Bloom Day March 15, 2011

It's Spring! A-woo-hoo!! I missed bloom day last month due to lack of bloomage. Everything was frozen! But it is warm now and the plants are making up time quickly and blooming on schedule for March bloom day.

Here we go!

Lotsa Species tulips:

Yellow and red ones (Tulip Clusiana Cynthia)-




These truly do naturalize down here. Every year I have more:



So very buttery yellow inside:



White and pink ones with a glorious deep magenta center (T. Clusiana):







Lavendar and yellow ones (Tulipa saxatilis):




New this year Anemone Blanda:



Closer:



Many of the narcissus are finishing up blooming like Narcissus - Flore Pleno (I took this pic about a week ago):



But these guys are still going strong (Avalanche):



Sadly, one set of jonquils that I had planted - Narcissus - Sweetness - didn't come back but just for some sparse and fried looking leaves. It either got too hot last summer or way too cold this winter for it (maybe they started to come up then were frozen) or maybe a little of both. Anyway, those guys are toast. I'll have to re-plant that section this fall with another variety.

I have a few crocus in the garden - they never put on the kind of show for me they did back up in the Northwest (oh my, what a spring show!), but I do always have a few pop up here and there. These are Tommies:



Grape Hyacinth. I planted a TON of these by the garden path because I found a pack of 50 for 5 bucks at Lowes last fall and as I was walking along the path yesterday I smelled the most beautiful fragrance and looking around for a while, I finally realized it was eminating from these little guys! Wonderful!:



Freesia Laxa are also along the garden path. So tiny, but so pretty! They froze back in the deep freeze last month, but are making a comeback:



Oh, and my poor TX Mountaim Laurel. All the blooms froze off the front side of the shrub. I went out to look for blooms the other day and to my horror I noticed what looked to be grey bloom spikes scattered all about under the shrub. Sure enough, upon closer inspection, all the blooms were gone from the front of the shrub. Luckily, some blooms did survive being sheltered from the icy winds on the interior of the bush and along the back side very near the fence. So there will be some blooms, but only a precious few. No overpowering grape soda fragrance event in my garden this year.

The back side:



The few surviving blooms:



The flowering quince could care less how cold is was it seems. It is blooming crazy!:



A violet volunteer that finally bloomed! I think it must be the sun. This one seeded itself far enough into the sun that it actually produced a normal flower. The volunteer violets all initially seeded themselves in deep shade in my garden and all they ever produced before were cleistogomous flowers that pollinated themselves. But finally! An actual flower with petals:



And finally, the redbud is blooming:



Happy Bloom day everyone!