It's hard to believe April is already half over. Where does the time go? Although I've been slowly but surely making changes in the gravel garden, I did take two or three days away from that to do a whole-hog makeover on one of the shade beds in my front garden, under the pin oak tree. This makeover has been in the planning stages since last fall, when I started collecting plants for that purpose. Many of them spent the winter under the hoop house away from the heavy rain, and when they started leafing out, I took them out and let them get a good watering. Then I basically dug everything out of the bed, planted many of those plants elsewhere, or gave them away, and re-arranged the entire bed. The only plant I left in place was a clump of Syneleisis aconitifolia, and I added two more clumps several feet away, for the sake of continuity. The bed is now heavy on repeating combinations of Primulas, Trilliums and Hellebores, with some interesting foliage plants, such as Podophyllum pleianthum, P. hexandrum, Mukdenia and purple-leaved Ligularias thrown in as well.
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| Shade bed after the makeover |
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| Primula japonica 'Miller's Crimson' |
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| Primula veris 'Sunset Shades' |
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| Both Podophyllums have produced their interesting maroon flowers, which
will eventually turn into a fruit called a mayapple, with seeds for ants
to spread throughout the bed. |
This weekend at
Hortlandia I'm going to pick up some
Primula prolifera and
P. wilsonii var. anisidora from
Far Reaches Farm to also go into this bed. I have high hopes that it's going to be an interesting spot when everything matures and fills in.
Elsewhere in the front garden:
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| Lunaria annua (Honesty) a biennial, whose flowers are already making small, coin-shaped seedpods thsat give it the other common name of Money Plant |
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| Geranium phaeum 'Samobor' with an early grass whose name escapes me |
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| Erysimum 'Winter Sorbet', which I've used to underplant orange Edgeworthia chrysantha 'Akebono' |
In the back garden, there is still a lot of green. But there are a few flowers.
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| Serviceberry flowering profusely |
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| Pulsatilla vulgaris |
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| Geranium phaeum 'Samobor' |
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| Erythronium oregonum |
Many of the spring ephemerals that I thought would not last till Bloom Day are actually still flowering, to my great delight. I won't show them off again, though. You can see them in
this recent post.
Garden Bloggers Bloom Day is hosted by Carol Michel at May Dreams Gardens, on the 15th of every month. Bloggers all over the world leave links to their posts celebrating flowers. You can see her April post
here.
