Six on Saturday – 04JUN2022 – Mainly Lupines

Chris Mousseau

It’s a good thing that we love colourful hybrid lupins because boy oh boy, this is the year for them! I could have posted just six different lupin photos, but that wouldn’t be fair to the rest of the garden, which is also looking spectacular this week. If you’d like to see some other spectacular looking gardens, head on over to The Propagator’s site.

First up is this soft yellow, and huge, tree peony flower. It stood up well to the heavy rain we had most of Wednesday.
I’ve heard that the growth of a tree is dependent on conditions the previous year. If that’s the case the weather last year must have been better than I recall, because the candles on all the evergreens are so long this spring. This pine is young, so growth is rapid, but still!
I love these bright orange oriental poppies.
Last week I had a photo of the start of this shasta Viburnum blooming. It’s now fully out, and the pure white flowers covering the bush is sensational.
Another Viburnum now blooming is the Nannyberry – Viburnum lentago. This shrub, native here, can get quite tall and will grow in sun or part shade.

Finally, the lupins. Or Lupines. A few years of scattering seeds has paid off big time.

a rare double stem

21 Comments

  3. This peony flower as I told you on Instagram is really superb. The lupins are well flowered and with pretty varied colors.
    Here the powdery mildew begins to hit the leaves and the aphids attack the flowers… soon the end.

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  4. I really don’t know our native shrubs and trees very well, but I’m almost certain now that I’ve seen a Viburnum. More research is required! Those lupines are beautiful; I really like the mix of colors. They look as nice in the garden as in a vase.

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  5. Beautiful photos as always! I have been toying with adding a native blue lupine (lupinus perennis) to my native bed, but I read it likes sandy soil and I have clay. Anyway, I had so many natives on my wish list that I left that one out, at least until i can decide whether or not I can do anything to help it along – add a bunch of coarse sand and organic matter, maybe?. Most of what I ended up plating this year will like the clay, but it is all a big experiment.

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    1. All I can say is my soil is clay, limestone chunk filled and not terribly fast draining. And very dry in summer. But I’ve noticed lupines have a tremendous tap root to keep them going in August…I wonder if these hybrids are different than the native species.

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      1. Well, that is good to know – perhaps it is worth giving it a try! I have always liked them – I asked a fried about hers once, if it was hard to grow and she laughed and said she didn’t even plant it, it just came up on year. My yard also gets very dry in the summer, so maybe it is OK as long as I don’t plant it back where I put all the moisture loving plants back in the area that can have standing water at times.

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  7. The growth of most trees during spring is more dependent on the conditions of the previous winter than the previous year. Most forget about summer over winter, and only partially remember autumn. Autumn is important here only because winter is so mild.

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  8. The Lupins are gorgeous! (I still have not sourced some seed, but it’s on my ‘To Do’ list). The poppy looks stunning too, and as the shrub queen says, the lighting in the photo is lovely. I like the viburnum, especially the texture of the leaves!

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