From our own WaterGirl:
These pics are in order of what bloomed first this spring.
It’s been a great spring for flowers, at least!
Striped squill & baby irises
Windflowers
Windflowers amid tulip leaves
Virginia bluebells
Pink tulips
Back corner
Mount Tacoma double tulips
Tulip mix
To be continued…
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I covet that serene corner vista!
(Well, TBH, I covet any garden vista that doesn’t remind me how much repair it needs ASAP, if you know what I mean, and you gardeners probably do…)
What’s going on in your garden(s), this week?
mrmoshpotato
Ahhhh, the blueballs. ?
OzarkHillbilly
Beautiful. I dream of windflowers, just don’t know where I’d put them.
NotMax
Ah, the flowers that bloom in the spring. From idyll to Idle.
:)
satby
I aspire to have flower beds as beautiful as Watergirl’s!
Sadly, mine are nowhere near that.
satby
In my garden news, that last late freeze was the death of both of my small Japanese maples. Neither had done particularly well in the spot I had planted them, so I’m not replacing them there. For the next three days I have massive weeding to do and planting of the approximately 20 pots of perennials I bought instead of the Japanese maple I intended to buy at the garden center earlier this week. Plus I scored a heirloom orange tomato plant to replace one of my failed seed starts, so with three replacements and three survivors I’m hoping for a good tomato season. Fingers crossed.
Barbara
Those are really beautiful.
eclare
@satby: So sorry about the trees! I have a Japanese maple in my front yard that does well, but few freezes here in Memphis.
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone ???
rikyrah
Beautiful pictures ❣️?
MazeDancer .
How lovely, WaterGirl!
Baud
@rikyrah: Good morning.
Baud
Is that a bronze fox? It’s not Henry.
JPL
Lovely pictures.
raven
There is incredible black dirt under those chips!
satby
@eclare: Well, they never thrived, so the freeze was probably just the last straw. But a replacement I looked at was (gulp!) $75. So I passed on that, and ended up buying 20 four inch pots of other flowers for essentially the same amount of cash. Most of them hardy perennials, so potentially more bang for the buck. I hope.
satby
@rikyrah: Good morning ?
satby
@raven: I miss Illinois dirt! Mostly sand around here.
waratah
Your garden is lovely Watergirl, from the tiny iris to the double white tulip.
the wind flowers and the squill are new to me which probably means they would not like a hot dry climate.
Nancy
Beautiful images.
I have been enjoying the flowers this spring. Apparently cold and rainy weather was good for columbines as they are amazing. And it appears that our friends, the bees, helped them hybridize themselves because I see colors I haven’t planted.
This morning I cherish the garden images even more than usual. My heart is aching, I’m angry, and I needed a break from images of the devastation. I am aware that people of color never can take a break from the threat and violence of living in the US.
Albatrossity
Gorgeous tulips!
SiubhanDuinne
Love everything, especially the tulips! Thanks for some real beauty at a time when we need it most.
donnah
We planted blue hydrangea late in the season last year, three plants. Two actually survived, which was a thrill for me, as I possess a notoriously black thumb. They were the most beautiful purply-blue color and I know that their color is determined by the acidity of the soil that they’re planted in. I have been reading up on that, and many sources say that adding coffee grounds to the soil will increase the acidity and persuade the flowers to bloom in blue.
Any idea if this is true?
stinger
I can’t make sense of these photos. Where are the weeds???
OzarkHillbilly
@donnah: True about the acidity, don’t know about the coffee grounds tho it sounds reasonable. There are soil additives that add acid that one can buy. I use an organic type from Jobes in my veggie garden. It is mostly sulfur I think.
Lapassionara
Thanks for the photos. What a pleasure to see spring blooms.
OzarkHillbilly
@stinger: Those are the weeds. WG is just very lucky. ;-)
Immanentize
@donnah: it is true. Coffee grounds add acid, which is why it’s not a great idea to compost too many coffee grounds — especially for use around roses. They like sweet soil.
Watergirl — such lovely flowers. Thanks!
debbie
Wow, WG! How much time must you spend tending to these beauties!
cleek
there’s an unclosed italics/em tag somewhere in this post that’s turning the rest of the front page into italics.
Immanentize
@NotMax: Bugger
WaterGirl
@cleek: I agree with your assessment, but I did a search of this post – 9 em tags and 9 closing em tags. no italics tags at all.
edit: Even so, I removed italics (em) from the picture descriptions anyway, and now we’re back to normal.
WaterGirl
@mrmoshpotato: It wouldn’t be spring without the bluebells! :-) (auto correct changed balls to bells)
@OzarkHillbilly: They like sun, if that helps.
@Baud: Yes, the fox with no name. I love my fox, so I may have to remedy that. Not sure what he’s made of but he doesn’t weigh nearly what you expect, so not metal and not stone.
scav
What a grand spring is blooming there! And so well together. Here in the upper left, the peonies and poppies have just started and the Cecile Brunner rose is outdoing itself this year. (plus there are far more weeds — spent two days helping a neighbor clear nettles, thistles and a few remaining hemlock).
WaterGirl
@raven: @satby: I do have great dirt!
The gas company just came through our neighbors (they were here for 2 months!) and buried gas lines. So they dug up my law in a bunch of places and took away the good dirt.
I asked if they were saving that dirt to put it back when they were done. Nope. They assured me that they would add dirt at the end and put down grass seed.
I was sure they were selling that good black dirt and replacing it with crap dirt. I said screw that, bought a bunch of bags of lawn soil and put down my own seed.
The first is mine and then the neighbor’s about 3 feet away. Actually the first one is only about 1/5 my property, but it was a really big patch so I used the lawn soil and planted seed on the whole thing. But the next big patch was several feet from my property, so I left that to her. So we had our own little “control” for the experiment.
Bastards!
WaterGirl
@SiubhanDuinne: Both kinds of white tulips are new this year, and I am crazy about both of them. The one that’s shows a bit of yellow is “Best White” from Colorblends. The other one is already labelled.
Thanks to a hot tip from satby years ago, all my bulbs are from Colorblends. They do so much better than any other bulbs I have ever bought.
WaterGirl
@stinger:
The weeds are all in my lawn. :-(
Miss Bianca
I have no garden, per se – the wild raspberries and currants are flowering outside my door, tho’, and all the rain we have been getting lately is causing other wildflowers to bloom. The wild roses should be coming in June – can’t wait!
Also, the local garden club came by and repotted all the holders in front of my (sadly shuttered) workplace, the movie theater, and that has caused my heart to – if not soar, exactly – flutter a little. Some of the holders have columbines, the Colorado state flower, and a yellow one had just bloomed out yesterday. A splash of color and relief in the midst of all the squalid horror going on in the country.
ETA: And I forgot to compliment WaterGirl on her lovely, lovely flowers and great photos. I never used to read the gardening and OTR religiously, but I do now. Since Alain’s passing and since all the craziness of 2020, I find myself reading every last one of them and reveling in the gorgeousness of the photos and creativity of the Jackaltariat.
BruceFromOhio
The warm weather and rainy days made for weedapalooza. Yesterday was mulching and weeding, hauling potting soil up to the deck for the boxes MrsFromOhio bought and assembled. Hauled a couple of ‘barrows of crappy clay soil up to the foundation of the house to fill in some low spots. Split some wood to close it out. Today is assembling the terrace kit MFO bought for the side garden and figure out how much soil we will need to bring in. There are five or six trays of basil, tomato, various herbs to plant, as well as repatriating a number of iris and other stuff that was moved for the tilling a few weeks back. And its bloody cold – yesterday was simply gorgeous for working outside, sunny and 68. Today its cloudy with a north wind and 52, and I am in no hurry to go outside at the moment.
Later, its a hot soak and Tiger Balm and ibuprofen and bourbon. Lots of bourbon. Not necessarily a garden thing, but certainly an important corollary.
laura
Today’s the day for planting the raised bed – giant red amaranth, cosmos, zinnias, marigolds and sunflowers. Also there will be hate weeding to deal with my sadness and anger. The blue hydrangeas got sun burnt by last week’s high temperatures but the gardenias are ready to pop. This year’s milkweed blooms have increased significantly over the last few years. That’s my report. Maybe someday the garden will be as lovely as the gorgeous posts from green thumb jackals.
debbie
@WaterGirl:
They updated the gas line to my building (the meters are just under my front window) years ago. Whatever it was they did, they killed a beautiful flowering tree just outside my windows. I used to love seeing nothing but red blooming branches from my second floor windows.
WaterGirl
@Miss Bianca:
That was incredibly thoughtful of them, it brought tears to my eyes. The gift that will keep on giving.
WaterGirl
@BruceFromOhio: I feel tired just reading about everything you are doing!
WaterGirl
@laura: Your garden certainly sounds lovely to me!
WaterGirl
@debbie: Bastards! Sadly, the workers for the utility companies are not gardeners, or even gardener-adjacent, so they don’t even think twice.
They were working too close my 6-year old bald cypress and my sour cherry tree – too close for comfort, anyway – but so far so good.
jnfr
@stinger:
My question exactly!
Mohagan
@WaterGirl: I love your fox statue! Great blooms!
J R in WV
Running a trench through a tree or shrub’s roots is all it takes sometimes to kill them off.
ETA: I also love the OTR and garden threads, we have gardened a whole lot in the past, mostly planted things that will keep coming up for years. So now, weeding, mulching a little, fertilizing some. And bourbon! Kinda past heavy gardening now…
WaterGirl
@Mohagan: I’m so glad to hear it! I ?my fox.