What's blooming?

[Opsa]

Okay, I can hear the British and Aussie siblings all ready saying "What's bloomin' what?"  

What's blooming in your garden or neighborhood today?

We've had a span of unseasonably warm weather here in our neck of the northern hemisphere (Washington DC US area). As a result, nearly ALL of our daffodils are either blossoming, fading, or in bud. It's a merry sight to see their bright colors out the window.

In our town the Bradford pears are all flowering. They look like bright white clouds on trunks. I have something in my yard that may be related (okay, spiritually we are all related, but ya know...), a small tree that is now speckled with white blossoms, possibly it's first blossoming year. I didn't plant it, but it may be a volunteer, if that's possible. I thought Bradford pears were hybrids, and sterile. It could also be some sort of wild pear or apple or something, I suppose.

[Aggie]

We have the first flower up in the garden..  I'm not sure what it is.  It's a small blue-flowered bulb that looks like a cross between a dwarf iris and three purple crocuses joined at the hip.

[Opsa]

Could it be Scilla siberica?

[Aggie]

No, apparently it's a reticulated iris.  I had no idea that irises were bulbs; I'm used to the usual rhizomatic types:

[Opsa]

Very pretty!

Most of my iris are from rhizomes, but I have some Dutch iris from bulbs. I don't have any at all blooming, yet. Not even close. Yours must be in a sheltered spot.

[Aggie]

More plant ID help please! I may have to post a photo of this one.  Near one of my rosebushes, there is something that has shot up.  The leaves and growth habit look very much like one of the rubus tribe, but the flowers on this thing are amazing!  It's got BRIGHT yellow blossoms, approximately 3 cm in diameter, that look somewhat like a chrysanthemum. The stems are thornless.

If I had to take a guess based on location, I'd suspect it's the root stock of the rose bush; however, there are some root suckers coming up that don't look anything like this.  It could possibly be a miniature rose that someone has planted, but the blooms don't look like a double rose.

Any ideas?

[Darlica]

Picture please!

I'm sitting on several Garden Lexicons but can't help much without a pic! 

[Aggie]

Let's try this again... 

[Aggie]

Third photo, showing general habit of the plant... it's tall and on canes, like a thornless black raspberry.

I'm very interested to find out if this makes fruit; if it does, it's a dual-purpose wonder.  I'm somewhat skeptical that the double blossoms allow for pollination, so I'm not holding my breath.

[Darlica]

Just what I thought it was...

I'm on it. They are quite common here, there's a big hedge a bit further down our street.  
I'm i a hurry now but I will look it up later.



I have found your mystery plant.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerria_japonica and it is a member of the Rosaceae family, native to eastern Asia, in China, Japan and Korea.

My bets are that some other "proper" rose was grafted to its root and now the graft has died but the root remains.

It's really pretty when it becomes a full-grown bush and it flowers trough out the whole summer  on previous seasons growth. 

For online ID of garden plants I recommend http://www.bbc.co.uk/gardening/plants/plant_finder/plant_pages/442.shtml really nifty. I suppose it is made to decide what plants one should choose for the garden but it can be used to ID plants too. 

[Opsa]

Ahhhhh, Darlica beat me to it. Nice link,too!

I love Japanese Kerria and have tried to grow it in my garden from some suckers from a friend. Didn't take, though. She had big, beautiful bushes of it along her driveway that looked super in early spring. It also comes in an attractive single flower variety, too.

[Aggie]

Thanks for solving the mystery, Sibs!

[Roland Deschain]

My parents had a huge bush of the double flower variety in their garden, which had taken over an area, but I cut over half of it back to the ground, and tied the rest back, for two reasons:-

1 - To allow the white-flowered, and now grossly-deformed, wisteria that was weaving its way through it to get some light.
2 - To increase sunlight for the seedlings on the ground in front of it, as it was leaning forwards.

It's a pretty plant, and in the right place it looks amazing, but be prepared for its long roots to continually spread out and sprout new shoots! It gets hard to dig out when it's really established, so tend to it whenever needed.

[Opsa]

I wish mine had gotten that out of control! it would have felt right at home in my all invasives garden.

We're in bloom-o-pause right now in our garden. The early flowers are fading and the summer ones have begun to bud, but not a lot is in blossom right now. Just the Lady lavendar, the sage, some shasta daisies, a nicotiana alata, and a few yellow loosestrifes.

[pieces o nine]

Although the irises are looking pitiful this week, everything blooming is still purple.   

[Aggie]

Well, today is National Schizophrenia Awareness Day, so it's appropriate that everything is wearing purple as required.
[youtube=425,350]SkkIwO_X4i4&ob=av2e[/youtube]

[Opsa]

HA! I was just singing that song to myself the other day.

Speaking of purple, I neglected to mention my Jackmanii clematis, which is blooming like madness in the spring! I bought it from a neighbor lady many years ago. She was not happy and breaking up with her husband and having a yard sale and sold me this clematis root at a very begrudging discount, even though it was half dead in the package, since she'd never planted it, and was never going to. I lovingly gave it a home beside my porch, where Mr. Ops proceeded to weed whack it almost every year for about ten years, thinking it was dead. (Clematis tend to look like dried-out twigs when they're dormant.) Finally, after much patience and homicidal threats, the thing finally decided to produce flowers, and it is glorious. I'm gonna run out there now and see if I can snap a photo to post.

Edit: See below

[Roland Deschain]

Beautiful clematis you have there. I especially love the contrast of the white with the purple. I'll have to take a picture of the clematis my parents have grown. They really are spectacular when they bloom, and they can bloom for many months.

[Opsa]

I love them, too. I have an earlier clematis, a large magenta (two, that I saved from lawn mowers- I think they're some version of Earnest Markham.

There's a kind that's white with a dark purple center (lalalalala!) that I adore and would love to buy if I could afford it.

I also have wild autumn clematis all over the place, which I rip, snarl and tear at (lovingly, of course!) until August, when I give up and let it blanket everything with it's small scented white flowers.

[Darlica]

I love clematis but I didn't seem to have any luck with them when I had a balcony, so I gave up and started planting Ipomea purpurea instead.  And then I found this beauty ...
 

"cobaea scandens" or Cup and Saucer Plant as I believe it's called in English.

My mother grows both Ipomea and Cobaea from last years seeds and they are apparently doing very well.

[Roland Deschain]

What an unusual and beautiful flower. I have essentially run out of space, but if I can find some, maybe i'll give it a go some time.

[Opsa]

I once strung vertical cords along my whole front porch and grew walls of Heavenly Blue Morning Glory (an ipomea) up  them. It was fabulous! Alas, it never happened again, although I tried.

[Roland Deschain]

Was the second year a particularly bad one, especially at the start? It could also have been an incorrect soil type, too. Plants can be fickle.

In answer to the OP, I will say Rocket (15 flowers today), Lavender Thyme (a ball of green and white now), almost the Salad Burnet, almost the Mexican Tarragon, and almost the [fake] Curry Plant.

[Opsa]

I may have depleted the soil after that first year. It may also have been that the bed had become overgrown after that, and shaded out the baby Heavenly Blues the following year. Do you do anything to your soil, Darlica?

What nice herbs you're growing, Ro. I'll bet they smell fantastic.

[Roland Deschain]

What nice herbs you're growing, Ro. I'll bet they smell fantastic.

It's been raining this past week (ish), so not much can be smelt, unfortunately.

[Darlica]

I may have depleted the soil after that first year. It may also have been that the bed had become overgrown after that, and shaded out the baby Heavenly Blues the following year. Do you do anything to your soil, Darlica?

What nice herbs you're growing, Ro. I'll bet they smell fantastic.

Standard soil for container gardening plus some liquid fertilizer now and then.
I changed the soil every year, that's the easiest way when one only has a balcony. The old soil ended up as filler in my mothers garden where it was mixed with grass cuttings and such.

[Opsa]

We have a lot blooming here right now. We have daylilies in orange, peach, yellow and red. There are sweetpeas now blossoming in white, red, purple and pink. The naturtiums are in flower in yellow, orange, coral and sort of a tie-dye of yellow and orange. We have feverfew's little white daisies, which seem to be serving as a honeymoon spot for fireflies. We have some cosmos. We have reseeded nicotiana alata in deep pink and pale pink, and larkspur in purple and silvery pink. There's also the portulaca in peach, pink, buttery yellow and orange. Summer is here!

[Roland Deschain]

Quite a list you have there, Opsa, and it must make a wonderful display. I'm jealous of the fireflies.

I have Delphinium, Lupin and Poppy (both just came out), Hebe, Daylily, Clematis, Syringa (or so i'm told it is), Rose, Thyme, Tarragon, Dill, Salad Burnet, some of my wildflowers, and a few others. It makes it all worthwhile.

[Opsa]

I'm jealous of your delphiniums and poppies! They are faves that won't grow in my yard. ...YET!!! I have to make do with the larkspur for that delphinium effect. I guess the portulacas are as close as I come to poppies. (I keep typing "poopies"! Is it Freudian?)

It is all worthwhile!

[Roland Deschain]

Do you know why the Delphiniums and Poopies () don't like your garden? Not to make you jealous, but i've eradicated more poppy plants this year than were at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show. They came up literally everywhere, including the block paving. They seed like bloody Dandelions!

[Opsa]

Do you know why the Delphiniums and Poopies () don't like your garden? Not to make you jealous, but i've eradicated more poppy plants this year than were at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show. They came up literally everywhere, including the block paving. They seed like bloody Dandelions!

GAAARRR... I believe it is due to our heavy clay soil here. The poopies don't care for it, I'm afraid. I have seeded, and even bought rather pricey (for me, anyway) live started plants, and they all disappear, the poor things.

My front yard is drier and sandier, so I have been able to get some annual poopies to grow there, like Shirley and corn poopies. But what I really love are the gigantic perennial ones, especially the apricot colored kind. Oh, they are lovely with the late sun falling through them.

I should try again in the front yard, but first I have to lift the front beds. They are too full and weedy this year. I am going to have to force myself to do it in the fall after everything's gone to bed. It's a chore, but it will help. I have lots of daffs and other bulbs and rhizomes up there that would benefit from a lifting and soil amendment.

The roses of sharon have burst, here. Also, some sunflowers.

[Roland Deschain]

Yeah, maybe try the other area, although I thought they'd be willing to seed almost anywhere, especially the more local wild varieties of poppy. Maybe a digging over of the area you want to grow them in would suffice, with an addition of a little compost, as you say?

The soil would be heavy clay in areas around me too, but years of having leaves from trees and shrubs fall onto the ground, not to mention what the roots of said trees and shrubs have done to it, have made the soil far better. The area under my herb garden was poor, but I improved it with homemade compost.

The perennial poppies can be pretty spectacular, yes, but the annuals can be special too. Sow some of each around the time the seeds usually fall, then just leave it and wait. If you sow more in the spring, you'll get 2 distinct "crops" of flowers, one earlier than the other. Should look really nice, and give you a semi-continual display. Plus, if you use packets of mixed seed, you'll not only gain a colour palette to metaphorically die for, you'll not be spending much money either.

[Opsa]

I have tried something the Thompson and Morgan catalogue called a Fairy Mix or something like that. They were for annual poopies (sorry, I'm just stuck saying 'poopies' for now) in really cool semi transparent shades of pastel and greys. But they pooped out, too.

Really, I need to lift the front beds as well, so if I can get my act together this fall maybe I can do that and toss some poppy (better!) seeds on top of that to see if they take.

[Roland Deschain]

Yeah, there comes a time when you have to give up on some things. I don't like doing that, though, and usually persevere, much to the chagrin of my time and wallet.

[Aggie]

I'm a Darwinian gardener... if it's not fit for my climate or personal garden style, then I don't bother with it. Same with insect infestations; kill off the most susceptible plants, and the ones that remain tend to be bug-hardy.  My houseplants would get occasional waves of bugs that would kill one or two (or at least require euthanasia), but the survivors would usually shake off the remaining bugs after a month or two, leaving a barely noticeable population that hung on but didn't do any real damage.

There are lots of different plants to garden with, best to find the ones that work well in your personal ecosystem.

[Opsa]

Yes, I agree with the Darwinian gardening. My garden has evolved over the years. I planned it one way, but in the end it has decided what goes where.

[Roland Deschain]

I have an Intelligent Design garden, but those pesky Darwinists come in at night and make it look as if it's evolving...

[Opsa]

We've had orange cosmos, blue bachelor's buttons, black eyes susan, phlox, assorted zinnia, and sunflowers blooming here. Last night I finally took the time to make a bouquet out of some of them for our outdoor supper. The colors blended well, don't you think?

[pieces o nine]

It's a painting!