May Garden - 1st Half - 2021 - A Riot of Color

 The colors of May are in your face.  The daffodils and tulips compete for your attention.

By May, the interesting daffodils have begun blooming - the multiples, the scented ones, the doubles.  They make for some delightful bouquets.

It is so nice to bring the sunshine into the house after a gloomy winter.

At the beginning of May, it is mostly daffodils.

Then the tulips begin and the forsythia blooms in the background.

The spiky dark thing in the middle of the ground is a peony.

In May the tulips provide a riot of color and the forsythia begins to fade.

Last year this frame was designed to provide support for the dahlias.

Tibetan prayer flags add whimsy.

Turns out, dahlias did not need support, so this year the frame will support sweet peas.

This is a new little square garden for strawberries and garlic.  Rabbits were eating the strawberry leaves, even with the garlic right there!!!  The dastards.  D has added fencing to discourage them.

Tomatoes will go in the rectangular garden near the hedge.

These forget-me-nots just appeared.  They are tiny.

The view from the bench in the side yard.

The foreground of the next picture shows the new "Cutting Garden".  At this point, there are dahlias planted that D grew from seed.

It will have all kinds of flowers to be brought into the house.

Plans now are for glads, lisianthus, snapdragons, zinnias, marigolds, statice.

Beside the driveway is a bed of strawberries.  This was the original bed.  

There are now three more - one with the garlic, one against the south side of the house, and a few plants at the northeast corner of the house.

We have high hopes!  Last year the first strawberry was June 8.

Pulmonaria (Lungwort) has pink and blue flowers at the same time.

Horseradish is thriving.

At the end of April, the white rhododendron began to bloom.  I think it had only a couple of flowers last year, so we are delighted.

The white bleeding heart is taking off!  Check back next post to see it really thriving.

Gonna miss those daffodils.

Wildflower - Jack Go To Bed At Noon

This was originally published on my website

http://www.muddleaged.com

Jack Go To Bed at Noon

Jack-go-to-bed-at-noon (Tragopogon pratensis)

This flower gets its nick-name from its flowering habit. It opens in the morning and closes midday. Jack-go-to-bed-at-noon is also known as Yellow Goatsbeard. (can't imagine why)

A more apt name, but one I have only read (not heard) is Shepherd's Clock.

~
As the immortal poet Cowley pens:
'The goat's beard, which each morn abroad doth peep
But shuts its flowers at noon and goes to sleep.'
(I haven't the faintest clue who Cowley is. The only reference I have found is as the author of this poem.) (It may be Abraham Cowley, who is famous for: "life is an incurable disease")

Plant Type: This is a non-native herbaceous plant which can reach 90cm in height (36inches).
Leaves: The leaves are alternate. Each leaf is entire, slender, tapering to a long narrow tip and clasps the stem.
Flowers: The flowers have numerous parts. They are yellowgreen. Blooms first appear in early summer and continue into mid summer.

Fruit: A ball of wind dispersed achenes.

(In case you are wondering what achenes are:
achene: Small one-seeded, thin walled, indehiscent fruit smaller than a nut. Let's see you use indehiscent in a sentence!

indehiscent: Not opening at maturity.)

Habitat: Fields, fencerows and waste places.

Source: http://2bnthewild.com/plants/H162.htm

The seeds of this flower resemble delicate dandelion fluff.

~

In the above picture, there is bedstraw in the background.

Cecily Mary Barker has captured the essence of this weed in the Jack-Go-To-Bed-At-NoonFairy:

Keep your eye out for the Jack Go to Bed at Noon Fairy while you are out looking at wildflowers.

 . 

Photos taken in June and July, 2001
Copyright Leslie

Instacart Adventure #2 - misdelivered

Instacart is a grocery shopping service, and it has been a savior for us during Covid.  Now that we are vaccinated we could go to the stores, but we have discovered that we would much rather have someone else go for us.  Instacart is expensive - there's an annual membership fee, and a delivery fee, a tip for the shopper, and these come to about 10-15% of the order.  Some stores, like Aldi's, jack up the prices about 10% on top of all that.  And sometimes the stores do not offer the sale price on Instacart orders.  But the convenience has been worth it to us.  We have the shopper deliver to the steps in the garage, and we leave a cash tip in an envelope on the stairs, addressed to the shopper.  It has worked really well.  

We really like not shopping, so when Candy was coming for a visit, we needed some special things and placed a $90 order - the stuff we needed, plus there was a sale on cheese and Chobani and a few other things. . . 

On Thursday, we got a notice that the order was being delivered.  I did not race to the door - the shopper would have to make a few trips.  When I got to the door I found just one bag.  It had Activia, Eggo waffles, mens body wash, nutella, pop-tarts, strawberries, ice cream cones, peanut butter, and a few other things.  There was nothing that we use.  And there was nothing we ordered.

When you use Instacart, it shows where the driver is on a map.  When they were delivering to me, they drove a couple of blocks past my street.  I thought they missed the turn, but now I think they were doing two orders and dropped the other order first.  But they dropped off my order, and we got the other person's order.  I immediately contacted Instacart, hoping they could reach the shopper to switch the deliveries.  They could not - but they quickly arranged a new delivery at no charge, and all is well.  

They did not want the groceries returned.  I guess that makes sense, since they would not want the responsibility if they were contaminated.  Candy said that, with a 19 year old at home, the junk food would be a treat, and she took the groceries.  A friend said that there are a couple of places - the library and one of the churches - that have a food cupboard outdoors for those who may need it, and we could take things there,  That's good to know.

But now I'm wondering what a person who likes poptarts, Chobani coffee creamer, and frozen waffles, will do with 2 pounds of Swiss cheese, 3 pounds of Cabot cheddar cheese, two loaves of deli rye bread, half-sour pickles, gherkins. . . Makes me giggle to think of it.   Maybe they know about the food cupboard at the library.

April Gardens 2021

 After seeing our crocus, snowdrops, and our first daffodil in March, 2021, we were looking forward to lots of daffodils and tulips in April.  Mother Nature had an April Fools joke for us, and we got four inches of snow on April 1.

This is the view from the computer room window.  The tall circular cages protect the apple trees from deer.  The small ones along the hedge protect the hosta from deer and rabbits and woodchucks.

And there is a fence around the garden to protect the tulips from rabbits and woodchucks and deer.

We love having flowers in the house, so on April 7, some twigs were cut from the forsythia to force.

Our first daffodil bloomed on March 31 this year.  Our first small bouquet was April 10, and the forsythia twigs are blooming.

and by April 19, we were able to have flowers all over the house.

April 19 brought our first dandelion.  It is growing on a south-facing wall under the exhaust from the furnace, so it is early!  It is accompanied by some periwinkle.

The strawberries are in for a shock - they are blooming now!  

They can take some frost, but April is likely to have hard freezes.

These strawberries are everbearing, so it may not hurt their production this summer, but these blooms are unlikely to be successful.  It's still fun to see.

~:~

Don't these look like they belong in a medieval tapestry?  This is Fritillaria, Crown Imperial.  It's about two feet tall, with a single flowering part at the top.  It grows from a bulb.  Fritillaria has the "advantage" of smelling like skunk.  This attracts carrion eaters, like flies, to pollinate them.  It also keeps deer and rabbits away.  And it makes them undesirable as a cut flower.

This flower is available in two colors - this orange and a yellow.

We got this bulb from Mrs. Wells in the 1980s, and it has multiplied so that when we sold the farm we were able to transplant some.  The bulb is fairly expensive, but we are considering getting some yellow ones, since we have never seen them in a garden.  These get planted, like daffodils and tulips, in the fall.

~:~

There are still lots of violets.

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The lungwort is blooming.   The blooms are pink and blue on the same stem!  The plant is pulmonaria.  I have read that it is named because the spotted leaves resemble diseased lungs.  And it is used for respiratory conditions.

"People take lungwort to treat breathing conditions, stomach and intestinal ailments, and kidney and urinary tract problems. Lungwort is also used in cough medicines, to relieve fluid retention, and to treat lung diseases such as tuberculosis."  WebMD

On April 19 we went for a drive to see what was blooming.  The forsythia is beautiful this year.  Coltsfoot has started and we were delighted to find bloodroot on Lower Ravine Road.

Is this hyacinth near the driveway lying down because of its weight or has a dog (who shall be nameless) trod here?

Mushrooms have started.

This last picture is a similar view to the one at the top of the page.  We are enjoying all the tulips and the variety of daffodils.  

The lilacs are budding, and they will bloom in May.  Alliums are poking up, and one allium has begun developing its flower head.  The rhododendron buds are plumping up.  Hostas and peonies are appearing.  The bleeding heart has buds, and the monkshood has a strong start.  The late tulips are beginning to show color.  There is always something to look forward to in a garden.

2021 Garden Pics

March

To see 2020 garden pics:

Second half of September

September 1st half.

Second half of August

First half of August.

2nd half of July.

First half of July garden.

Garden at the End of June

And the first half of June is here.

You can see the end of May, 2020, here.

Here is the first week of May

Daffodils 2020

The middle of April is here.

First week of April.