutting bouquets and elaborate staking to keep the masses of blossoms from breaking off branches. I am told that as the plant matures it will become sturdier and more compact.

The foxgloves that grow wild in the meadow and along roadsides have migrated to several cultivated areas, and welcome to them.

My current favorite of the bearded irises is this flesh-toned beauty, but my fickle affections will no doubt transfer to the brunette when she comes along.

Philadelphus arrived as a mere stick from one of those cut-rate catalogs, but see how it thrives…and this is definitely where scratch and sniff would come in handy.

I have more appealing photos of Phlomis russeliana, but this one shows the architecture of the plant, which I find to be its most appealing feature.

The flowers on Rodgersia aesculifolia are just coming on…merely an excuse to show you the fabulous leaves, which run 26″ or so across.

The earliest of the lavenders is the bright and witty Spanish.

Buttercups sprinkle themselves everywhere. What could be more cheerful?

And there you have it for June. Still blooming from before are hellebores (they seem to go on forever), euphorbias (some just coming on and a few ready to be cut back), weigelia, blue-eyed-grass, silene, strawberry and blue star creeper. New bloomers that didn’t rate photos are dogwood ‘China Girl’, California poppy, chives, roses, snapdragon, catmint, heuchera, Lecesteria formosa and Viburnum dentata ‘Blue Muffin’.