Late April Spring Blooms
Although it's been unusually cool and quite windy here at my Bedford, New York farm this week, the gardens are showing off lots of springtime blooms.
The garden beds are changing every single day. Trees are leafing out and flowers are bursting with color and energy - Fritillaria, Muscari, Epimediums, trout lilies, mayapples, the Camperdown Elms with their umbrella-like crowns and pendulous branches, and of course the daffodils.
Enjoy these photos and have a great weekend.
-
- My long and winding pergola is just full of lush green foliage. Soon, it will display a colorful palette of alliums, lilies, and camassia.
-
- Right now, there’s lots of Muscari in the garden beds along the pergola. Muscari is a genus of perennial bulbous plants native to Eurasia that produce spikes of dense, most commonly blue, urn-shaped flowers that look like bunches of grapes in spring. Muscari is also known by its common name for the genus – grape hyacinth.
-
- Commonly known as the Guinea Hen Flower, the Checkered Lily or the Snake’s Head Fritillary, Fritillaria meleagris is an heirloom species dating back to 1575. It has pendant, bell-shaped, checkered and veined flowers that are either maroon or ivory-white with grass-like foliage intermittently spaced on its slender stems. I have many in my gardens. This deer- and rodent-resistant naturalizer is native to the western Himalayas and Asia Minor, and prefers rich, well-draining neutral pH soil and a bit of light shade or dappled sunlight.
-
- These are Snowflakes – not to be confused with Snowdrops. The Snowflake is a much taller growing bulb which normally has more than one flower per stem. Snowflake petals are even, each with a green spots on the end, whereas Snowdrops have helicopter-like propellers that are green only on the inner petals.
-
- Viburnum a popular evergreen species, grown mainly for its dark green leathery leaves. The dark green leaves on this dense, multi-stemmed shrub are toothed and oval in shape. This broad, dense, multi-stemmed, deciduous shrub typically matures to 10 feet tall and spreads to 15 feet wide.
-
- These are the pink buds of the Sargent Crabapple. The Sargent Crabapple, Malus sargentii, generally grows about six to 12 feet in height and often just as wide.
-
- And there are so many daffodils everywhere!
-
- The blossoms come in many combinations of yellow, orange, white, red, pink and even green. I shared lots of photos in yesterday’s blog from my long daffodil border. I hope you saw them.
-
- Here is an all white daffodil – one of many planted behind my Tenant House.
-
- The hostas are also growing quickly. Hosta is a genus of plants commonly known as hostas, plantain lilies, and occasionally by the Japanese name, giboshi. They are native to northeast Asia and include hundreds of different cultivars. I have hundreds of hostas here at the farm – many of which were grown from bare-root cuttings and stored in my cold frame before they were planted.
-
- I also have lots of ostrich ferns growing. Matteuccia struthiopteris is native to North America. Once established, these grow to a height of three to six feet. Ostrich fern grows in vase-shaped clumps called crowns. The showy, arching, sterile fronds are plume-like and reminiscent of the tail feathers of – you guessed it – ostriches.
-
- There are trout lilies. The delicate blooms, which resemble turks cap lilies do best in dappled light.
-
- Another big shower right now is Podophyllum peltatum – commonly known as mayapple, American mandrake, wild mandrake, and ground lemon. Mayapples are woodland plants, typically growing in colonies from a single root. I have lots of mayapple growing here. The palmately lobed umbrella-like leaves grow up to 16-inches in diameter with three to nine shallowly to deeply cut lobes. The plants produce several stems from a creeping underground rhizome.
-
- Syneilesis aconitifolia, commonly called shredded umbrella plant, is an herbaceous perennial of the aster family that is native to hillside forest margins and slopes in China, Korea, Japan and eastern Russia. I am so fond of the foliage. The leaves are narrow, dissected, and cascade downward like an umbrella. Emerging foliage is covered with a unique white fur. White flowers on mauve pink calyxes will tower above the foliage midsummer.
-
- The hellebores continue to show beautifully at the farm. Hellebores are members of the Eurasian genus Helleborus – about 20 species of evergreen perennial flowering plants in the family Ranunculaceae. They blossom during late winter and early spring for up to three months. Hellebores come in a variety of colors and have rose-like blossoms. It is common to plant them on slopes or in raised beds in order to see their flowers, which tend to nod.
-
- Astilboides is an interesting plant with huge, bright green leaves that are round and flat and measure up to 24-inches across. The effect is dramatic, and beautiful among other hardy perennials.
-
- Epimedium, also known as barrenwort, bishop’s hat, fairy wings, horny goat weed, or yin yang huo, is a genus of flowering plants in the family Berberidaceae. The majority of the species are endemic to China, with smaller numbers elsewhere in Asia, and a few in the Mediterranean region. The leaves are made up of leaflets, which can range in number from three to 50 and in size from as tiny to six inches long. They are generally heart-shaped, but can range from round to arrow-shaped.
-
- Sprays of pink, white, yellow, orange, or lavender flowers appear this time of year. And, some Epimedium blossoms look like miniature columbines or tiny daffodils, while others appear more like spiders or stars. Species with long sprays can even resemble orchids.
-
- Just outside the kitchen to my Winter House, I have two of these Camperdown Elms. Camperdown Elms slowly develop broad, flat heads and wide crowns with weeping branch habits.
-
- Its leaves are oblong-obovate to elliptic, rough-textured and serrated.
-
- And here is the herbaceous peony bed – it is also growing so beautifully. In June, this garden bed will be overflowing with giant peonies in pink and white. What are the spring flowers in your garden?
Martha Pins
Martha Tweets
