A Subpar Year Seems To Be The Theme

Not only in baseball, but also in the garden.

A warm late March caused a lot of plants to show early, only to be devastated by the 20 degree temps in early April.

But it all wasn't a loss. Let's take a quick stroll to see some things that did make it.

We'll start with the poor old lilac. I've never seen so many buds on it as I saw this year. Just before they were reaching maturity, the thermometer dipped down to 20 for a couple of nights in early April. I thought all was lost, but some of them did manage to bloom.

Close up, you can see the ones that made it and the ones that didn't. Although the fragrance was not nearly as strong as I had hoped for, and it only lasted a couple of days, it was far more than I thought was going to happen after the cold spell. Honestly, I didn't think we'd get anything out of it. You can also kind of see the blackening of some of the leaf tips here. After it was done blooming, I pruned this bush back a couple of feet this spring to try to make it less caney and more bushy. You can see how thin it had gotten in the middle on the first picture.

The 'Triumph Red' tulips, being the hardy species that they are, had no trouble. They just closed up for several days before coming around again when the warm weather came back.

This shot from a slightly different angle shows a couple of daffodils and behind that is the start of the newest bed I am working on, but there's not much there yet.

In another bed are my favorite tulips, which reach almost 2 feet tall. They are called 'Big Smile'. As you can see, a couple of them are still bent over in a wilted position from the cold, although I think they all recovered.

Although they did not start blooming before last week, at the bottom center and bottom left are "Tiny Rubies" Dianthus. And at the bottom right is an interesting specimen, "Samsonus Maximus Cephalic", not in bloom, of course.

I like to call these Daffydils, after my favorite Looney Tune. Cultivar Bell Song. The groundcover which I started here is 'Snow In Summer', also called "Yo-yo". It has attractive silvery green foliage and I am anxious for the white blooms to form all summer. I hope it performs as it is supposed to do, but even if it doesn't I already like it.

Finally, we move indoors, to a couple of nice houseplants. The first one is "G. Vanhalenimus", cultivar 'Angus'.

This last one is called Lucykis winkykus, a lighthearted cultivar of Lucykis insanicus.

My Sky Jacket Hyacinths also made it, but I seem to have misplaced the pictures somewhere. So, until next time, happy digging.