It’s been raining lightly most of the night and radar shows it continuing for a few more hours. This is welcome, the first rain in a few weeks, but a bit inconvenient as I’d planned three days of non-stop gardening to prepare for my first ever ‘open garden’ on Tuesday morning. A busload of keen garden lovers from Peterborough, a small city just over an hour northwest of here, will arrive and wander about, asking questions I hope to have answers to, and although I’m not overly anxious about it, I know they’ll be judging (silently, I hope) my capabilities as well as the garden itself. Any advice on this subject is welcome! This morning though, I can stop fretting thanks to the rain, and spend a bit of time to join Jim at Garden Ruminations, posting six things in my garden. Photos were taken yesterday.
I went outside early yesterday morning to discover my patch of oriental poppies have started to open – such a fabulous exclamation of crimson against an otherwise mainly green backdrop!
Lilacs have held on well this year, thanks to cooler than normal temperature. Quite often they’re almost done by the end of May but this year they should still be wafting their delicious fragrance about the garden for my Peterborough visitors on Tuesday. These are three of my favourites – an all white and a deep purple, both slow growing named varieties, first planted about 20 years ago way out back then transplanted closer to the house about eight years ago. Plus of course the very popular Lilac ‘Sensation.’ The bi-coloured petals look like a party in the garden, don’t they?
Spurred on my Amelia, The Shrub Queen, and her south Florida garden, I went out and bought a (very expensive!) miniature pineapple plant. SO exotic in my Canadian garden!! I kinda love it!
Less exotic (for me) but really, just as fabulous, are all the Alliums not in bloom. This is Allium karataviense. It has a very short stem but the flower ball can be quite large – this one is about the size of a softball! They also, like many alliums, can self seed very readily if happily situated. There’s several spots in my garden with dozens now blooming where once there was one. Probably time to start dead-heading instead of letting the seeds develop…
You’d think this is another Allium photo, what with all the A. ‘Purple Sensation’ in the front there, but really it’s just an example of how harsh this past winter was. Behind all the Allium stems, and more in focus, are leaves from a gorgeous yellow-flowering tree peony. It’s bloomed every year since I planted it, until this year, when at least half the branches/stalks/trunks died back, including all the dormant flower buds. There’s lots of new growth so I have hope for next year, and the root stock has sent up numerous herbaceous peony shoots with buds that will soon open (these will be cut back to the trunk after blooming), but I can’t help but picture how it would look – purple alliums in front of giant pale yellow peonies…
Finally, it’s once again lupin time! I seem to have fewer lupins starting to flower than most years (time to collect seed again!) but the plants I started from seeds collected from a pure pink one are flowering – and mostly in pink. There’s also various shades of purple and red and some bi-coloured ones and this deep purple one, almost shrub-sized…
Here’s a wider shot of the shrubby lupin, in situ. Have a great weekend everyone!
Poppies, Alliums, Lupins, Lilacs…so beautiful! For the Peterborough people, you could put up a ‘Welcome to our Yarden’ sign…they’d need to look that up…it explains your lovely property.
Ha! That’s a great idea!
I especially enjoyed that last photo, showing a longer view of your property. The sightline to the lawn through the flowers in lovely. The sight of those purple aliums against the yellow ‘whatever’ suggests how pretty the purple against yellow peonies would be!
Yes! The yellow in the last photo is a barberry…the purple lupins in front are a great illustration of yellow and purple being complementary colours. I hope the tree peony manages better this coming winter!
Thos lupines are humongous! Are they Russel hybrids?
Hybrids of some sort Tony…I purchased 10 pots about 20 years ago and collected seeds to scatter…they do their own thing now…
The latest bicolor lilac is truly amazing! It’s very pretty. And congratulations on the miniature pineapple. I wonder if it will be edible?
If it’s edible I’m sure a blue jay or a chipmunk will discover it!!
Good luck with the open garden! That sounds very exciting and like an interesting challenge. Your garden certainly looks visitor ready – so much to love, and that last, more zoomed-out photo is stunning.
Thank you so much Kathrin – the light yesterday morning was quite perfect for taking pictures and that particular part of the garden has turned into something special, I think.
I am salivating over your flowers. They look fabulous! The pineapple looks like a baby not a miniature? Is it supposed to be edible? Looks great in the garden, whatever it is.
You now…I think I threw out the tag…I just know that it’s cute and very unusual up here…and it had ‘Pineapple’ in the name !
I’m sure your garden visitors are going to be wowed by the beauty and don’t worry about knowing answers, answering truthfully is easy, “Gee, I don’t know, let’s Google it!” 😀
Yup – I’ll have my phone with me…I can remember most of what I’ve planted over the years, but sometimes not when I’m asked…
Ahh, the colors! Things are starting to happen here, now that we have had some heat and moisture! Beautiful colors and bravo on the pineapple!
Not very warm here yet – a few days last month but nothing above the low 20’s so far…the peppers aren’t very happy…
Allium karataviense does well in our climate. I love to color. Last photo with lupins is terrific.
Thanks! Alliums – so easy…
Oh, that last photo is just gorgeous Chris. You rarely show longer views of your garden – your visitors are going to love it! The poppies have also opened just in time. The bicolour lilac is pretty – I haven’t seen one like that before. And you always have lovely Alliums. Hope the rain stops soon and the open day goes well.
The weekend turned out just lovely Cathy, yesterday and today as well, and the garden tour has come and gone…. it was really a lot of fun to have three dozen gardeners wandering about, talking about gardens, asking questions…well worth any effort I may have made and, in the end, not stressful at all!