6 on Saturday – 26APR2025 – Blue and Yellow…

Chris Mousseau

…and some red. But mainly the garden is blue and yellow this weekend, as Muscari armeniacum and Muscari latifolium are in full bloom and daffodills start to take off.

M. latifolium spreading like crazy
Blue Hyacinths in front of blue Muscari
White and blue M. armeniacum

‘Tête-à-tête, ‘Jetfire,’ ‘Dutch Master ‘and now these ‘Ice Follies’ daffodils are now blooming:

Corydalis solida is popping up here and there. I planted a bit about 20 years ago and although they’re hanging on, growing conditions aren’t terribly hospitable for these tuberous plants – too dry in summer mainly. As a result they never reach full potential, with the flower spikes staying only a few cms high instead of the 25 or so cms they might otherwise achieve.

And the red – I planted 50 or a hundred Red Emperor fosteriana tulip bulbs five years ago and quite a few are still sending up flowers. I’m not entirely sure how they’ve managed to evade the hordes of ravenous squirrels, chipmunks and rabbits that dig up or gobble down most every other tulip variety I dare plant, but I’m very happy to see these dots of bright colour here and there in the yard.

If the skies clear out (it’s very grey and drizzly at the moment) I’ll be spending the weekend trying to finish the spring clean-up, such as it is. Thanks as always to Jim at Garden Ruminations for hosting this gardening talk; have a great weekend everyone!

30 Comments

  5. I looked up ‘animals eating bulbs’…found this: luisnursery.com maybe some ideas for you. I planted Bok Choy seeds in 3 pots, yesterday…’something’ already digging…will spray repellent after the rain stops. Lots of bloome to admire in your yardens.

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    1. M. latifolium are noticeably taller than the more common armeniacum; they naturalize a lot faster as well, it seems. I did pile those little cairns – they started out as miniature inukshuks but don’t have quite the right shape…

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  7. Grapy hyacinth is RAD! I still grow the common sort (which naturalizes) that I met in 1976, which I was nine. It has a long story, which involves near but not quite extinction. I got a white variety from Tangly Cottage Gardening two years ago.

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  11. Those tulips are delightful. I was interested in your Corydalis, too. We have a native species that’s yellow (Corydalis micrantha), and that goes by the fun name of ‘scrambled eggs.’ I’ve got some photos of it here. When I re-read that post, I remembered that those were the flowers that introduced me to the role of ants in dispersing seed.

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    1. My assumption is that ants (and maybe other insects?) move a LOT of seeds, which is how Chianodoxa, amongst other small plants, can be found metres and meters apart even when not purposefully planted…it’s amazing to think of, eh?

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  12. Very nice tulips, and I love Corydalis… I sometimes find it growing wild in shady wet spots near water and the sight of a whole colony is amazing! 😃 Does it grow wild near you?

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  14. Lovely spring selection with all your yellow and blue with a pop of red from your little tulips! Corydalis tuberosa seeds around here without any help from me which is rather lovely, I usually give them a mulch of leaf mould when I do the same for all my snowdrops.

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