Thursday, April 15, 2010

Garden Bloggers Bloom Day April 2010

My second GBBD, hurray! I've been kind of ill these past few days, so hopefully a post full of flowers will get my immune system heading back in the right direction. First up, the daffodils. My golden trumpets are on their way out, I had to start dead-heading over the weekend. Dead heading the daffodils has always been my job, ever since I was little and my Mum would send me out to do hers. It's not a particularly labour intensive job, but it is a sad one. I spend weeks watching their slow ascent very impatiently, and then they're gone. There are still one or two left to enjoy for now though.

Daffodils leaving
Daffodils leaving

T he very early red tulips are also taking their last bow, petals bent right back and giving a rather revealing show. Their are stands of white, yellow and red tulips waiting to take the stage though. Dan noticed I'd snuck a couple of red tulips into the blue corner over the weekend - I never could stick to a colour scheme.

Tulip Tulip

T he swathes of forget-me-nots I have draped around my flower beds are turning blue at the tip one by one. Forget-me-nots are up on my list of all time favourites, I suspect I give them too much leave in the garden, but I love the billowy clouds of green and blue - always have, from the time I first dead-headed daffodils in fact. To a lot of people I suspect they're a weed, but I can't be without them.

Forget-me-not

T his is the first year for grape hyacinths in the garden. These were salvaged about this time last year probably, from the old family garden back home. These are another favourite, from foliage to flower. There was always great drifts of them in my Mum's garden. The first thing that Dan said to me on the subject of grape hyacinths was that he hated them when he was little, because he always thought they were going to be bluebells (his favourite), but was eternally disappointed when they weren't. I love them for almost the same reason - because it takes forever for bluebells to turn up and these were always early, with a more concentrated blue.

grape hyacinth

Now, we hit an issue. Both the pictures below are some variety of primrose, also salvaged from my Mum's garden. This first I've had three years now and I've split it two years running, so I have a fair approximation of a drift - all profusely flowering this year, which I was a bit surprised at cause I thought I'd been quite mean to them with all my splitting. Now I thought these were primrose, and those below I thought (when I grabbed them last April/May, based on the seed heads) were cowslips. But you can see that the flowers aren't umbellified. I am pretty darn confused about this, so if anyone passing by wants to enlighten me, that would be great.

primula
primula
Cowslip

I n more productive quarters of the garden - from top to bottom - we have, gooseberry flowers, apple blossom and blackcurrant flowers. Tasty treats to come. And to finish, for Dan, the first signs of the bluebells. First open flowers this weekend I should think.

gooseberry blossom
apple blossom
blackcurrent
Blubells

4 comments:

  1. Hope you are feeling better. I always feel a little sad watching the Daffodils dry up too. I don't know much about Primroses either. I did try to start Cowslips from seed this year, but nothing germinated. Both of yours are really pretty, different from the type I have.

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  2. I shall continue to be befuddled by these primrose type things then... Feeling much better today, GBBD must have been done the trick!

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  3. I don't anything about Primroses, but both of yours pretty. I have an ornamental grass that I can't identify that I named after my cousin that gave it me - Bob's Grass. You could name your flowers, Mum's yellow primrose and Mum's white primrose:)

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  4. That's a great idea Melody - consider it done :)

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Thanks in advance for any comments sent my way, they arere always appreciated!