Wildflower Monday

I meant to post this on Monday but life got in the way. While the roses are throwing a party in the garden, the natives are just as beautiful. Iris virginica and Mockorange make a lovely combination. I grew these iris from seed from Prairie Moon Nursery. The color ranges from a very pale pink-violet

 

to lavender.

 

Oak-leaved hydrangea truly is a plant for every season. The light green quilted leaves are as beautiful as any flowers.

 

Not sure whether this is truly Eastern Gray Beardtongue or a hybrid with Gulf Coast Penstemon ~ to me it looks like it has traits of both, and is thriving in a place that is soaked after rains.

 

 

A Willowleaf/Hubricht's Amsonia hybrid, also grown from seed. This one has a faint sweet fragrance. I have finally figured out that one of my three big Hubricht's Amsonia is very sweetly fragrant (a lot like my mystery white iris) and will try to grow more of that from cuttings later on.

 

I need another Amsonia between the existing one and the huge Mockorange; I tried putting divisions of Iris virginica there but conditions were too dry. There is also a Hibiscus moscheutos (a beautiful pink one, grown from seed) coming up in the gap behind and to the right of the Amsonia.

 

This Coast azalea from Sunlight Gardens has been blooming such a long time, and what a delicious fragrance it has!

 

The wild Geranium maculatum from our farm. This is one of the toughest plants I have. It just goes underground for the year when the weather gets too hot and dry for it. Unfortunately I'm not sure if the one from the Botanical Garden is faring as well. I haven't seen it bloom this year.

 

Technically a native from the Southwest and not the Southeast, pink showy primrose dukes it out with Lemon Balm and Garlic Chives in the vegetable garden border and has taken over the sidewalk bed. Which is just as well because the voles, loving the loose sandy soil there, had eaten just about everything else.

 

Front sidewalk
 

Beside the vegetable garden
 

Ozark Phlox (Phlox pilosa ssp. ozarkana) is blooming all over the garden east of the house after I moved divisions anywhere I could fit them last year.

With Clematis 'HF Young'

 

 

In the distance blooming with Coast Azalea.

 

These buttercups are likely a naturalized species from Europe but they are eye-catching growing in the corner of the neighbor's pasture.

 

The true stars of the garden are the False Indigos, which are deserving of their own post.

Baptisia alba with Amsonia hubrichtii

 

 

Baptisia 'Purple Smoke'

 

Baptisia australis

 

As always thank you Gail for Wildflower Wednesday.

A Lovely Spring

 

Cl. Old Blush never disappoints, and this year even surpassed my expectations. The canes didn't suffer any dieback last winter due to the mild conditions and formed billowing curtains of fragrant pale pink and raspberry pink, leaving just enough room to squeeze through to enter the garden.

 

 

 

My completely unscientific observation is that the color stays more brilliant and even reintensifies in cooler weather. Last week's frosts didn't otherwise effect the roses at all.

 

 

The fig tree leaves didn't fare as well. New leaves will sprout but the overwintering figs were lost. However, this usually happens every spring.

 

The effect of the untamed canes makes the rose look it is being perpetually blown by a southerly gale. I thought about trying to restore order this past winter, but it would have been a two person job, G. was almost never home during daylight hours, even during weekends, so by default I decided not to do anything until after the first flush. The arrangement is not "neat" but I think the result is enchantingly dynamic.

 

The Woodland Phlox and Hillstar daffs have bloomed on and on this year. I've never seen a narcissus with as long a bloom time as Hillstar before. I have been super impressed with it.

 

Hillstar and Thalia
 

I didn't get that many iris blooms this year, which has cemented my determination to move the bulk of the Brazilian Blue Sage and Four o'clocks out of this garden and in a bed by themselves closer to the house. That way the iris can be happy and the Sphinx moths and hummingbirds can be happy.

 

Mystery white iris. Casa Mariposa suggested it might be 'Barbara Walther' when she saw a picture of the beautiful white iris in Organic Gardening, but when I contacted a lady who works at Presby Gardens ~ a famous garden of historic irises ~ she didn't think my iris is 'Barbara Walther' after all. 'Barbara Walther' has a white beard and no fragrance that she could recall.

 

I was very impressed by how well the Baptisias came back from the freeze. The morning after they looked depressingly droopy.

 

 

But to my surprise they rallied and look as beautiful as ever:

 

 

 

Elsewhere in the garden, the new beds between the house and the original garden are filling in. To the right is a Rosa eglanteria seedling that was plunked there for convenience and which really needs a wall or trellis to grow up on. A project for this fall. And do you see the Snowbell tree (Styrax americana), to the left? It was almost taken out when the trees were cleared out during the house move, but it's regrowing now. The Snowbell and the Old Blush, especially when viewed together from the opposite side of the ditch, make a most charming combination.

 

 

The fragrance is divine.

 

View across the new beds

 

We have been planning to build a house for the well, but there are so many projects already. That's a job we need to hire out.

 

Everything is green, green, green. Rosa palustris scandens and 'Veilchenblau' will be coming into bloom in the next couple of weeks.

 

We just got a much appreciated soaking this weekend. We may get another frost this week (and a late one at that), but overall this has been a lovely spring.

Spring Delights

Spring is a time that heralds the reappearance of stars and old friends, a reappearance that may have been been anticipated for months or even all year. Some may only take the stage for a few days or a week but they shine nonetheless.

The flowers of Serviceberry are often fleeting. An unusually warm day will cause the fleecy white blooms to blow quickly. However the new silvery green leaves are perhaps even more beautiful. There are four Serviceberry in and near the gardens, and one between the pastures. There used to be one behind the old house in its original site, pushed over when the house was cleared, but lasted long enough for one final hurrah: in full bloom it looked just like a bridal veil.

The wild Crabapple is in full bloom. Not only is it gorgeous in full bloom, the flowers are long-lasting for a crabapple and commands admiration for about 2 weeks from start to finish.

The walk down to the creek is especially nice this time of year.

There is Lyreleaf Sage and Atamasco Lilies blooming in odd places, and the grass and new leaves are enchanting shades of spring green.

 

The Wood Ducks have returned to the newly filled slough (G. saw 6 the other day), and when I walked down to the creek yesterday to get cuttings from the crabapple and Possamhaw (Ilex decidua) I saw two Bobwhite Quail and a male Prothonotary Warbler. He was singing as he foraged. I couldn't get a good picture since I didn't have the right lens but take my word for it when I say he is beautiful. Glowing gold with slate blue-gray wing feathers.

And I discovered another crabapple! A big one, growing close to the creek. I don't know how we didn't see it before.

 

G. needs to do some chainsawing around it and a third one that's growing next to the path but it should be a relatively simple task. We need more firewood anyway.

 

The color of the Sycamore bark has changed from ghostly grey and white to caramel and cream.  

Compare to March:
 

In the garden there is something new blooming every day. The pink and white Piedmont azaleas are finishing up and now the Pinxterbloom azaleas are open. (Are they really different species? They look so similar and both are fragrant. The different opening times could just be individual differences.)

 

The Florida azalea to the left could use some company. It's one of the four that used to be in front of the house in its original locale and the one that fared the best. One was lost and another two are very much smaller but alive and growing to the east of the house. I have a 'Choice Cream' azalea (an atlanticum x austrinum hybrid) that I want to put next to it this fall. It has lovely fragrant light butter yellow flowers.

The bright orange sherbet flowers of the Florida Azalea could use some help playing better with the pink azaleas even if they're not that close together in space.

 

There are more flowers open on 'Old Blush' every day.

The Amsonias are blooming, both in the garden and in the floodway fields.

 

Next to the house the Coast Azaleas, Woodland Phlox, Virginia Bluebells and 'Homestead' Verbena are blooming.

When growing columbine from seed you never know what you're going to get, but I've never met one I didn't like.

Virginia Bluebells are such a soft heavenly shade of blue. We used to see huge clumps of these in the river bottoms when we lived for three years in western Pennsylvania. They were gorgeous. I have only one clump in the garden this year but this flower is so lovely that a little or a lot doesn't really matter.

This Common Lilac was supposed to be white (it was free, obtained in a trade), but to be truthful I'm happy that it's lavender. Even happier that it's actually thriving, tucked as it is in a damp spot beside a rugosa. Common Lilacs are notorious for not doing well here. I love that lilac fragrance.
 

I hope your spring is likewise full of good surprises!