Pretties For You

Thinking about what would be appealing for a flowery Valentines Day post, looking at 2007 spring photos, picking the best and happiest of the best, although not the usual spring shots normally taken due to the frost……no, no, no frost talk. Sorry, back to happy thoughts and visions and warm sunny days and colorful fragrant blooms. What better place to start than the passion flower, passiflora incarnata. It is hard to say if these return from a hardy root system or are new self sown seedlings, but we are awash in passion vine.

One of the most beautiful and unusual lilies, the Canada Lily, L. canadense, blooms here in early June. This was purchased several years ago at the Lavender festival from a vendor booth for Sunlight Gardens,http://sunlightgardens.com/ a native plant nursery north of Knoxville, although it doesn’t seem to be listed in their catalog currently. It is listed in the Wiseacre Gardens site however.
http://www.wiseacre-gardens.com/plants/wildflower/canadalily.html

This astilbe ‘Pink Visions’ is a reliable bloomer and taller and more robust than the white and red astilbes also grown here.

A passalong iris from our neighbors, thanks Mae and Mickey, this color is a favorite with the dark beard and golden orange petals. The sweet william nearby, dianthus barbatus ‘Sooty’ is an unexpected bed mate and a good example of my ‘all colors go together’ mantra.

Another iris, Champagne Elegance is lower in stature but not in star power. All of the iris have been divided and moved to new areas in hopes of better blooms this year.

A little unfocused but such a jolt of color, the oriental poppy is old fashioned and breathtaking.

More of these nectaroscordum siculum, syn. allium bulgaricum, were ordered to add to this single one, given as a test subject by semi, to see how it measured up. It measured up better than fine.

A triumph in seed raising, this butterfly weed,asclepias tuberosa, was planted as a seed found on a plant in one of the big box stores. It has been seven years and there are now three healthy multiple blooming plants from those seeds. The butterflies suction on the blooms for long stretches at a time.

Blooming not in spring, but rather July, this scadoxus multiflora is other worldly in its beauty. A birthday gift, thanks Laurie, this South African native bulb proved to be unlike anything else grown here. There were three sprouts, one was broken off by the gardener trying to pull a nearby weed, talk about your heartbreaking moment. The second stalk went on to bloom as delightfully as this one however.

Another hot color combo, the kniphofia and Azalea ‘Crimson Tide’ with the chamaecyparis ‘Gold Mops’ mopping up all the spilled color.

Longiflorum- Asiatic lily ‘Royal Fantasy’, exceedingly fragrant. These are planted along a pathway edge between clumps of Autum Joy Sedum, and delight the senses as one travels along.

The grand finale, our peony bed, complete with ants. These are planted closely together in a bed by the side of the house to hold each other up, when so heavy with bloom in May. A grocery sack full of roots was sitting on the front porch the year we moved here, thanks again Mae and Mickey, and the flowers remind me of my childhood. A gardening neighbor would give me large bouqets of these blooms to take to my teacher as I walked to school, wrapped in newspaper. Talk about the teacher’s pet!

Since Valentine’s Day will always fall just before the Garden Blogger’s Bloom Day, readers will have a double treat in February as the prettiest flower pictures will be chosen for posting, one group from the year before, and another group of current blooms for the next day. Something to look forward to.

Looking,

Frances

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