I've got sunshine on a cloudy day

Even on an overcast, raw, why-are-we-still-wearing-mittens kind of day, these patches of yellow make their own sunny weather. In the foreground is the daffodil "Yellow Cheerfulness," the middle ground is covered with"Wisley," and forsythia "Lynwood Gold" rules the background.  

More May daffodils

The yellow-citron-cream-white-gold-chiffon-canary color carnival continues into mid-May!


Clockwise from upper left:  "Hawera," "Thalia," "Pheasant's eye"  (Narcissus poeticus), "Ceylon"
 

Jane Kenyon, the poeticus' mood, and several hundred daffodils

In her essay, "The Phantom Pruner," poet and fellow New England gardener, Jane Kenyon, uses the  metaphor of a sun-filled garden to express her desire for emotional luminosity and openness:  

It's not just more flowers I want, it's more light, more air for flowers, more sun for cheerfulness.  A person gets her fill of shade-loving plants. She wants . . . a hundred white daffodils that glow after dusk against the unpainted boards of an old barn.

No weathered barns around here but, quite by chance, this fall's bulb order offers a small tip to Kenyon's bright vision. By the end of October, a couple of hundred daffodils had been planted: all dosed with a bit of bone meal and clumped together in groups of three or five. Over fifty white "poet's narcissus" bulbs replenished a bed next to the side of the house and another fifty narcissus "Yellow Cheerfulness" promise to bring spring sunlight along the back. The myrtle beds lining the front walk were loaded with a hundred bulbs of the perky miniature narcissus "Tete-a-Tete." After a challenging summer and fall, I am focusing simply on flowers that make me happy.    

I am planning to seek my bliss indoors, too, with a slew of paperwhites, hyacinths, and amaryllises.  

Order details follow.

Outdoors:

50 Narcissus "Yellow Cheerfulness" (Brent and Becky's Bulbs)

100 Narcissus "Tete-a-Tete"  (Brent and Becky's Bulbs)

50 Narcissus poeticus v. recurvus  (Brent and Becky's Bulbs)

5  Narcissus poeticus (Old House Gardens)

Indoors:

3 Hyacinth "Gipsy Queen" (Old House Gardens)

5 Hyacinth "Lady Derby" (Old House Gardens)

24 Narcissus "Ziva" (White Flower Farm)

1 Amaryllis "Royal Velvet"  (White Flower Farm)

1 Amaryllis "Picotee"  (White Flower Farm)

1 Amaryllis "Tres Chic"  (White Flower Farm)

Woodland wake-up

This early in April, the little patch of open space across the street seems still asleep. But the morning knocking of woodpeckers in the tree canopy, the rumbling of passing trains, and the leaf-crunching footsteps of an occasional rambler suggest that spring has started to wake up.

 



On close inspection, early ephemerals can be spotted popping up on the forest floor.  Clutches of wild Northern white violets are scattered over the damper areas. Why are they so much lovelier than their invasive purple cousins?  Is it location (lawn vs parkland)? Or size (scrubby vs. robust)? Or just familiarity (ugh, another weed vs. native novelty)? 



Northern white violets (Viola pallens)



A bit distant and, thankfully, easier to spot, are several spreads of naturalized spring squills. Not native, perhaps, but most welcome during these chilly days.  Judging from the amount of territory that they have colonized, the first bulbs must have been planted decades ago.

 

Spring squills (Scilla siberica)

Of more recent vintage are the clumps of daffodils that my husband tends along the road verge opposite our house.  Late season purchases of discounted bulbs from the local big box store, augmented by a spring application of 3-5-3, help to spur these along. Every year that they return and bloom is an achievement given the onslaught of street salt, highway mowing, and flower pluckers.

 

Daffodil "King Alfred"

Perhaps rows and rows of yellow flowers will someday form an audience, like these springtime spectators watching crew races along the river. Ah, yes, it is time to wake up!


April rowers on the Charles

Daffodil (and allium and hyacinth and amaryllis) dreams

Now that Labor Day has rolled past, it's time to put away the white shoes, sharpen the school pencils, and order bulbs for the coming winter and spring.  Thankfully, I had the foresight to jot a few notes down about what to order on my garden goalroll at the end of the last season.  How else would I remember a pressing need for hundreds of allium "Ostrowkianum"--or even how to spell that plant's name?!

Since I pledged my deep commitment to daffodils a couple of years ago, I find myself each autumn trying to fill, enhance, and extend their springtime show.  This effort means searching on a half dozen variables--hardiness, bloom time, color, flower shape, height, light requirements--to find the perfect variety, or at least one that meets most of the criteria.  This year, I'm seeking a replacement for my sadly unrequited embrace of hoop petticoat daffodils: none of the 100 Narcissus bulbocodium conspicuus bulbs planted along the front walk came up.  Not a single one.  None.  In their place, I'm yearning for a very early white northern-tolerant miniature. The closest candidate to my daffodil dream date appears to be "Jenny," a short (that's good), zone 6 hardy (yes!), early bloomer (terrific) with reflexed petals and a slightly frilled trumpet (okay, why not?!) of ivory and pale yellow (meh, I'll settle).

So here's how the whole order is shaping up:

Tulip World

60 narcissus cyclamineus "Jenny" Planted 10/13/2012 along front walk in groups of 3 bulbs

Bluestone Perennials
150 allium "Ostrowkianum" Planted 10/13/2012 along front walk in groups of 7 bulbs

Brent and Becky's Bulbs
50 wood hyacinth "Queen of Pinks"

And for indoor forcing:

White Flower Farm

36 paperwhite narcissus "Ziva"
1 amaryllis "Royal Velvet"
1 amaryllis "Picotee"

Old House Gardens

5 hyacinth "Gipsy Queen" 

5 hyacinth "L'Innocence" 

5 hyacinth "Lady Derby"

Now, if one reliable supplier would just carry everything on my shopping list.  But that's too much to dream!

Daffodil dilemma

Why so few daffodils in the garden this spring? Except for a stand of white "Mount Hood" bulbs, which are regaining strength as a side benefit of the regular fertilization of the evergreens around which they are planted, the daffodil showing has been pretty sparse.  I'm seeing problems: a bit of bud blast and lots of plants sprouting only leaves.

The American Daffodil Society provides some explanations for daffodils that fail to bloom and offers tips for growing daffodils.  Too bad that I didn't get the memo earlier.  Fertilize when the leaf tips emerge?  Missed that. Separate the bulbs every few years? Wouldn't dream of doing that. Water while growing? Skipped that.

The real dilemma of daffodil cultivation lies in the fact that a certain amount of care has to be performed after any trace of the plant has disappeared from sight. So, for example, how do you ensure that the low nitrogen fertilizer cast so freely in the fall actually comes in contact with any bulbs?  And who wants to wait six months to find out?  I'm not too good with being patient and definitely irresponsible about tagging and labelling plants. 

In the meantime, to trick myself into thinking that we're actually busting at the seams with daffodils, I scavenged a big selection for an indoors vase.  That works for now.

Pestering spring bulbs

Regular readers will know that I have kind of a thing for Robin Lane Fox, gardening correspondent for the Financial Times. Not only is he is fluent in all the proper Latin botanical names--as he should be since his day job is as a Reader in Ancient History--but his horticultural opinions are refreshingly contrarian. (And, when not gardening, he leads the occasional cavalry charge in a Hollywood sand-and-sandal epic.)

Anyway, Lane Fox's article yesterday on fall planting began by lambasting both the vermin who ravage spring bulbs and the "woolly minded eco-gardeners" who are their advocates. As a veteran of constant battles over the predations of backyard swarms of squirrels and rabbits, I say sign me up on your team, Robin! I've gone over to the dark side of gardeners for whom Peter Rabbit is no longer a cute, cuddly cartoon bunny.

This year, I've given up planting any bulbs that these pests like.  It's hard to enjoy a plant when all the time you're wondering first, if the bulb was dug up and devoured in the fall and second, how long before something hops or bounds over and snips off the leaves and flowers. Not going there this year. Instead of tulips, I am trying Spanish hyacinths.  They may be a poor substitute but, honestly, nothing carries off spring as flamboyantly as brilliantly-colored Darwin tulips anyway.  At least I can inject a little springtime pink with Spanish hyacinths. In addition, yes, there will be more daffodils--the late blooming variety "Quail" and, as reminders of a lovely spring in Portugal, hoop petticoat daffodils.

The plant list is below the jump. Full, but not complete--I'm guessing there will be a few more purchases.

Outdoors
100 Narcissus bulbocodium conspicuus (front walk bed) (John Scheepers)
10 Narcissus "Quail" (new side bed) (John Scheepers)
50 Hyacinthoides hispanica "Dainty Maid" (old side bed) (John Scheepers)

Indoors
20 Paperwhite narcissus "Ziva" (John Scheepers)
5 Hyacinth "Gypsy Queen" (John Scheepers)
1 Amaryllis "Picotee" (John Scheepers)
1 Amaryllis "Red Pearl" (John Scheepers)

50 daze of daffodils

As if I needed more reasons to adore daffodils--what, their sunny colors, pest resistance, and willingness to naturalize aren't enough?--this year, I learned that season-stretching should be added to the plus column.  From April to June, I've enjoyed fifty delightful days of daffodils.  A longer run is no doubt possible, if you were a more intentional and intelligent gardener than I.

So, here's a fast paced run-down of what was in bloom and when.  No commentary other than the names of the varieties and the dates of the photographs . . . that says it all.

"Marieke" April 16

"White Medal" April 24

"Ice King" April 27

"Hawara" April 28

"Pheasant's Eye" April 28

"Minnow" April 29

"Ceylon" May 1

"Mount Hood" May 3

"Tete a Tete" May 6

"Thalia" June 4

The month of May looks a little sparse. Maybe I don't need any additional reasons, but now I have an excuse at least to plant a few more bulbs.

Garden variety jonesing

I didn't even really try to abstain.  None of that facing yourself in the mirror stuff for me.  I was simply looking to indulge my addiction for spring bulbs, and this morning's Financial Times provided the slender excuse needed.  I mean, who am I to argue when Robin Lane Fox is hustling spring flowering bulbs?  More "Tete-a-Tete," you say, Robin?  Sure, why not!

As midnight rolls around, this fall's order looks like:

Brent and Becky's Bulbs

10 Narcissus "Tete-a-Tete" (beds to side of front walk) Planted 10/31

50 Narcissus "Minnow" (beds to side of front walk) Planted 10/31

50 Narcissus "Thalia" (new side yard) Planted 11/6

10 Tulipa "Purple Prince" (old side yard) Planted 11/14

Old House Gardens

10 Tulipa "Prinses Irene" (old side yard) Planted 11/14

And for indoor forcing:

White Flower Farm

1 Amaryllis "Novella"

24 Paperwhite Narcissus "Ziva"

Old House Gardens

3 Hyacinth "Gipsy Queen" Cooling 11/12

3 Hyacinth "L'Innocence" Cooling 11/12

Total okay-ness.

Paying it forward

How it made me smile, on a recent trip to Portugal, to see these wild hoop petticoat daffodils (Narcissus bulbocodium) growing along the ramparts of the Moorish Castle at Sintra.



It's hard not to feel gladdened by the sight of these flowers. Even the artificial ones, like these flourishing in the no-food-or-plant zone of my office, will do the trick.



I am totally converted to daffodils in the garden, too. They bloom forever, naturalize well, and are of minimal interest to hungry rabbits, squirrels, and voles. Here are the varieties currently in bloom, reading left to right, row by row: White Medal, Ceylon, Hawera, Mount Hood, Pheasant's Eye, Ice King, Marieke, Tete-a-tete, White Medal.



And I'm already planning to add more for next spring. Thalia? Mint Julep? Jack Snipe?

Last fall, my husband paid it forward by planting several dozen King Alfred bulbs along the roadside opposite our house. Now that the flowers are in bloom, walkers stop to admire them, cars slow down as they drive by and, as I was taking this photograph, a passer-by came over to say, "Thank you! They're fantastic!" And they are.

Bulb addenda

A finale to the bulb ordering . . .

Brent and Becky's Bulbs
20 Narcissus Tazetta "Ziva" (indoors)
10 Narcissus "Ceylon" (new side yard)

. . . and on to the bulb planting, chilling, and potting up!

Fall plans for spring plants

Last night, I finally settled down in front of the computer to place my fall bulb order.

Given the rabbit feeding frenzy this year, I am reducing the percentage of delectable tulips and am hoping that the daffodils planted last fall will continue to flower. I'll also no longer be digging hundreds of little iris reticulata into the beds by the front walk, only to see them--or, more accurately, not see them--disappear. Miniature daffodils will go into their place.

Here's this year's very short list:

Old House Gardens
10 Tulipa "Generaal de Wet" (back of house)

White Flower Farm
50 Narcissus "Tete-a-Tete" (front yard by walk)

Brent and Becky's Bulbs
10 Tulipa "Purple Prince" (old side yard)
10 Tulipa "Prinses Irene" (old side yard)



And for indoor forcing:

White Flower Farm
1 Amaryllis "Temptation"

Old House Gardens
3 Hyacinth "Gipsy Queen"
3 Hyacinth "L'Innocence"
3 Hyacinth "Lady Derby"

It was way past my bed-time when I pushed the final "Enter" button, so I seem to have left a few dozen bulbs of paperwhite "Ziva" off those orders. An excuse to expand the list . . . more daffodils, I think!