Flowers

May 16, 2012

15 Comments

Herbaria (May 16, 2012)

Every week, from now until I can no longer find anything living to fill up the boxes, I will be photographing and posting a collection of flowers, leaves, stems, and other plant parts that are in my garden. This is an experiment in celebrating diversity and I hope it will allow me to focus more closely on the beauty that is inherent in the different parts of each plant. It will also serve as a visual file of the seasons.

I hope you enjoy these as much as I know I will enjoy putting them together. I can’t wait to show you more! The garden is so full and alive right now, I could have put together several for this week alone.

Leave a comment

May 14, 2012

2 Comments

Planting Combination: Chartreuse Hosta and Pink ‘Spring Beauty’

I am loving this combination of the chartreuse ‘Designer Genes’ hosta, flanked by the delicate Claytonia virginica ‘Spring Beauty’ blooms.

Leave a comment

April 24, 2012

1 Comment

Tulipa Praestans ‘Shogun’

I have to say that while I had been feeling a bit extravagant in my fall bulb purchases, I don’t have an ounce of regret now that spring has come and I am able to enjoy them in bloom. It’s been a joyful surprise watching each bud emerge from the soil and open. In many cases I had forgotten what was planted and it’s been like an adult version of a surprise inside bag. What will bloom next?

Leave a comment

April 18, 2012

69 Comments

Roses Are Red, Violets Are Blue… and White, and Red, and All Sorts Come to Think of It

The violets are blooming and as always I am taken in by their sweet fragrance and colourful little faces. I met a gardener yesterday afternoon, a woman decades my senior, and as we spoke of the violets in her garden and our mutual affection for their graceful charm, I was surprised to learn that she did not know that they are edible!

Labrador Violet (Viola labradorica) growing in the garden of the gardener I met yesterday afternoon. She said that, “…they like it underneath the tree.”

I love the combination here of Labrador Violet (Viola labradorica) with chartreuse Creeping Jenny (Lysimachia nummularia ‘Aurea’)

Leave a comment

April 9, 2012

6 Comments

Tulipa humilis ‘Lilliput’

Last fall, once the summer annuals had died off, I began the process of dividing up the right side of my garden into smaller beds separated and accessible by paths. While I managed to move a few perennials out of the newly formed pathways before the ground froze, there were a few borderline tender(ish) perennials that I kept in place for their own good. It was simply too late to uproot and establish them elsewhere.

I am now in the process of transplanting those that remain to new beds and accidentally dug up this species tulip in the process. Since it was out of the ground I figured that I might as well take its picture.

Soon, once the flowering bulbs have finished doing their thing, I will carefully remove those that are sitting in the middle of pathways and replant them as well. Since I’m bound to find fault with some of these new plantings, I’ll likely dig up and replant a few of the perennials again in the fall once I see how the garden looks with its new form. We gardeners are rarely satisfied.

Leave a comment