Flowers and Plants

Chives

I don’t have a lot to say about this picture. It’s chive flowers opening up. They are growing in a crack in our patio and self seeded from chives I grown in a container and use for cooking. My favorite thing to do with chives is to tear up the flowers and sprinkle them on soup or steak or whatever. Purple food!

Convallaria majalis (Lily-of-the-Valley)

Convallaria majalis, lily-of-the-valley, is a remarkable plant. When we lived in our old house there were a few houses near by that were to be torn down to widen a road. We did what we called “plant rescue,” digging plants out of the garden (with permission) and replanting them in ours and giving them to friends. There was a lot of lily-of-the-valley there, growing alongside the driveway. Actually, it was coming up through the driveway in places. You have to admire a plant that can break up a pavement.

It’s fairly expensive at the garden center so we dug up a lot of it, putting it in every spare container we had. When we moved here in 2006 we brought three or four containers of it with us. Actually, we still have a container full. It blooms every year but if anyone would like some, we’d be happy to share. As it turns out, there already was some in one part of the garden here, and that’s where this photograph was taken.

Lily-of-the-valley has sweet little flowers that are hard to resist. They aren’t as easy to photograph as you might think, though. I’m still not sure I’ve captured them properly. Still, I’ll keep trying.

Prunus virginiana (Chokecherry)

Prunus virginiana, commonly called chokecherry, is a pretty common tree around here. They bloom quite a bit after the fancier ornamental cherries. Their flowers are smaller and simpler but still quite lovely, I think. There are lots of flowers in these little racemes, which is nice, also. These are on a tree along the edge of the woods behind my office building but they’re starting to bloom all over.

Anemone sylvestris

This little snowdrop anemone (Anemone sylvestris) needs to be planted but for now, it’s quite happy in a pot on our driveway.

Spanish Bluebells
(Hyacinthoides hispanica)

The Spanish bluebells are in bloom now and are quite lovely. For some reason, although I don’t care much for proper hyacinths, I like these close cousins.

Pink Flowering Dogwood

I once had a dream where I was at the intersection of Beach Drive and Kensington Parkway and I came across a very unusual flowering dogwood (Cornus florida) that had the most beautiful flowers. They were just the right shade of sky blue, sort of powdery and delicate. I thought, “now there is a tree that would sell like nobody’s business — everyone would want one for their garden.” Unfortunately, it was only a dream but I think of it every spring when the dogwood starts to bloom. Well, the regular white and pink flowered sorts are very nice, as well, if you can keep the anthracnose under control. The Asian species (Cornus kousa) is quite nice, as well, and I like the Cornel cherry (Cornus mas) although the flowers are quite different to the former. This one is in our front yard, right up against the house. It really isn’t a good place for a tree but particularly this time of year I can’t bring myself to take it out. I think it probably was a seedling that just grew there and the previous owner let it alone.

Epimedium x rubrum

While I’m on the subject of cross-shaped flowers, I really like epimedium. There are a lot of them and more being introduced. It makes a nice ground cover, although it’s a bit of work to fill a large area with it. It is semi-evergreen, replacing last year’s dried out leaves with new leaves each spring. Some have blooms that face upwards and are held above the foliage, which is obviously a plus. Others have less conspicuous flowers that are more work to see. Flowers range from purple/red to yellow to white and are little delicate crosses, as seen here on this Epimedium x rubrum. We first saw them at the U.S. National Arboretum. A few years ago I happened to meet Marc Cathey (he was the director of the Arboretum from 1981 to 1991) and I mentioned that we fell in love with epimediums there. We agreed they were worth having and should be planted much more often.

Japanese Honeysuckle (Lonicera japonica)

A lot of people are pretty unhappy with Japanese honeysuckle, particularly in the mid-Atlantic states where it is a real nuisance. The flowers are sweet smelling, though, and kind of pretty.

Camellia japonica

My dad really loved camellias and planted quite a few in his not-too-large yard. It’s not hard to see what he liked about them — evergreen and covered with bright flowers during the winter and spring. This one is growing beside the chimney but I don’t know what variety it is. If we can find it in his notes I’ll update the caption. There used to be a tall camellia there called ‘Mrs. Lyman Clarke’ but this isn’t that. That one died in an especially cold winter many years ago. That same year the ‘Lady Clare’ died to the ground but it came up again and is a huge bush again, flowering happily every winter. I planted three seedlings of ‘Lady Clare’ in the yard of our old house. I happened to drive by yesterday (dad’s birthday, incidentally, so I was already thinking of him) and they are blooming, as well. One of them has flowers that are almost identical to ‘Lady Clare’ except they are pure white. I miss having that and was sorry to leave it behind. At least it’s still there and hopefully being appreciated. Camellias and dad — I can’t think of one without thinking of the other.

Tulips Past

Many people treat tulips as annuals in our area, planting them in beds in the fall for spring bloom and then pulling them out to be replaced by other annuals for the late spring and summer. I planted some in the falls of 2009 and 2010 and they all came up again this year but only one bloomed. That one (featured in a post a little over a week ago) is starting to fade but still provides a splash of red against the pachysandra. We went to Cathy’s mom’s last night for dinner and she has a pot with tulips in it in her living room. They are a beautiful metalic orange, as you can see, but they, too, are a little past their prime. Still striking, though.

Cherry Blossoms

We have two cherry trees in our yard. I’ve posted pictures of blossoms on the first of them already. They bloom out of sync with each other, which is actually nice because it lengthens the bloom time. The first has small, simple flowers. The second, which is blooming now, has very large, double flowers that are quite beautiful against the blue sky. It’s also gotten cool again so this tree’s flowers should stay with us a little longer than the first’s did.

Dogwood Flowers (Cornus florida)

Who doesn’t like dogwood flowers? One of my favorite sights is seeing dogwood blooming throughout the woods as a reliable, understory tree. It’s that time again.

I’ve always liked apple blossoms and I think I prefer them over cherry blossoms. I’m not sure why I like one over the other since they are both simple, five-petaled, white flowers on medium sized trees. I think I prefer apple trees to cherry trees, and maybe it has something to do with that. At Glen Orchard (a cousin’s orchard that’s been in the family for over a hundred years) they grow both apples and cherries but it’s the apple trees that surround the cabin and perhaps that’s the real source of my preference. The view from the cabin when the apples are in bloom is right up there in terms of beauty. When I see apple trees in bloom, particularly simple, white apple blossoms, I think of Glen Orchard and in turn of my grandparents.

Whatever it is, I love apple blossoms and they are out here now. The flowers pictured here are on a few feral trees growing in the empty lot next to my office building, down by the stream. They are very happy there and I’ll be sad when the time comes for that property to be built upon.

Daffodil 'Actaea'

Myosotis (Forget-Me-Not)

Here are two flower pictures to welcome April, 2012. First, a really nice poeticus daffodil called ‘Actaea’ that are growing alongside our front walk. They are later than the big yellow ‘Marieke’ daffodils which is nice because we have blooms for a longer period that way. I really like the big, white petals on this one. There’s another variety with even better color on the edge of the cup but this one is pretty good.

Then, I have a picture of forget-me-not, one of the Myosotis species, but I’m not sure which. We have a large patch of these in the back yard and Cathy has just moved a few of them to the front under the cherry tree. Hopefully they will do as well there. The flowers are quite happy. I’ve only just realized this year how much blue we have in our garden.

Anemone blanda

Lots of things in bloom right now and I’ll put up a few more tomorrow but for now, here’s a little flower that I like. It is Anemone blanda ‘Pink Star’ and there are a few of them trying to compete with the gooseneck loosestrife, which will ultimately win unless something is done to protect the little ones.

Flowering Almond

We have this little flowering almond in our front garden. It never seems to get bigger than about four feet and it died to the ground a few years ago. This winter was milder than average so it’s doing quite well. Maybe it will do better this year. Anyway, it has very double flowers about half an inch across which are quite lovely. Imagine a tree full of these.

Wilted Tulip

The forecast was for a frost overnight and our thermometer read 27°F this morning. The ground is warm and I don’t expect any significant damage to plants and flowers in the yard. This tulip, the only one of ours that is actually blooming so far, didn’t appreciate the cold, though.

Redbud Slippers

I’ve always thought that Redbud (Eastern Redbud, in this case, Cercis canadensis) is misnamed. On the other hand, neither Purplebud nor Pinkbud sound quite right. I never noticed before how much these little flowers look like pink slippers, though. Pretty neat.

…It’s Raining Violets (and cherry blossoms, bloodroot, kale, periwinkle, spiraea, and forsythia, among many other things. Here are some examples, along with water droplets on blades of grass. Surface tension is a wonderful thing.

Scilla siberica var Spring Beauty

The flowers have been nice so far this spring and they keep on coming. I didn’t plant as much scilla as some of the other things and now I’m wondering why. It’s a pretty little thing. Siberian Squill, Scilla siberica var Spring Beauty.