The News from South Philly

Two of the three wee offsets from the Great Papilio Caper have sent out leaves, and both are chugging right along. This is good.

And, to make my happiness complete, one of the conjoined triplets from the bulb Valerie gave me has two little leaf nubbins -- they just sprouted yesterday. Given that all three of the triplets share a basal plate, I am hoping this is a harbinger of more sprouting.

In other news, it didn't quite make it to 100F today. It made it to body temperature -- 98.6F -- and then started to fall. So far it's down to 95, which is cool only in relation to the earlier number.

Oh, and the Martin Invaders put on quite a show yesterday, their first bloom of 2014.

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 pameladean and 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 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.