Saturday, May 31, 2008

May Makes Way For June


Wahoo!

Another lily emerges this morning, at the feet of a clump of nibbled crocus foliage.


So reports of their death, as they say, were premature.

On a similar note, they say the cicadas are still going to grace us with their presence this spring, though no sign of them has yet appeared around this end of the Cape. They say a lot, as it turns out.

Meanwhile, the dianthus are starting to bloom. Most of these were new nursery plants last spring, so they are big healthy spreading clumps now. A few are a couple of years old. I just love a little plant that is inexpensive, spreads itself around and blooms more or less all season long.

It had been predicted it would rain all day for us today, so it was a surprise to wake up and find a, well, not exactly sunny morning, but certainly not a rainy one.

This gave me the chance to get some tall marigold seedlings (the varieties are tall, the seedlings are about three inches high just now...) planted along the fence.

There's two kinds: the ones on the roadside are all yellow, and from the tiny picture on their nursery tag, they appear to be single-flowered...or at least only partly double.

The other kind is a mix of orange and yellow and will feature the fully double, pom-pom marigold flowers. Those are on the house side of the fence.

I love these tall varieties; they really help to fill out the garden as the summer wears on and various other plants' bloom times come and go. I tried to be sure and stagger them, so they weren't planted directly opposite one another across the fence.

I've also now identified the best spots for the tomato plants. They are doing well in the bedroom window and getting rather tall and strong. This is fine with me, as I'll carefully pinch off the lower branches and plant them deep, so they develop a good strong root system along the buried part of the stem. This should give them a strong footing against the wind that seems to prevail on our street...and of course, they'll be well-staked, too.

Of course, it will be a day or two still before those get into the ground, but I'm not worried about them.


The rest of the day was spent at work, but I did find a few moments late in the afternoon (just before it did finally begin to rain) to nip off to the garden for a look at what was blooming there.

The siberian irises are going full strength now. Most are the white variety, which make a great background for those purple bearded irises. The blue ones are a little taller than the white, so they'll really create a nice drift of color as they grown around one another.

Divisions of each of these and also a purple variety from the meadow live in our border at home, but they also seem to have suffered from nibbling.

Nestled amongst some evergreens, this rose's first bud is a pearl about to unfurl.

6 comments:

Butch said...

Everything is shaping up in your yard. It looks as though I will have Iris' blooming this year!! yea!! I hadn't noticed that there were shoots with buds on the ends of them so it will not be long until I take some pictures of those as well. Nice pictures of the flowers.

Anonymous said...

Love the pictures of the iris. They really look stunning. Though we have a lot at the farm, I was trilled to see the Snow Queen siberian iris start blooming this week at my house. Is that the same you have in the background? We planted them near a drainage pipe and they have tripled in size. They really love it wet. Glad to see the garden blooming away!

Greg said...

Those iris buds are pretty stealthy, Butch...all of a sudden, they're about ready to bloom! Enjoy--can't wait to see what kind you have!

Hey Jeremy. Not sure if those are Snow Queen. They pre-date me at the restaurant, so while I have helped spread them around the site with the occasional division project, I didn't introduce them there. I'm still trying to get the perfect close-up of them, perhaps that'll help you ID them.

Pink said...

wow gorgeous photos! I've come via tiger yogi's blog. Love that rose!
xx
pinks

Greg said...

Thanks, Pink! Glad you stopped by the garden. Just discovered Tiger Yogi's the other day...but today, I visited your Pink Pages and just couldn't stop reading!! You've got some pretty flower pics, too!

Sh@ney said...

I can't remember where it was that you had that rainfall and the flooding issue but it seems to have not had an effect on your garden Greg. Did you manage to run it off or it just sunk away into the earth?