flowers
I am not a great gardener. It would not be a surprise to know that I hate pulling weeds and that I like planting, I'm not up on which fertilizers to use (organic or chemical), but I like results. One of the results of this is that my winter garden looks, well, crappy. My winter mulch is the leaves that blew in over the winter (There are a lot of sycamores in the neighborhood) and if I don't get them cleared out in time, the tulips get a little stalky, as they try to find their way to the surface. The stems are somewhat thin because they think they are dealing with actual dirt that is going to support them.
This year, because of the wedding occuring on February 14, I did clear out all the mulch so it only looked a little bit crummy, and the tulips were much happier. If my daughter had the sense to get married on Memorial Day Weekend, all the family that came to my house would have been greeted by these flowers instead of the bare sticks that had not yet blossomed. In fact, the roses looked particularly bad because I was not supposed to prune them for another month at least!
The top picture is ranunculus, and is surviving in spite of my best efforts to neglect it. The next picture is alyssum, and it looks great because we had just transplanted it. The next is a yellow rose bush that the previous owners put in. It is just perfect for that location, it always gives me a mass of yellow blooms and then there are always about 6-8 for the rest of the season.
The next is a sunset rose (as I remember) that my oldest daughter picked out. The buds are almost orange, when it opens it is yellow, and then it acquires a pink edge while the yellow fades to almost white. So if you look closely you can see the same bush with 3 colors on it! I keep trying to get a good picture, watch this space for updates!
The pink flowers are smaller than a rhododendron and bigger than an azalea. We are not supposed to be able to grow these well on this side of the mountains, but constant watering and out of direct sunlight after noon help it to survive. Whatever it is.
And last, my favorite is the dogwood. The bush looks like a flame some autumns. The leaves are a dark coppery red green then, and I discovered, do not lay flat for the Ironing Leaves Between Waxed Paper Project. The branches look like hands outstretched so you can put something in them. It also looks dead for the longest -- except the umbrella catalpa on the year when we cut all the branches off.
All my plants have enjoyed this spring, a lot of them have over a foot of new growth. This is a good 20% for the Rose of Sharon, whom I shall photograph in a month when it blooms. The dogwood used to be shorter than me, now I need a ladder to prune it properly. Fortunately it doesn't like a lot of pruning.
posted by Marion @ 4:57 PM
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