lblanchard: (Default)
lblanchard ([personal profile] lblanchard) wrote2009-05-22 02:43 pm

Garden report

Two peonies are blooming (one is approaching its sell-by date) and a third is looking ready to pop. Memorial Day weekend starts in a couple of hours, so I guess I'm going to have peonies on Memorial Day, whee!

There were a few crisped up and dead leaves on the small maple. I have no idea why. They were all in one spot so perhaps there was some reason -- bird with particularly corrosive droppings, perhaps? I may repot it this weekend just in case the pot-to-root ratio is off again.

It has occurred to me today that now that I have some, you know, actual soil that's not being peed on in the backyard, I could plant some daylilies amid the hostas. Also rose campion and oenothera and feverfew. I think I have about 10 rose campion volunteers. They won't bloom till next year, being biennials, but their fuzzy silvery foliage is decorative. And I have tons of feverfew. Oh, and I still have blue flag iris in my front bucket. I didn't send it all to [livejournal.com profile] pameladean and [livejournal.com profile] clindau.

Now that it's blooming abundantly, the wisteria is a little disappointing. The flowers at one end of the cluster are fading before the ones at the other end have come into being. Not festive like [livejournal.com profile] kightp's at all. But it's the wisteria I've got. I must take its picture this weekend.

I look at the hippeastrum seeds a couple times a day, even though they aren't likely to start sprouting until Tuesday or Wednesday at the earliest.

[identity profile] clindau.livejournal.com 2009-05-22 07:26 pm (UTC)(link)
My Philly blue flag is just about to bloom. All but one of the Martian Invader lilies made it through the winter as well as one oenothera. Despite late planting they seem to all be doing well.

My hippeastrum haven't started sprouting either. I planted them last week.

[identity profile] lblanchard.livejournal.com 2009-05-23 02:50 pm (UTC)(link)
Mine have rehydrated (the papery parts) and appear to be swelling (the seedy parts). I'll take that as a good sign. My Philly blue flags all bloomed a month ago.
pameladean: (Default)

[personal profile] pameladean 2009-05-23 04:25 am (UTC)(link)
Mine made it through the winter but look a little stunted. They are probably suffering from the drought. I haven't gotten the hose patched yet, but I will.

P.

[identity profile] lblanchard.livejournal.com 2009-05-23 02:50 pm (UTC)(link)
I think I sent you both the blue ones and the (admittedly stunted) old line bicolors.
pameladean: (Default)

[personal profile] pameladean 2009-05-23 03:10 pm (UTC)(link)
Hmmm. If those were the ones lumped together as maybe blue and maybe Other, I might have just got all Other, by chance. Or I mixed up the labels. The separately labelled ones are all much further along, though not so much as Cindy's. Anyway, they'll come around eventually.

P.

[identity profile] lblanchard.livejournal.com 2009-05-23 03:31 pm (UTC)(link)
As I recall the blue and the "other" in those selections were both kind of puny -- the result of living in a crummy broken window box planter in poor light and worse soil for a couple of years. They may need this year to take hold and next year to flourish, although as I recall the bicolors were never more than so-so.

Here's one picture, from their community garden days:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lblanchard/160154163/

And here's another, looking better than I remembered them:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lblanchard/501613769/
pameladean: (Default)

[personal profile] pameladean 2009-05-23 04:44 pm (UTC)(link)
They can have as long as they like. I really like iris leaves and am happy to have them as foliage plants.

The bicolor looks great to me, in the second photo; they may not look so good in masses at a distance, but I'm more a poke-one's-nose-into-it gardener anyway.

P.