Spring bulbs whet appetite for summer colors

 Tulips
 Sanguisorba
 Lungwort
 Small, maroon irises
Allium

From the bright delight of tulips, to the lovely lavender of allium ... Spring-blooming flowers whet a gardener's appetite for more colors to come in the summer.

Some of my spring favorites:

Tulips -- This spring our red and yellow tulips were especially stunning. If you like tulips, too, check out a sea of colorful bulbs from Holland: The Keukenhof Garden is said to be the most beautiful spring garden in the world, and the views online are jaw-dropping spectacular: keukenhof.nl/en/
Tulips were originally cultivated in the Ottoman Empire, and taken to Holland in the 16th century. They were an immediate hit; the Dutch author of the first major tulip book had his own garden raided several times.

Lungwort -- Bright blue flowers pair with polka-dot leaves. Lungwort is easy to divide; I have these plants in several parts of our big yard. They are perky and bright. The name, however, came from what diseased lungs look like.

Iris -- I found my first iris plants in a temporary flower stand in a grocery store parking lot, 25 years ago. These short, maroon-colored plants are just terrific; I've also added the maroons to several areas of the yard. A close friend gave me thin violet irises on my 50th birthday (12 years ago) and I've added tall blue irises. All of them are lovely, the blooms last about two weeks.

Sanguisorba -- A compact little plant, it has green leaves rimmed in white, with lavender flowers. It attract butterflies and looks terrific at all times.

Allium -- This bulb was added near the tulips, in front of the house. It's a little pricey, as blooms go, and requires some patience. The allium seemed to take forever to bloom but the end result was worth the wait. Plant these, like most spring bulbs, in the autumn.
It's interesting to note that allium is in the family of cultivated onions, scallions, garlic, leeks and chives.

Rhododendron shrub -- This is an evergreen plant in Iowa, and I absolutely love the bright pink bursts of color. This spring, however, featured a late-season snow and, sadly, there are no blooms (yet).

Daffodils: I don't have these bulbs, yet, but I do like the spring blooms.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

I take on a huge porch plant, and win!

Image
The sansevieria at top is divided. The photo from it on the porch is before it was divided.        My father, Emery Cox Jr., passed away in 1989. It was a shock, of course, and we received many plants at his visitation and funeral.     One of the green gifts was a  sansevieria, also called a Snake Plant or "Mother-in-Law's Tongue." I took this and planted it in a pot. You can see from the photo that it has grown like Topsy over the years.     I knew I had to divide it this year, so a few weeks ago, my husband Steve and I wrestled the giant sansevieria on the porch over to the driveway.     It really didn't take long: I picked out part of the huge plant, and placed the other in one of those heavy paper yard bags, Boom! All done!      Sansevieria is actually native to the African country of Madagascar. It's in the genus of Dracaena.     My plant does bloom, because it is located in a bright but indirect light...
Read more

Autumn arrives: Water & plant suggestions

Image
Use a rain gauge to track rainwater in the garden  In a 10 day period of late August through early September, we received more than 14 inches of rain on our gardens at home. Fourteen inches! Yikes! Luckily, the plants are mainly in well-drained areas, crafted for the past 25 years. I carted away the heavy clay soil left during the (1992-93) home construction process and started with fresh, black dirt. I also add a number of soil amendments every year. But this year, garden work has been a little different: I'm home full-time and work outdoors in nice weather almost every day. On rainy days, I track the amount of rain we receive. Scott County got a lot of rain early in September but it's toned down a bit since. For example, we received 2 inches last week. Experts say Autumn is a really good time to sustain gardens. Some hardy perennials can be planted (think Autumn sedum, or mums); the nights are fairly cool and the days are still nicely warm. We also get rain ...
Read more

A culvert is tidied up

Image
  This is how the culvert looks now. Here's how it looked before.      Last week, my husband brought up a topic I had forgotten.       "Have you weeded the culvert?" Steve asked. I replied that I ran my small weed wacker in that area of the yard. But pulling weeds? No.     "Could you?" he asked, hopefully. Well, sure. That's what I do, after all, pull weeds all over our big yard.    This project actually went pretty smoothly. In about two hours I'd pulled all the weeds, cleaned off and replaced rocks, and got rid of the debris.      What is a culvert? According to The  Constructor.org , a culvert is made up of various materials, such as aluminum, steel or concrete, and generally runs underneath or near a road to provide a place for drainage, or to run cables.       The culvert near our house was put in place several years ago by Scott County, Iowa.       Before this so...
Read more