Spring Forward, Indeed

The crocuses and Siberian irises have been up for at least a week, but I just noticed the daffodils today. I used post a photo of the first crocus every year, so I could tell if there was a big variation in when they appear. There isn't; they're pretty much like clockwork.

It's quite possible that will get more snow and freezing temps this spring; our last big snowstorm is usually around April 10. What will make me sad is if the peach tree opts to bloom early (a strong possibility, with temps in the 70s all week). If we get a freeze after that, it'll put the kibosh on any peaches this year.

It be May. Maybe.

Springtime in the Rockies is becoming predictable. Nice weekend followed by midweek snow. This time I got a little smarter and harvested some tulips before the mercury dropped.

This morning, it was 19 degrees, a record low for May.

It's good to have moisture; these storms have replenished the mountain reservoirs and lessened the likelihood of wildfires. But they keep freezing the buds of everything trying to bloom, and that's a bummer.

Before the chill

Here's what was blooming (or almost blooming, in the peach tree's case) in my yard two weeks ago. That was right before a week of snow and temps down into the single digits. I don't worry about the plants or tree surviving, but the flowers were toast. Sadly, this probably means no peaches this year. Last spring was warm from March on, and we harvested a bumper crop. More bulbs are flowering this weekend, with more snow on the way. That's how it goes.

I won't show you a photo of my very ambitious rhubarb plant. It was thigh-high and already flowering. After the deep freeze it was a pile of mush. It will survive, too, but I regret not harvesting it when I could.

The newbies on the block

Last week I got some new bees, a package from Wyoming. Last year's bees swarmed and the hive never recovered. I was rather worried about this batch; the delivery was rather earlier than I would have liked, followed by a week of bitter cold and snow. Unlike a swarm, package bees don't have the opportunity to stuff themselves with honey before their journey, so their resources were thin. Basically, just the sugar water I placed in a feeder inside the hive. I need to track down a source of clean, untreated honey I can feed them with. Sugar water will do in a pinch, but it's not optimal.

Still, the weather warmed up yesterday and I came home to find bees hovering around the hive entrance, and they had drained the feeder. So that's a good sign. And they are finding the few flowers blooming.

More snow is on the way Monday.

Silver lace vine goes to town

In October of 2009, someone on my gardening listserv was giving away a silver lace vine (polygonum aubertii), that was too vigorous for her small yard. I'd admired this pretty vine on fences around the neighborhood, so I was happy to go dig hers up.

I planted it on the other side of the fence, and this is how big it got in only its second summer. Wow! It's quite the grower. And the bees love the flowers. They have a pretty, delicate scent.

Here's a picture from another angle:
Turns out silver lace vine is also called Mile-a-Minute, growing up to 40 feet in a season. In some parts of the country, its relatives in the Polygonum family, also known as Mile-a-Minute vine, are considered noxious invasives (though not this particular ornamental).

The winters here are a deterrent, I think. But I'll be pruning the heck out of it next spring to keep it in check.

Going to seed

One great thing about having a thriving garden is that it creates the seeds of its own expansion, or the expansion of others' gardens. I collected these columbine seeds for Pamela J. (send me your address, Pam!), while a bucket of white irises went to Amy and another batch was eagerly snapped up by officemates.

I've collected seeds from bachelor buttons, arugula and onions. The Sergeant is an ardent collector of poppy and marigold seeds. My friend Ana took some fennel volunteers. A co-worker got lamb's ears, another, chives.

I'll have to find out what seeds Deb would like to have, as all my tomatoes and some other garden goodies came from her.

The only sad part of all this going to seed? Knowing that fall is just around the corner.

Flutterby

This Western Tiger Swallowtail came flitting down to the echinacea in my front yard and obligingly posed for several dozen close-ups.
I was on the phone with Mom at the time (with a headset) and didn't notice until too late that the camera was on the wrong setting. So instead of a dozen awesome butterfly close-ups, I only have one OK shot. He or she took off just after.

Identification was easy because I remembered a similar butterfly on the Perennial Favorites website. Yep, it's the same one! You can click my photo to see it larger.

Another visitor to my front yard lately is a little brown mouse who has been busily harvesting the abundant seeds from all the flowers. He's too fast for photos but is surprisingly unconcerned about being seen otherwise. I just hope that he doesn't try to move indoors come fall.

Blue something

I should know what this is, but I don't. We scattered a packet of mixed flower seeds and don't have the packet anymore.
Do you know what it is?

Tidying up

It took me a couple of hours to reclaim the curb and walkways from the riot of both good plants and weeds. I feel a twinge of guilt ripping out "perfectly good" flowers, but really, I have no shortage of California poppies, bachelor buttons, yarrow, salvia and lamb's ears. And I like being able to get out of the car and up to the sidewalk without having to wade through a jungle.

Just when I was done, it started to rain. You can barely see a rainbow over the top of the house.

The weeds in front consist mainly of whatever comes through the cracks in the flagstones, some persistent grass, and the bane of my gardening existence: bindweed.
Can you spot it here? It's the pretty white flowers, like morning glory and in the same family. Unlike most weeds, it's not content to just grow wherever it can; it has to wrap around and through and over until it has thoroughly strangled all its neighbors.

It's like the kudzu of Colorado.

Chopped

I chopped the heck out of that fennel today, pulled out all the seedlings and tied the remainder up to the fence. I should've stayed more on top of it. There was one very dead perennial under it (I don't remember what it was), and a seriously struggling campanula and leggy artemesia.

The bees were all hovering around as I chopped, as if to say, "Hey, I'm still working on that!"
Sadly, that now-dead birch tree in the back yard is coming down tomorrow. I will miss its shade and its screening from the neighbors.

I'm thinking of putting a linden in its place.

Fennelzilla

I know dill can get quite large and weedy. Fennel is in the same family, and given a couple of years can turn into a real monster.
Yes, that's a six-foot fence! I planted this Florence fennel as a seedling and failed to harvest the root bulbs. I didn't imagine it would survive Colorado's chilly winters, but it has survived two and thrived. It has also produced numerous seedlings. I've given away some, and need to pull out others and eat them! I also need to hack back the main plant, as it is smothering others around it.

The coreopsis, or tickseed, being one. Or two, since I planted another right next to it, not realizing coreopsis and tickseed are the same thing. They're two different cultivars, though, and a mass of cheery yellow flowers is never amiss.

A little farther down the row is that monarda I posted about earlier. This is the same bloom I showed, a couple of days later.

It's really starting to take off, so I expect that next year it will be quite shrubby. Yesterday I spent several hours removing more sod to make another perennial bed. My original plan was to just clear a ring around the peach tree we planted, but then I got ambitious. More on that later.

Back to blooms

Do you recognize this flower?
If you live out East or in other colder, moister climes, you probably don't see these much. It's a cactus flower, on a specimen we just planted a couple of weeks ago.

Our friend Bob gave it to us in trade for a bristlecone pine we ordered by mistake from High Country Gardens. We thought we'd ordered a dwarf tree, but the tag on what we got (Pinus aristata "Blue Bear") said it reaches 30 feet! Happily, Bob said he had a couple dwarf conifers he'd trade for it, and he threw in a couple of agaves and this cactus as well. I didn't dream that it would bloom so soon!

It has some pretty serious spikes, but it's the teeny barbed ones under the larger ones that will really getcha. (We both were "got" a little.)
We planted it in a rocky area near the street, where it gets plenty of sun but is well away from where anyone might step on it. The agaves and conifers are planted in the yard.

Thanks, Bob!

Monarda "Gardenview Scarlet"

This bee balm is just about to bloom in a bright red that attracts pollinators. It's also called oswego tea, horsemint and wild bergamot (not to be confused with the tropical citrus plant that flavors Earl Grey). Click on the picture to see it larger.

I picked it up in May when Mom and I visited Perennial Favorites in Rye, Colorado. I plan to write about that soon. I think about it every time I check on the plants I got there. I did buy a few. You know I have no self-control.

(P.S. You can see this bud in bloom in this post.)

My mouth, my money

I could blame the mojito, which is made with mint from this buried pot. Or I could blame you enablers out there (you know who you are). But really, it was my own decision.

Yes, I just pulled the trigger on an order of bulbs from Brent & Becky's. Lots and lots of bulbs, including five kinds of alliums.

"Aieeee!" says the Sergeant. "Then we'll have to plant them all!"

Yes, that's the plan.

Sweet surprises

I wasn't expecting to find any ripe raspberries for a couple more weeks, so it was a pleasant surprise to spot a little flash of red in the back of the patch.
There are a couple of canes that seem to have gotten a head start on setting fruit, thanks to the extra warmth thrown off by the cinderblocks of the raised bed they're behind.

Then there's the scruffy tree that I thought was a volunteer (and maybe it was?) that turned out to be a plum:
It's not terribly prolific, but maybe as it matures it will produce more.

Finally, the shrub that hasn't done much in previous years got an extra dose of watering this year thanks to a sprinkler leak. It has a ton of berries on it and I wondered if they are edible. So I went googling around.
Why yes, they're serviceberries! Otherwise known as juneberries or Saskatoon berries. I don't think I've ever eaten one, but I will as soon as these turn purple.

What does one do with serviceberries? Can you make jam with them?

Funions

Alliums are such fun flowers. I hereby resolve to plant more of them.

You're familiar with chive flowers, of course:
They make a great garnish.

The larger decorative alliums make lovely fireworks bursts of white or purple in your garden.
And even after they go to seed they have an interesting shape.
A couple of years ago I planted seeds for bunching onions, which I got from Kenny at Veggie Gardening Tips. They didn't sprout until this year! But now that they're established, I expect them to stick around.
I originally thought they were Egyptian walking onions, which grow their bulbs on the top. The weight bends the stems over until the bulbs hit the ground and take root, hence the "walking."

If the bunching onions were just for kitchen use, I would mound the dirt up so the stems are blanched. But I enjoy them as much for their looks as for cooking.

Poppin' fresh

The Sergeant snapped this photo while I was at work the other day. "The bees are going crazy for this flower!" he told me.
It was just this one poppy bloom and just that day. He couldn't figure out what was different about it; there wasn't water collected in the petals or anything that made it look special, but there were dozens of bees trying to get to it.

Cheery yellow columbine

The columbine is Colorado's state flower. You usually see the blue and white variety but ours are all yellow, and quite vigorous. They are shaded most of the day, so I guess they like that.
They are also vigorous self-seeders. I usually end up pulling out quite a few seedlings from between the patio flagstones. If anyone wants seeds to sow in the fall, just yell!

Clematis and honeysuckle

I don't know why I think clematis are so special, but I just love them. They're not hard to grow.

The fuchsia one was in the garden already; it likes the bigger structure I've given it to grow on. The purple one is a classic Jackmanii clematis. I consider it Sophie's memorial flower, as I buried a fair amount of her ashes in the planting hole.

On the other side of the trellis is a sweet autumn clematis that will bloom later in the summer. It's much more vigorous.

I use black plastic trellis netting to help the vines climb. It's unobtrusive stuff. Great for stapling to stockade fences, too.
I'm not sure what to do about the honeysuckle in front of the house. It's overwhelming the cheap trellis it was planted with. I'm contemplating training it to climb up the front porch, but I'm wondering if I'll regret that later.

What do you think?

Floral feast

Some of the most exciting flowers in the garden right now are not the showiest. Back in March we got the peas planted and it seemed like they would never amount to much, but now they are producing an abundant crop of tasty sugar snaps. Most of which, OK, all of which go straight into our mouths as we pick them. The arugula is an umpteenth-generation descendent of seeds I sowed three years ago. It just keeps popping up. I love its peppery bite. And the bees like it, too.
We also have tomatoes flowering (above left) and peppers (above right). Lots of peppers. The Sergeant likes spicy, so we went a little crazy in the vegetable department at Home Depot. And thanks to my friend Deb, the tomatoes will be abundant, too. She gifted us eight varieties. We're just waiting for the hot days to kick in so the plants really take off. We should also start seeing actual raspberries (right) in another few weeks.

That's not all we have for edibles, but that's all I have in bloom right now. More later!