I must admit in spring all those early bloomers are gorgeous. They are pre-blackspot, pre-fungus, pre-insect damage, and pre-wind and rain damage. I spend many hours trying to capture that perfect rose or perfect clematis or perfect iris in their bold colors and shapes and sizes. But today I realized that I should focus on the shy flowers, the little flowers, the ones that we sometimes fail to notice, but which are just as important.
The Geum is one of those plants. It does not require much care, although it usually likes it moist. It sends out blooms for a couple of weeks in the spring and sometimes a bloom or two in the fall. But each blossom is only the size of my thumbnail and the plant is not covered in blossoms, so it can be overlooked.
This is a new plant I bought this year and the variety has "fire" in the name.
It looks a little like a teeny, tiny rose, does it not? The plant is short and compact and takes up little space.
Another overlooked plant is my "evening" primrose. Many are familiar with the short compact primrose that is hybridized. Mine is a wild native and grows tall -- up to two feet. Last year it was new and sent up about two stalks looking like a fragile piece of silk in that part of the bed and showed for only a week. I have only one plant and will try to remedy that. This year it sent up many yellow wings of flowers and looks established.
When you look in closely you see such a lovely clump of delicate silks.
My Guara is also blooming a bit early this year. Gardeners describe the plant as looking like pink and white butterflies flitting back and forth. That is an accurate description. Mine do not flit back and forth though. They grow long and floppy flying over the lawn and sometimes flopping face down into the lawn! Maybe I should read up on keeping them compact. They tend to spread as well after a few years!
Next is the yarrow. Hardy, easy to grow, sometimes spreads too much by runners, some varieties need staking, but ever faithful in its lengthy bloom period. Below an example of its platter of tiny flowers.
I had to tear out the hedge of Nandina next to the house as it was too crowded and impending on the walkway. I replaced a few of the empty spaces with a tiny spirea that blooms in the spring. It should only get two by two and not intimate the space. The flowers are tiny and spiky! I am sure you have seen the large hedges of spirea used in landscapes.
Oh, the first big burst of roses is now waning, so I will post a quick photo of that.
Responsibilities pulled me out of my lazy funk and forced me outside on the second of a rainy/misty/coolish day in my neck of the woods. We had to go out and count the eggs or hatched eggs in the wood duck boxes in the marsh. I say "we" in an extremely generous way because my roll is sometimes to carry a few things and other times to document with photos, and to give my lady friend company.
When we head to the state park the greens are still very vital as the rains have washed all things clean.
The beavers have returned with an industrious vengeance. Park rangers have tried various methods to keep the dam lower so that the boardwalk at the edge of the swamp is not flooded. You can see an older cut tree in the lower right hand corner.
Counting crew had to wade carefully across the lower part of the creek in the overflow of the dam. Three of the boxes are across the marsh on the other side.
Mountain laurel were on the wane in their blossoms, but I got a few photos for remembrance. It is hard to time their bloom as it varies as much as two/three weeks sometimes. The marsh was pulsing with life: birds, water lilies, duck potato of the Sagittaria family, pennywort, and turtles. Redwings were noisy and busy.
Blue flag was showing off it striking purples and blues as was the variegated iris.
It was mystical and while not quiet due to the birds and frogs celebrating spring, it was still very spiritual. Very few humans had invaded on this early and cool morning.
Ferns carpeted shallow areas everywhere. We followed the two major trails to investigate 18 boxes with a total of 93 eggs laid and 20 already hatched! We considered that a good count and only frightened two sitting hens...or guess I should write that our counters were only frightened by two sitting hens.
At the end, we walked to the beach side just for the fun of it and discovered the leftovers from children looking for shark's teeth in the sand the prior weekend.
Plants are as confused as I am. A few days pushing 90F and then more days at 50F were interspersed. I was watching a news correspondent on television and wondering why she had a coat on...she was broadcasting only 70 miles away. But the temps there were 60F while our morning was 73F!!
Anyway, the heat held off and my flowers have bounced back, so I want to share some photos and some photo-shopping. Forgive me for this. It is just sharing, and you do not have to post comments.
Sadly, these flowers are no longer blooming and now I have iris and lilies and more roses. Maybe I will post them next.
So close the humid, warm breath of summer is exhaled against my neck like that of a fevered child. It seems as if the calendar is lying about it being the middle of May. Surely it is the end of June? The morning is quiet as if waiting for the next attack of some storm. Even the Osprey no longer sits on her "virtual" nest pretending she has eggs. She needs the wind under her wings and the coolness above the pulsing earth pretending to escape her destiny of being without young ones this year.
The air smells like a French bordello with the abundance of white and yellow honeysuckle blossoms that hang everywhere at the edge of the woods. I am almost afraid to breathe.
Yesterday I heard the tentative bleat of a fawn coming from the dark shadows of the ferns in the ravine.
The Cardinals still visit the bird bath on a regular basis, usually early mornings and late afternoons when they bathe and throw the water everywhere never fearing that the bowl will not be replenished. They do not yet look ragged from their parenting demands.
The wren, whose golden song was so clear and pure outside my window before the blast of the sun over the treetops this morning, has stopped her song. She has returned to feeding her little ones quietly and efficiently as the morning warms.
The young bluebirds are getting their pin feathers and sit quietly in their box as if they were petrified from some prior time with their heads bent against the the wood. They seem to have no energy to move. Mom and Dad are perfect parents in their unrelenting visits with the abundance of new insects that have emerged.
I watch the midges fly across the rays of the sun up high in the tree tops like an army of tiny snow or bits of feathers caught in a gentle breeze. Soon they will decorate the new efficient spider webs that lace between the tips of the tulip tree branches. The cherry trees have already thrown their petals like fairy confetti at the end of this spring party and white dots land everywhere even messing the bowl of the nearby spider's web.
I hold tight in my mind to the delicate colors that were spring and now are green seed pods waiting to dry and reproduce.
Iris are named after the Greek Goddess, Iris, who is named after the rainbow and iris do come in a rainbow of colors. I just wanted to share a bit of my spring with my iris this year.
This one below smells like grape juice.
Just some eye candy for your morning.
This fall begins the hours of digging and dividing, but for today it is just enjoying.
The soap opera of the Osprey platform continues. The female osprey has sat above the platform on a nearby tree snag for a few days and then recently she sat on the nest previously used by our geese for several hours while looking around the river from her perch as if reminiscing about last year when she had raised her family of two. In the afternoons her mate joins her and they sit and daydream.
Yesterday morning while I was making coffee I heard a large amount of honking from geese and shrilling cries from the osprey. I went to the window to see an osprey sitting on the platform nest and two Canadian geese below in the water swimming around. They argued back and forth for some time and then it got quiet. The osprey flew away and after ten minutes one of the geese flew up to the platform. In a short time the female osprey returned and dive bombed the goose twice before the goose surrendered and flew off the nest back into the water.
The osprey took the place of the female goose and then called angrily to the two Canadian geese in the water. Eventually she flew down to the two geese and dive bombed them relentlessly until they swam away from the area.
In the afternoon her mate joined her again and this time I saw them mating. They are 4 to 5 weeks late in the normal osprey season! Today she sits calmly most of the time on the nest, perhaps waiting for an egg arrival?? She leaves to catch a fish, eats it somewhere, and then returns these days.
With regard to the geese we have seen two sets of parents with 4 goslings each swimming up and down the river in mornings and evenings. The goslings are easily three times the size of the ones we had on our nest. One of these families may or may not be the original family from our platform having lost two babies. This place is certainly busy and I am curiously waiting to see if the osprey have a family and if the family fledges in time for early fall.
My garden is struggling with hot weather followed by colder weather followed by hot weather. This was our comfort on a cold evening.
Then ONLY four days later we were up in the high 80's and touched 90 F !!
I spotted this Monarch butterfly yesterday. While they can be seen in our area in May I rarely see one in my yard before July! This one is visiting the buds (unopened) of my butterfly weed which is one of his favorites next to milkweed.
Let me share my columbine which are in all their glory and will only last long if the weather returns to spring!
