Gardeners Bloom Day

Having been fully occupied with a couple of Serious Projects lately, I have hardly had time to even look around my place. This morning I thought I'd take a quick gallop around just to see what was in bloom, having once again missed the 15th of the month, which is supposed to be Blooms Day in the world of garden blogs.

 Well, plenty of things in bloom. A few dandilions still, not many,
but a few. Lots of fleabanes, standing up above the low plants they are shading out, looking soft and pink and innocent as usual. Plenty of what I call the stretchy weed - don't know its real name, but it stretches itself along the ground under better things and when you pull on it, it seems to stretch. Its flowers are tiny but that's deceptive. Each tiny bloom will become a hundred thousand (or so) seeds, and they will all germinate next time it rains.

Lemon Balm has as usual reared its ugly head in sundry spots. By the way, never plant more than one Lemon Balm. If you do, you will decide dead-heading looks like a lot of hard work, you'll put it off and eventually forget about it completely, and it will shoot its little prickly seeds all over your property. They will all grow, and each little plant will have roots into the next township. Sort of like ajugas, only taller.

Daisies are doing well, I see. And they seem to have made some sort of alliance with that hot magenta Geranium that seeds around. Pretty enough, but I'll have to toughen myself and yank them as they are both much more aggressive than any of the 'real' flowers.

Moving briskly now (coffee cup nearly empty) I see that the Lamiums have outdone themselves. I have Lamiums where other people have grass... or rugs or pavement... all shades of white, pink and almost-red. The leaves vary a lot too. None of which excuse its tendency to take the inch and then grab the yard.

Hawkweeds, three kinds, doing quite fine, so glad you asked. This one likes the gravel, but then, what doesn't. I think the real way to start seeds is not to get little pots or flats, good soil, water carefully yada yada, but just to toss them somewhere on the driveway. Everything vegetable grows in the driveway.

Chamomile certainly does. And it refuses to grow in the Herb Garden.

Sedum 'Angelina', guaranteed not to set seed or spread in the garden, is now everywhere and blooming nicely, thank you.

I see the dear chipmunks have established another outpost, this time under a cedar near my path in the Sampler Garden. These things happen when the gardener isn't around to blast the dear things with the hose.

The fence appears to have met with a slight mishap. The resident Hound doesn't like a certain Black Squirrel and I guess it visited, ran up the large Cedar on the corner and taunted him. A certain amount of Leaping Up and Barking must have ensued, leading (sigh) to a certain amount of Fence Rebuilding. It'll have to wait, I'm busy.

A quick jog down the hill to the Marsh trail to check on my one Meconopsis bud. It was starting to fatten before I got involved in other things, and, as it happened, before the monsoon rains we had last week. The plant was crashed over, the flower was lying on the ground and I see the slugs had a fine feast.

But I did have a flower on my Meconopsis! The most success I've had in years of trying! I got 20 seedlings from 3 packets of free seeds, planted out 15, 12 survived the winter (and it was a cold one) and one put up a tall stem with one bud on it. I know you are supposed to cut off the first flowers so the plant is more likely to bulk up and become a perennial, but I left it as I may never have another one.

Sad, but what a beautiful blue!







And guess what, I did have something nice in bloom! The Showy Ladyslipper nearby had two flowers. It's only a small plant, having had a slight setback when a beaver (muskrat, squirrel, dog???) dug it up two summers ago.

 

Happy Belated Blooms Day!