May 17
More Spring Flowers!!
Better late than never …
For us, this Spring has definitely been colder than normal, and as a result, many of the usual suspects have been blooming later than usual.
The first image shows one of my all-time favorite early Spring flowers, the Anenome pulsatilla. We used to have several of these little gems, but this is the only one left.
Brunnera, shown above, is very reminiscent of Forget-me-nots, which is a biennial plant. See photo below.
Brunnera is, however, a herbaceous perennial, which is perfect for a shaded or partially shaded area. It is also known as Siberian Bugloss.
Grape Hyacinths are cheery little spring bulbs that naturalize very easily and fill in quickly. The only setback to them is that after flowering, they develop thick clumps of grassy leaves and tend to overwhelm other small plants in the same area.
Creeping Phlox is a lovely plant for borders and rock gardens. Planted in clumps, it provides a big colour hit in late April to early May.
These gorgeous perennial plants provide an outstanding show in the early spring — usually late April to early May. One garden I care for has the entire back garden filled with them. They don’t last long, and the caveat is they spread like wildfire, forming deep-rooted, dense clumps. They can squeeze out other, less robust plants. They are hard to photograph because they hang down close to the ground. To get these shots, Bruce used a mirror under them and shot into the mirror, then rotated the shots to show them off.
Tulips are always a welcome Spring sight. These Darwins began to bloom on May 14, about two weeks later than usual.
The architectural and majestic Frittilaria imperiales are very showy and also serve the purpose of discouraging squirrels and rabbits from digging nearby. The reason is they emit a strong skunk smell. They come in yellow and orange. This year they were a week later than usual in showing colour.
