Long-overdue garden update
There were actual signs of life in the yard over a month ago, when the first tips of snowdrops and daffodils and tulips started emerging.
The small crocus have finished their bloom already, like a couple of weeks ago - their flowers seem to last just one or two days. The larger crocus don't have very long-lasting flowers, either, but they don't seem to bloom all at the same time: some bloomed before the tiny crocus, and others just started. There are two very big clusters of them up near the side of the house, which later in the season I am going to dig up and separate. I'll leave some there, and move a bunch of others closer to the front of the yard, where they will be easier to appreciate (also, there is a big shiny white rock under a shrub; I think the dark purple crocus will look really nice blooming next to that.)
One of the daffodils is blooming now, and others are getting close.
I'm a little alarmed by the number of daffodils in the yard. I forgot just how many there were, even before I planted something like 50 saved by a friend from a construction site.
Plus, I have a small pot of daffs from work (some fundraiser; one of the managers bought daffodils for the other managers plus their admins) that need to be planted (they are done blooming, and looking sad because last weekend they got a little dried out).
The chionodoxa have emerged and started blooming! I need more. They're so pretty. (One of them got squashed last weekend while we were working on fixing a leak on top of the bay window. But it has recovered!)
The grape hyacinths look horrible. They put out a lot of foliage last fall (W.T.F???), kept it all winter, and are still hanging on to it. No signs yet of blooms, just scraggly leaves.
Oh! The tulips! The tulips are HAPPY. Many of them seem to have reproduced since last year; there are a lot more leaves, in small clusters, than I was expecting. *glee*
The lilies are growing like weeds, per usual.
In sad shape: the tiny iris I planted last year that the slugs adored. Part of the rhizome cluster got ripped apart a while ago, and I replanted the broken-off bit, which -might- be surviving. The other part doesn't look much better.
Also, in really distressingly sad shape: the red hot poker, which had quite enormous leaves last fall, but when all the snow melted they looked pretty well dead. I thought it was evergreen; it stayed green the previous winter. I removed all the dead leaves as close to the plant as I could, so we'll see (I think at this point it may be 3 plants). It hasn't ever bloomed for me, but I was hoping this year it would. Maybe not :\
A few of the other perennials are starting to emerge, too. The larger, more established columbines have already gotten fairly large clusters of new foliage, and I've found a few new tiny plants :D
I saw the first tiny fuzzy leaves of the brunnera this morning, and that one frilly-leafed thing I planted near the corner is getting bigger and bigger (it might be a fringed bleeding heart, or it might be that other frilly-leafed thing the name of which I can't recall at the moment, or maybe that other thing hasn't started coming up yet).
Still waiting on my ferns, the shooting star, and the lady's mantle. The barrenwort hasn't quite realized it is spring and time to releaf itself, so it looks kind of scraggly. It has a bunch of overwintered leaves, all brown and some pretty bedraggled, but overall it looks like something heavy squashed it for a while (that would be snow) and it hasn't quite recovered. Since it went through this routine last year, and then grew back bigger, I'm not freaking out.
There are also a lot of small green mysteries all over the yard. I think some of them might be plants I tried to start from seed last spring, most of which did Nothing At All, and some of which grew an inch or two and stayed tiny . . . and some of them overwintered. I know a lot of perennials do that, so maybe that's what happened. Are they flowers, or are they weeds? Soon enough, I will know. And I bought more shade-accepting seed to give that section of yard another chance at greenery.
The small crocus have finished their bloom already, like a couple of weeks ago - their flowers seem to last just one or two days. The larger crocus don't have very long-lasting flowers, either, but they don't seem to bloom all at the same time: some bloomed before the tiny crocus, and others just started. There are two very big clusters of them up near the side of the house, which later in the season I am going to dig up and separate. I'll leave some there, and move a bunch of others closer to the front of the yard, where they will be easier to appreciate (also, there is a big shiny white rock under a shrub; I think the dark purple crocus will look really nice blooming next to that.)
One of the daffodils is blooming now, and others are getting close.
I'm a little alarmed by the number of daffodils in the yard. I forgot just how many there were, even before I planted something like 50 saved by a friend from a construction site.
Plus, I have a small pot of daffs from work (some fundraiser; one of the managers bought daffodils for the other managers plus their admins) that need to be planted (they are done blooming, and looking sad because last weekend they got a little dried out).
The chionodoxa have emerged and started blooming! I need more. They're so pretty. (One of them got squashed last weekend while we were working on fixing a leak on top of the bay window. But it has recovered!)
The grape hyacinths look horrible. They put out a lot of foliage last fall (W.T.F???), kept it all winter, and are still hanging on to it. No signs yet of blooms, just scraggly leaves.
Oh! The tulips! The tulips are HAPPY. Many of them seem to have reproduced since last year; there are a lot more leaves, in small clusters, than I was expecting. *glee*
The lilies are growing like weeds, per usual.
In sad shape: the tiny iris I planted last year that the slugs adored. Part of the rhizome cluster got ripped apart a while ago, and I replanted the broken-off bit, which -might- be surviving. The other part doesn't look much better.
Also, in really distressingly sad shape: the red hot poker, which had quite enormous leaves last fall, but when all the snow melted they looked pretty well dead. I thought it was evergreen; it stayed green the previous winter. I removed all the dead leaves as close to the plant as I could, so we'll see (I think at this point it may be 3 plants). It hasn't ever bloomed for me, but I was hoping this year it would. Maybe not :\
A few of the other perennials are starting to emerge, too. The larger, more established columbines have already gotten fairly large clusters of new foliage, and I've found a few new tiny plants :D
I saw the first tiny fuzzy leaves of the brunnera this morning, and that one frilly-leafed thing I planted near the corner is getting bigger and bigger (it might be a fringed bleeding heart, or it might be that other frilly-leafed thing the name of which I can't recall at the moment, or maybe that other thing hasn't started coming up yet).
Still waiting on my ferns, the shooting star, and the lady's mantle. The barrenwort hasn't quite realized it is spring and time to releaf itself, so it looks kind of scraggly. It has a bunch of overwintered leaves, all brown and some pretty bedraggled, but overall it looks like something heavy squashed it for a while (that would be snow) and it hasn't quite recovered. Since it went through this routine last year, and then grew back bigger, I'm not freaking out.
There are also a lot of small green mysteries all over the yard. I think some of them might be plants I tried to start from seed last spring, most of which did Nothing At All, and some of which grew an inch or two and stayed tiny . . . and some of them overwintered. I know a lot of perennials do that, so maybe that's what happened. Are they flowers, or are they weeds? Soon enough, I will know. And I bought more shade-accepting seed to give that section of yard another chance at greenery.