Tags
Amaryllis 'Green Valley', Early spring flowers zone 5, garden bloggers' bloom day, Hippeastrum Amaryllis 'Picotee', Narcissus 'Jetfire', Narcissus 'Tete a Tete', species tulips, Tulipa humilis 'Persian Pearl'
Happy Bloom Day, everyone! It’s been a practically perfect day here in northeastern Pennsylvania, with temperatures in mid-70s, low humidity, and mostly sunny skies, helping the flowers look their best for their Bloom Day photo shoot!
The hellebores have been blooming since early March, and are wrapping up their cycle now, I think. This one, in the front porch garden, has never before looked so good!
This flouncy hellebore is one I brought home from a friend’s garden in the spring of 2022, growing now along the edge of the woods that border our yard. (I brought home and planted seven plants on the wood’s edge. Bloom Day is a happy occasion, so all I’ll say about the others is that most of them are alive.)
Daffodil season is finally underway up here on our hill. As always, the King Alfred types were the first, opening about a week ago, and thickly filling out their row across the top of my backyard. Three days ago, I counted 175 fully open flowers; I know there were several more today! Some of these bulbs date back to 2013–I’d say they’re great naturalizers!
Some shorter rows of ‘Fellows Favorite’ grow in front of the KAs, and opened just today! They’re generally about a week to ten days later, and are lighter in color. They’ll eventually develop a circle of white to surround the corona.
(If you want to know why I keep writing “King Alfred type”, rather than just “King Alfred”, here is an article that addresses that very question. https://www.colorblends.com/myth-of-king-alfred-daffodil/)
In the lasagna bed, ‘Ceylon’ is in her glory. She’s been blooming in this bed every spring since 2015.
‘Jetfire’, a short cyclamineus daffodil, is another early bloomer. It’s a small flower, no more than ten inches tall with flowers about two inches wide. These have been in the Terrace Garden since 2017. Their numbers have dwindled, and what remains are not putting out as many flowers as they used to. I’ve been saying for a few years now that I need to dig it up and move it to a spot where it will not be so hidden by the retaining wall; maybe its diminished performance will be just the impetus I need to finally DO that task!
The ‘Tete-a-Tetes’ are open now, too. I have some in a small bed near our driveway, and several more in the new garden I’m creating on the back hill. These are tiny treasures, even smaller than ‘Jetfire’ — the tallest is only just over six inches tall, and the flowers average an inch and a half across.
Okay, I think that’s all of the daffodils, for now, anyway! A few other bulbs have sent up flowers too:
Here’s something I didn’t remember planting last fall until it literally popped open today — a species tulip called ‘Persian Pearl’. These are quite small, maybe six inches high and less than two inches wide. Species tulips are said to be better a naturalizing than most tulips. Since I just planted these bulbs last fall, I can’t speak to that yet. Nor can I verify the claim that they are more resistant to rodents and deer than others; mine are planted very close to the house and behind a (short) fence.
I planted some pansies in mid-March, in the usual boxes on the vegetable garden railing. They’ve bravely come through all manner of weather since then — low temperatures in the teens, highs near 80, torrential rain, and heavy wet snow. They are indeed troupers! I did not manage to take a picture of the full boxes that pleased me, but here are two of the pansies they contain, both in the fun and frilly “Frizzle Sizzle” series:
Finally, I want to show you just a few things in the house. The walking iris, Neomarica gracilis, has been pumping out flowers on four stalks since the second week of March. One stalk is finished with its flowers and is growing a new plant now, so I will soon anchor it down into a pot of soil to let it root and grow. If I were in a climate where it could grow outside year-round, it would not need my help, but rather droop to the ground and root where it landed, thus spreading itself and earning its “walking” moniker. Some years, I’ve just anchored the baby plant to soil in the same pot, but there’s no longer room in this pot!
I’m both proud and amazed by this Calandiva, a kalanchoe cultivar. I bought it in full bloom last year for Easter, and assumed that I’d never see it bloom again. Well, it continued to bloom all through the summer, so in the fall, I brought it in and gave it space under the lights in the basement (my “winter garden”). Sometime in February, I was thrilled to see it not just surviving, but actually forming buds!
If you know me, you know that I have amaryllises in bloom! Two separate ‘Picotee’ bulbs are flowering now, with their delicate red edging that names them. Some of their petals are pure white, while others are gently suffused with a delicate blush of pink, and still others are speckled. The flowers are of medium size, about five inches wide on the new-this-year bulb, and three inches on the three year old bulb. The stalks average sixteen inches in height.
Lastly, this is my newest amaryllis, opening just for us today! This is Cybister Amaryllis ‘Green Valley’. It’s on the small side for an amaryllis, just over twelve inches tall with trumpet shaped flowers. The widest one now is almost four inches, but I don’t think it’s fully open yet, so that may increase.
So there you go, that’s what’s blooming at my house this mid-April day. I hope you’ve enjoyed the tour! Thank you to Carol for continuing to host this monthly round-up of all things blooming!
Cosmos and Cleome 