Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day -- April 2008

Welcome to the April edition of Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day at WWW. April is the month of irises here.  These are right outside our living room windows. No idea what their name is. They were planted by a previous gardener.

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But how in the world did that large clump of red tulips get in amongst the irises?

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The flower that most often haunted my daydreams during dreary desolate winter days is about to crash this party. The freesia!

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In the shade garden the hellebore 'mardi gras black' is still dancing and heuchera 'snow angel' is blushing pink.

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Polemonium 'purple rain' is all decked in blue-violet.

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And we may YET get trilliums to bloom in our garden--this is our 3rd try.

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The belle of the ball of the shade garden is the bleeding heart.

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On the hillside tulips extend the yellow season that began with the daffodils. 

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What is this among the tulips? A mutant hyacinth? Look at that stem of deepest purple!

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Very soon the hillside yellows will be joined by the blue-violet of the spanish bluebells.

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Also at the bottom of the hill is the lilac. It is going to be spectacular this year--another one of our pruning experiments from last year. It is FULL of buds.

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The bottom of the hill is completely naturalized with bulbs. But further up the hill heuchera 'peach flambe' holds court.

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What's that? You want to peek under our cloche? Well, I don't know... we've had some unwelcome visitors trying to steal our salad greens. I think it's best if we leave the salad greens be for now.  We'll do a separate post about what's under the cloche. When? Soon. Now SHOO!  Get on over to May Dreams Gardens and visit all the other GBBD posts.

25 comments:

Anonymous said...

Fantastic pictures! Those blooms are so pretty. I love the colors

Frances, said...

Hi Ladies, what a great group of flowers you have. Both heucheras are splendid, I bet you have more than you are showing, they can be addicting, and you are correct, Peach Flambe is the queen of the garden! We have a similar one called Caramel, that I have been eyeing to divide and spread around, hope it's not too late for that, better done in winter here. Thanks for a fabulous way to start my day!
Frances at Faire Garden

Sarah Laurence said...

Yeah, irises! I was just a little too early for them in France. Lovely photos as ever.

As for your raccoons - back when we lived in Cambridge, MA the raccoons knew the garbage cycle and would rotate their raids around the neighborhoods. They are supposedly smarter than dogs - easy to believe if you've ever met my dog.

Shady Gardener said...

What Beautiful, Beautiful photographs of a wonderful tour through your gardens. Thank you!

Kerri said...

You have some wonderful blooms there, girls! Thanks for sharing these lovely photos. We're still quite a way behind you, but at least we have a few outdoor blooms now. It seems ages since I've been able to get out in the garden, and it sure feels great! Yay spring!
Happy Bloom Day!
I'll look forward to seeing what's under the cloche :)

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the virtual garden tour, you two. Your images are really lovely. And you can grow freesia? I'm insanely jealous. I tried it several years in a row when I seriously got into gardening oh so many years ago, and I still haven't quite gotten over my disappointment at its dismal performance. I'm glad to know that they like you, anyway!

gintoino said...

Great blooms you have there! I like the iris very much. I think I have a similar one but it hasn't bloomed yet. And that red Euchera...WOW!
BTW. if we could find a way for me to send you those oxalis, I would be happy to ;-)

Annie in Austin said...

If your old-fashioned looking iris has a sort of grapey scent we might be growing twin plants, WWWenches - but just about everything else in your spring garden would never trade Seattle for Austin.

It's all looking lovely - Happy Blooming Day!

Annie at the Transplantable Rose

Carol Michel said...

You have some of the same flowers I have, or will have, as your garden seems to be a few weeks ahead of mine.

And I think it is going to be a terrific year for lilacs, too, by the way.

Thanks for joining in for bloom day.
Carol, May Dreams Gardens

Anonymous said...

Spring has sprung! Finally. The blooms are bursting forth, and hopefully winter is now behind most of us. Love the photos. The red tulips were nice with the purple.
Brenda

@JeanAnnVK said...

Left you a post on my blog about how I will experiment with my cucurbits to get them to grow...hopefully...

Anonymous said...

Love the photos - particularly the dark purple Hyacinth, never seen one that colour before

Melanie Chopay said...

Your GBBD photos are just lovely! I can see the sun shining through the Iris leaves and the Heuchera and almost feel it's warmth.

Aunt Debbi/kurts mom said...

Hey ladies. I left you a present on my blog. Feel free to regift it.

Deb.

Unknown said...

I love the blooms! I can't wait til I have some of those beauties blooming here. I saw some flowers at the store today FINALLY. Woohoo.

Curmudgeon said...

Greetings Mike. Welcome and thanks for stopping by and leaving a comment. I agree with you that we have some great color right now. But we're having a pretty cool wet spring--payback for those 3 glorious weeks back in Feb. when we forgot it was still winter.

Hello Frances. You are so right, we do have a few more heucheras in our garden. I have yet to meet a heuchera I didn't like. We'll have to do a "heuchera" post!


Bonjour Sarah. Merci de nous avoir rendu visite! It is a bit early for irises here too, but I think ours have good placement and benefit from the heat stored and radiated off of the house. I'll pop over to see what garden in France you visited. Giverny I'm guessing.

You're very welcome Shady!

Hi Kerri. Now when we start to miss those crocuses and snowdrops we can just head to garden blogs up north and relive the beginning of spring all over again!


Hey Nan! You have no idea how often I fretted about the freesia over the winter. I so wanted them to return. I was convinced they wouldn't. They seem to be a bit fussy. But here they are. Keep your fingers crossed for the trilliums!

Saludos gintoino. You have some lovely irises yourself--and that white one with the blue stripe is quite special.

Hi Annie! I'll go out and sniff the iris as soon as the HAIL stops. When we first got to Seattle we kept wanting to plant stuff we had planted back in NE. The compost heap got a quick start that first year. Now we're trying to go with the flow and grow natives and so on. So far the trilliums have eluded us.

Greetings Carol. It appears we are having a much cooler Spring than usual here. They're supposed to get 1-2' of snow up in the mountain passes today and tomorrow.

Hi Brenda! I need to pop over to your blog and check on the progress of those azaleas.

Thanks Jean Ann!

Welcome patientgardener. Isn't it stunning? The stem is practically black, it's so dark. And the scent is very nice. I often find hyacinths a bit too strong.

Hi Melanie. Sun? Warmth? Where? Where? Not today! Brrrr!

Aw shucks Aunt Debbi, you really shouldn't have!

Here everyone is storming the garden centers demanding tomatoes. We got hail today, are due for frost tonight and the passes are getting several ft of snow. Somone should come up with silk tomatoes!

LadyLuz said...

Love those irises and they look stunning with the tulips. I never though I could grow them here, but if Gintoino can, I guess we can....same climate.

Great blog gals.

LadyLuz said...

Left you a comment earlier but it doesn't seem to have shown up. Popped in to admire your irises - they look fab with the tulips.

Safi Crafts said...

Snow, hail and probably locusts next. Hang in there neighbors.

I drove through Ballard/Phinney/Fremont last week wondering if each pretty garden I saw was yours.

-Jean

Marie said...

What a beautiful post :)

Katarina said...

You're surrounded by lovely flowers! And some great heucheras! Your Irises are also very pretty.
/Katarina

Jared said...

It's all bloomin' beautiful! I am envious of your ability to grow freesia, and the trilliums look like they're going to be quite something. My bleeding hearts aren't even out of the ground yet. What a great bunch of flowers!

Molly said...

Wow. Your pictures make me want to trade my place for a home in the city, just so I could have a better growing season. (Okay, the increasingly ugly commute has something to do with it, too!) OTOH, all I'd be able to afford in the city would be a condo, so it wouldn't matter how much better the gardening is.
Love your profile pic!

Shady Gardener said...

Hmmmm. I thought I'd left a comment here. I certainly wanted to! The photographs are exquisite. You are well into Spring! How did your cold frame turn out???

Philip Bewley said...

Beautiful pictures. All plants shown are beautiful, but the heuchera pink flambe is incredible! I have never seen that before. I love it!