After a Warm Week

The perennials are beginning to respond to the warm weather with vigorous growth. Next week I will review in detail the growth that has occured with them. But for now the show continues to be with the bulbs.

A new addition to the garden this weekend is tulipa tarda. Most are singles at this point, but a few have multiple blossoms open.



The tulips humilis "Persian Pearl" has mostly begun to fade, but a few are still fresh or have secondary blossoms.


The main bed is now quite colorful.



Note the ipheion in the foreground above.



The bed under the tree is colorful as well. Erythronium "Pagoda" have blossomed in the past week, and their yellow color provides a welcome contrast to what has predominantly been a blue show.



The other side of the tree is now the home of a healthy spread of scilla. Chionodoxa are in the foreground.



The east bed has seen the flowering of muscari in the past week.

Finally, a series of pictures of the daffodil field in back.

Things Change Quickly . . .

. . . in April. Two weeks ago, we had a precipitation deficit of 3.2"/81mm since the beginning of the year. In the last 10 days we have gotten 2.2"/56mm of rain. The plants certainly have enjoyed that! It also has been cooler, with temps at or slightly below normal for the last week(normal is about 55F/12.8C). This coming week temps. are forecasted to be above normal, averaging 68F/20C, plus or minus a few degrees.

In the main bed, the species tulips have been the center of the show. Below are a selection of views of the main bed. The pale yellow/white tulips are tulipa turkistanica, and the red tulips with the yellow throats are tulipa humilis "Persian Pearl".



The bed under the tree is now a chionadoxa heaven, but by the coming weekend I feel the scilla hispanica will be blossoming as well.


In one of the house beds hyacinths are beginning to blossom.


Also, the dicentra in one of the house beds is beginning to show growth. Note how red the new growth is.


Finally, the naturalized daffodils are filling in and blossoming more.




At the end of the day I took this photo of the main bed backlit by the sun.

April and things are busting out all over

It's been two weeks since posting, simply because growth had slowed down due to a week of below normal temperatures. Yes, some of the tulips had put up green, and the crocuses had continued to blossom.

All that has changed in the last week, as we had temperatures as much as 20F/11C above normal.

First, the downside of the heat. The dwarf irises "Katherine Hodgkins" quickly faded in the heat, as did the crocuses. In addition, we have had little precipitation since mid February, so the soil--where exposed--has turned to powder.

The upside is that in spite of the dryness, the warm temps encouraged lots of activity.

Basically, all the perennials, except possibly the coreopsis and astilbes, have started to show growth. Daylilies, salvia and veronica have been the most vigorous.

And the bulbs have been active. First of note is the species tulip turkistanica which can be seen in the following two photos.




Also, chionadoxa in both the main garden and the tree bed are having a field day.



The east bed has also been enjoying the mild weather. The scilla continue to expand, the earliest daffodils are up, and late hybrid white crocuses are up, pleasingly interspersed with galanthus.




The rear naturalized dafs are also starting to blossom.



In a few weeks the rear should be covered with blossoms.