Blooms from long-sterile earth

Hey! I'm going to make a try to revive this blog that I haven't posted in for, yikes, a year and a half. Hopefully there is still someone out there to read it. For today, have some of what's flowering on my half-acre this beautiful spring.

One of the last daffodils

Tulips are blooming this year, not being chomped

Put in some new alliums out back

Unsuccessful brassicas at least have flowers for the bees

Rhubarb. I'm supposed to cut these flowers off, but they're magnificent

Carolina allspice

Red buckeye with golden ragwort

On the northeast side of the house, with Siberian kiwi and my son Nick's artwork

Closeup of kiwi flowers

You can visit Nick's website for more information - DC area residents can commission outdoor paintings and all other works ship.

I'll try to post soon about what's new in my gardening world. Happy spring!

Blooms in June

Our weather here in Maryland went from chilly to blazing hot this past week, and has now moderated a bit, but we're not getting the promised rain, so I need to go do a lot of watering. I've got a few minutes to share some flowers for Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day, though.

(An update to the last post: the berm is finished, and I've put in some available suckers of holly, viburnum, and pawpaw, small mahonia and redbud seedlings, and a few perennials. None of them may survive considering the weather, but I'm doing my best. I will put up photos soon, but they are likely to be boring.)

Here are some of the flowers blooming in my garden now:

Opuntia humifusa, Eastern prickly pear. Excited to have this doing well!

Lily, not sure I ever knew the name

Balsam. Grew this from seed - a curious old-fashioned flower.

Daylilies just starting to emerge

Spiderwort

Hollyhocks! Saved these from the deer with Milorganite.

Camomile. Time to make tea!

Nicotiana, self-seeded plants, lovely.

Phlox 'Cherry Caramel' - grew this from seed

A red yarrow whose variety I am too lazy to go look up

Thyme

Squash flower on one of the plants that came up behind the compost bins

Clary sage

Comfrey

Walking onions in bloom! These are the weirdest coolest plants.

Lavender is gorgeous everywhere

Valerian still going

I have a lot more flowers in June than I used to, which is great. Hope everyone is enjoying the blooms in their gardens!

More confused weather, but plenty of May flowers

Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day again! Here's some of what's blooming around my garden this month.

Mock orange. I used to associate this with June; no more.

Sage and rue

Golden alexanders

Purple ninebark

'Bonica' shrub rose

Dianthus 'Rainbow Loveliness.' Grew this from seed last year.

Red buckeye

Peony closeup, unfurling

Valerian, with alliums

More sage, with the Micromesh-covered blueberries behind. Birds will not get them all this year!

Spiderwort starting to open

Type of enormous Jack-in-the-pulpit, probably have a note of species somewhere

Just wanted to note hellebores are still chugging along

Siberian iris, getting ready to take over the world

I have been planting many small seedlings that I grew in the cold frame, so hopefully there will be flowers to report in the coming months as well. This has been a roller-coaster season: warm February, cold March, warm April, cold May - so far, but we've emerged from chilly and wet for a few days before summer arrives on Wednesday with temps in the 90s. Makes it very hard to get the tomatoes in at the right time, not to mention everything else! But we have to get used to this.

One more photo, dating from April 23:

It's not a well-framed shot, but it does show the success of my tulips in the new blueberry bed, with the bridal-wreath spiraea behind - looked spectacular together as we drove in the driveway, and I didn't even plan it that way! The tulip success is due 100% to Milorganite, since the deer changed their browsing habits during the months between my ordering the bulbs and planting them, and were definitely chomping (despite Liquid Fence) this spring until I scattered the smelly thing they really don't like.

More soon; I have catching-up to do here.

April (so the calendar says) flowers

Somehow another month has gone by without my posting here, and it's Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day again. I write in haste so I can get a lot of things done today, since tomorrow is Easter and somewhat occupied, and besides it's going to hit the high 80s and there are very few leaves on the trees as yet. Today will be cooler and cloudy, so good for those outdoor tasks.

So here's what's blooming - it might be easier to say what's not blooming, because this is one of those years when everything seems to go at once, probably due to the insane weather shifts. So far April is possibly somewhat cooler than February (I know that's not actually true, but it seems so).

I really am hurrying, so these are just in the order I took them.

This is claytonia or miner's lettuce in my salad table. Little white bits in the center are the flowers.

White bleeding heart

Epimedium

Hellebore

Rhubarb! I need to cut this off to give more energy to the plant, but meanwhile it counts.

Magnolia, one of the Little Girls

Celandine poppy - these are ALL OVER THE PLACE as usual.

The Field of White Violets

Virginia bluebells and bleeding hearts

I Don't Have Time to Look Up These Daffodils

Catmint

Pieris japonica

Lilac

Golden ragwort

Another daffodil

This one is Yellow Cheerfulness - my favorite

Bridal Crown daffodil

Blueberries - gonna be a big crop if I can save them from the birds this year

Leucojum aestivum

Also blooming: dogwood, redbud, pawpaw, a few early tulips, grape hyacinths. Missed the Mohawk viburnum between GBBDs this year, but it was spectacular and deliciously clove-scented. Speaking of which, most of my tiny clove currants survived and may grow!

Okay, on to putting a raised bed in the community garden plot, and other tasks. Some infrastructure pics to come soon.