it’s all about the daffodils…

Daffs in back garden

 

Late April in the garden means yellow everywhere – Narcissus in all sizes plus Forsythia and the early Tulips.  I love it!  As a bonus, it looks like the Fritillaria persica will bloom!  One of them, anyway…really looking forward to seeing up close and in person what they look like, then putting in more this autumn.  The Island project is coming along – go a lot mulched this weekend.  Next weekend I’ll start transplanting Echinacea.

It was wonderful to see so many bees out and about this weekend.  At one point this small grouping of Hyacinth was covered with thrm – as many as two dozen just going in and out of the flowers.  They were also loving all the daffs and of course the Scilla and Chianodoxia.  This time next week they’ll be all over the dandelions!

 

A New Year

Wow – it’s hard to believe the winter of  2016-17 is over….And the miracle of plant life is starting to begin.  This year I’ll be documenting one of the larger micro gardens in the yard – what I call the Island Garden because the driveway circles around it.  This piece of land started as half brush and trees, half grass.  Over the past four years I’ve been transforming it into a garden – keeping a lot of the trees, adding a lot of shrubs and a ton of perennials.  Each year I’ve reduced the area of grass – this year I hope to eliminate it entirely.  The plan:

• spray Round Up on all grass areas this weekend (if it’s not raining)
• next weekend lay down a thick layer of wood chips on this area
• at the beginning of May transplant lots of Echinacea into this area
• in October plant lots of spring flowering bulbs

there’s a few challenges with this bed I’ll get into as the summer progresses.  For now, here’s a shot of Fritillaria persica poking through the ground just in front of the statue.  They didn’t bloom last year – hope they do this year!