I may not post as often as I wish I did, but I can’t tell you how many posts I have composed in my head — I have a regular dialogue with you all, whether you hear it or not. It is lovely to think of so many people spread so far who have appreciated this garden, and it’s about time I shared some updates!
For this post, I am going to focus on bringing you up-to-date on what’s been blooming. Let’s walk through the garden together and appreciate everything that is going well.
I’ve started out-of-chronological-order, because the Jackmanii is just dominating everything right now (but in a polite, well-mannered way). When I was in high school, the mother of one of my friends would say to us, when we were upset about something, “People driving by in cars won’t notice.” In this case, they do, and sometimes they pull over and comment, and it’s all good.
We have several other clematises, but they are of a much more normal size. The other clematises include Multi-Blue in the Crabapple Bed, Betty Corning who is now moved to the bed along the front sidewalk, and Ice Blue on the arbor leading into the backyard. Multi-Blue is looking hale and hearty, but not outsized; Betty is still adjusting after being moved; and Ice Blue is pouting because he would like a little more sunshine.
I shared some spring photos in the last post, but this may have been the best ever year for bulbs, due to a long cool April and May, so I will share some more.
Look at these two-headed orange tulips. I swore I’d never seen them before, but they were everywhere this year. Aha! I looked at the well-organized garden notes that Kasey from Vivant sent, and saw that 100 Shogun tulip bulbs were planted in the fall (we don’t do things by half-measures here at GardeninaCity).
Apparently, they are generally called multiheaded or multi-flowering or bouquet tulips. Between the two of us, Jason and I called flowers that unexpectedly (to us) had more than one flower “multiple-warhead.” This probably reflects trauma left from the Reagan years.
Here’s a medley of species tulips. They open and close each day in the most charming way, depending on the sunlight. I love them all, but the yellow and red one in the lower middle is my favorite. (The tulips are all sleeping now, so I can say that.) Apparently last fall we also planted 100 Clusiana Tubergen’s Gem bulbs. They were everywhere this spring, and I swooned over them.
By the way, that’s the Royal We who did the planting: Vivant and our friends Anne and Jo ana did all the work, while Jason and I cheered them on. Many, many thanks to them. These flowers warmed my heart this spring.
Species tulips are the original plants native to Turkey and areas to the east of Turkey, in contrast to the giant, hybrid tulips that are more common. They are supposed to be more reliably perennial than hybrids (mostly true here) and to spread (some do, some don’t). I’m very happy with a mix, in which the hybrid tulips are bold accents in a sea of species tulips.
(Let me know in the comments how you like the addition of photo galleries to the blog; I suspect that if you are looking at this primarily on your cell phone, these photos will be too small.)
The clove currant was wonderful and perfumed the whole block, seducing many admirers. It turns out to root easily from a cutting, so if you are in the neighborhood, I’ll give you one, and we can spread the spicy aroma around.
Here we have an early spring overview, with the bulbs up front. You can see the ostrich ferns coming up under the living room window, and the tulips in pots on the right side of the steps. Note how flat the garden is at this stage; no ten-foot cup plants or other tall perennials that will take over later. The new leaves on the trees are one of my favorite moments of spring.
I’m not sure who these lovely guys are, below, but they are having a good time together.
What was I thinking, trying to catch you up on an entire spring’s worth of flowers in one post? I have a particularly bad sense of time these days, between Covid and Jason’s illness. My days seem to exist on a different plane, in which everything is both very immediate and very distant. I guess it’s been over two months since the last post, even though it seems like much less (or some days, much more).
I’ll end with tulips in pots — reasonably successful this year, not spectacular — and Princess Irene tulips with some tiny multiple warhead daffodils.
We’re well into May with the photos here, and I’ll save the end of May and June for another post. I have a couple of short topics in mind, too, so let’s see if I can’t make the next update sooner rather than later. I’ll include an explanation of that “mostly” in the second paragraph — I want to tell you about some of the things that have gone wrong, too.
One housekeeping note: I am still figuring out the part about approving comments. So if your comments haven’t shown up, bear with me, and don’t give up! I will get the hang of it.
I know the weather has been crazy across the world this spring. I feel like we were on the lucky end of things here in the Chicago area, with a long cool April and May that prolonged some of the most beautiful days of the season. How have things been where you are? Are you sweltering? or drenched? I hope you and your garden are well.