tulips

Surprise Tulips, Expected Epimediums, Bountiful Bergenias, and Hellebore Finale

Out in the garden after a nice spring rain, I found a mixture of small delights.

First, a group of tulips I have no memory of planting. I doubt if I would have picked this variety. The petals are white with pink edges. They look as though most of the colour has been bleached or faded away. Did they come from self-planted seeds? Tulips do produce seeds, but I don’t think I ever let mine do that. Or maybe stray bulblets? But in that case, where are the originals? Anyway, there they are, and quite picturesque too. I’m certainly not going to remove them. More about these tulips at the end of the post!

These bergenias grow really close to the trunks of those two big Norway maples I complain about all the time. For some reason, they’re blooming really well this year.

Epimedium x perralchicum “Frohnleiten” is one of the most dependable plants in the garden. I cut the old foliage down a few weeks ago, and now it’s in full bloom with fresh, bronze-tinted foliage emerging. The leaves will expand and grow green and leathery as the season progresses.

Yellow blooms and new foliage of Epimedium x perralchicum "Frohnleiten"

At risk of being boring, I’ll just mention that hellebore flowers are almost past their best, with seed structures expanding and colours morphing into the subfusc. (Actually, I added this bit about the hellebores just so I could use that word. While normally it’s applied to British academic dress, garden writer Ann Lovejoy uses it to describe plant colours. So I can do that too.)

Mature dark pink-purple hellebore flowers — Hellebore flowers in the subfusc stage.

Finally, another look at one of the surprise tulip flowers. Close up this time.

Pink and white tulip, variety unkown, close up with raindrops — Mystery tulip with raindrops.

The really strange thing about these tulips is how they look just one day later.

Dark pink tulips, formerly almost white — Same tulips, different colour. From white with pink edges to dark pink with white stripes!

Even after decades of gardening, plants can still surprise me.

Roofing

The title of the post just before this one is “Rooting,” so it’s a piece of luck that this one is appropriately titled “Roofing.” Sometimes things work out perfectly.

After twenty years, the shingles on our roof looked a bit eroded, so we arranged to have them removed and replaced. The job took about a week, and the company we hired did a fine job. So did the fellow who came afterward to install new eavestroughs and downspouts. No complaints there.

But…

A few things for gardeners to think about before workers arrive:

Not everyone cares about plants the way you do. That includes spouses.
In order to get the job done promptly, heavy equipment and men in size 12 steel-toed boots may be stomping on your green babies that have just pushed their tender shoots above the ground.
Plants growing close to a work zone will be perceived as obstacles.

After the house was roofed and downspouted, the professionals departed, and work began on re-shingling the garage. My husband was keen on doing that job himself. I didn’t share his enthusiasm, but was dragooned to assist nevertheless. So I’ve spent a good portion of the past week lugging shingles up ladders and moving said ladders from one spot to another, and then back again. A certain amount of shouting and muttering has occurred, especially following the radical pruning of a winter-blooming honeysuckle (Lonicera X purpusii or possibly Lonicera fragrantissima) that was declared an obstacle. The plant has shown a fair bit of vigor after previous ~~butcherings~~ prunings, as well as last winter’s icy winds, so I hope it will recover.

Winter Honeysuckle

In the meantime, the garden carried on with spring.

Tulipa batalinii and forget-me-nots

Unidentified double tulip

Primula and Chinese egg jar

Indoors, I continue to beat out the first draft of my work-in-progress, a novel to follow the Herbert West Series. Every month since January, I have committed to my critique group to send out another 6,000 words. That self-imposed deadline has worked so far; by mid-May I expect to hit — or at least get within hailing distance of — the 30,000 word mark. I’m finding this a tough job, tougher than writing my other novels, but so far I’ve managed to keep at it. Sort of like getting the roof done, shingle by shingle.

The manuscript

Spring in Full Bloom

I know other parts of Canada are still dealing with snow and cold, or even worse, flooding, but here spring is definitely underway.

Tulipa batalinii

Tulips have been blooming for a while. The small species tulips seem to do better here than the large varieties, but I do have a few remnants of various plantings that manage to bloom year after year, such as these two very different types

Gaudy tulip (variety unknown)

Tulip “Queen of the Night”

The first roses of the year have started to bloom — rugosas I grew from cuttings, except this one was an accidental seedling.

Rugosa rose (type unknown)

Not everything has come through the winter unscathed. The last of my Gaura lindheimeri looks seriously dead (but I have bought some seeds and intend to grow replacements). A small and elegant blue-flowered relative of bindweed, Convolvulus sabatius, has also failed to sprout so far; I suspect it succumbed to a cold spell last December when temperatures descended to -9 C (16 F).

Those losses aside, my little paradise looks lush and lovely right now, and smells wonderfully of lilacs. I really can’t think of anything to complain about.

Meconopsis cambrica

Laburnum and Erysimum “Bowles Mauve”

Back garden in May lushness

Audrey Driscoll's Blog

Elements and Transformations

tulips

Surprise Tulips, Expected Epimediums, Bountiful Bergenias, and Hellebore Finale

Roofing

Spring in Full Bloom