Spring

You dig a hole in the fall, drop in a dried-up looking little nugget, and then come spring it emerges as something of bright-colored delicate beauty.  Sort of the ugly duckling of the plant world.  Bulbs are so pathetically easy to grow.  It requires no skill whatsoever other than the ability to dig a shallow hole and drop in a little time capsule.  And you only have to plant them once for years of color every spring.  So here's the show from our garden, with a couple shots thrown in from elsewhere.

This was our best year for daffodils.

I salvaged this Hellebore years ago from a home garden slated for demolition.

These tulips are actually in front of the Edmonds Museum.

Early spring rotation on our front porch.

We have a huge camellia, could be more than 40 years old.

Not in our garden, but a flowering plum tree in the neighborhood.  One of the first flowering trees of spring in western Washington, now in full peak bloom across the region.

Hanging Baskets and Containers

I'm giving up trying to make up my own hanging baskets from scratch using tiny little starts.  By the time summer is over, they're just getting going.  This year I went for the big, bold statement and bought full-on ready to go baskets.  These will go strong from the get-go.

Ivy geranium from Home Depot:

New Guinea impatiens and fuchsia from Flower World:

 And a couple other containers:

We'll see how well they do over the next few months.

Crocus

Crocus mean the dark cold wet days of winter are over.

Re-Landscaping in Front of the Fence - Part I

I'm working on re-landscaping the front of the fence, a start on getting our entire yard back in shape. I picked up a few plants at the annual Northwest Horticultural Society fall sale. I started small at the western side by the gate. I dug out an old scraggly azalea and the stump of another. Leslie had bought a Japanese maple (Acer palmatum dissectum ‘Crimson Queen’) at Costco about three years ago. It sat for that time happily in its gallon nursery pot. From the plant sale, I also planted a Hosta ‘Krossa Regal’ towards the back and up front Japanese Forest Grass (Hakonechloa macra). The maple may eventually overwhelm this corner, we’ll see. In the meantime, I will flesh this corner out with one or two smaller Hostas, a fern or two. We’ll see. I have to work my way down the line yet along the fence.