2024 Virtual Garden Tour - welcome!

36" flower stalk! Hmm. :)

 

Is there not a line in R&H Oklahoma musical we could parody here — as tall as an elephant’s eye

GARDEN TOURS: So busy and diverted with cherry blossom spotting! A most joyful diversion

meanwhile in the garden …

the birds start around 5:20am
I think robins
Very flute-like and pleasant — typical thrush songs

so many rhododendrons starting to bloom … it seems early tho I think they know best and we will enjoy

here are some photos

dicentra (bleeding hearts)

Rhodo « wine & roses » … it is from Scotland and has the fuzzy wine color UNDER its leaves

Fritalleria progress - the checkerboard pattern is amazing … I bought this package here, tho I do have similar wild in Okanagan valley acreage

Kanzan cherry is also progressing every day too

Next we have wild yellow violets in a Coast neighbour meadow — gorgeous and a spring treat to view

and a « bumble bee » (correct me) on our sturdy PJM Rhodo that bloomed early it seems and is graciously fading

I am adding a cartoon from Univ pal in Oregon for cherry scouts @Willard & @wcutler

enjoy the wayward garden tour today !

EDIT — i missed the photo of quince pruned — it looks great

 

So I was wondering what all the squawking was all about -I knew there had to be a bald eagle around- and sure enough, there it was being harassed by crows in a neighbour's deodora cedar.
My Trillium ovatum are making a nice showing this year and I've seen a handful of new seedling popping up, so it should be a larger display next year.
Just in front of the T. ovatum I have some T. luteum which invariably break later. By mid-March these were just poking up whereas the ovatum were already showing flowers. The perennial candytuft is nicely in flower and a couple of days ago we liberally sprinkled annual candytuft seeds around.
New to our front yard bed this year is Corydalis solida 'Purple Bird', hope it'll grow into a nice patch.... but not TOO aggressively...

 

You may have a larger display of leaves but germination to flowering takes about 5 years.

 

It's the 12th April and the sun has come out at last. Been very wet for the past 8 months, so everything a little slow.
Here are two named white flowers in my garden this evening.

Snake's-head Fritillary alba Fritillaria meleagris


Bluebell Hyacinthoides non-scripta 'Alba' (English Bluebells)

 

Spring is here at last and after the wettest Winter on record here in the UK, it is nice to feel the sun and see some new shoots of life in our gardens.
My Hosta White Feather is enjoying the damp conditions with no frosts.

My Azalea Geisha is in full bloom, about a month early this year.

 

This is the first time I have seen my Cornus nuttallii in bloom. I planted it from seed about 12 years ago and it is about 20 feet tall. It must have produced a few flowers last year because I found seeds under the tree.
There are not nearly as many of these native dogwoods in our woods since the mid-1980s when anthracnose arrived and began killing thousands of them. I'm hoping that this one I've grown may be resistant because the tree I took seeds from showed no signs of the disease and still does not.
My personal experience with anthracnose was in Burnaby when my neighbour had her several native dogwoods ravaged. Not only that, but the dozens of native trilliums I had growing in a wild garden nearby were hit year after year after year until there were almost none left. Then I moved to Vancouver Island.
Sorry, I can't get a good photo of the entire tree but, take my word for it, it's gorgeous!

 

My Clematis Guernsey Cream is just opening its flowers. This is the very first, so wanted to share it on the forum. The flower is just Sooo green.

 

We will be interested to view photo as flower matures … does it fade to white or ….

stay tuned :)

 

Hi Georgia, yes it does turn to white, so I will post another photo in a few days. I just thought a photo today as more of a novelty. Glad you liked it.

 

I was asked by Georgia to post an update photo of the flower on my Clematis 'Guernsey Cream'. Here it is turning more white and cream.

 

The bluebell is Hyacinthoides x massartiana.

 

Purchased from RHS
Hyacinthoides non-scripta 'Alba' (English Bluebells)

 

Lots of weeding in my garden this morning and whilst doing this I thought I would take a few pics of some of my Hostas.

First Frost Fireworks Lemon Lime

Wiggles and squiggles The British are coming Guacamole

Devon Green Snow Flake Midas Touch

 

And after a mid morning coffee sat in some nice sunshine, I thought a few more of my Hostas for the thread, they have loved this damp Spring btw.

Lakeside Little Tuft Dragon Tails Curly Fries

Stained Glass Mouse Ears Halcyon

Fire and ice Orange Marmalade June

 

Oh that’s impressive

my Hosta collection is just unfurling, too

yet I think @Pieter has had some in leaf a few weeks ago and our sea level gardens are really not too far apart (15 - 20 miles as crows fly? … mountain ranges here make many micro climates)

I wonder why your Hosta is called “British are coming” … perhaps a reference to “limey” (as in preventing scurvy w vitamin C)

i wonder how the King’s Hosta root garden (stumpery) at Highgrove is doing … it must be very pretty … i have always wanted to interpret in a smaller scale - land clearing of big trees is common here so roots abound — it’s the moving and set up that turns it in to 10,000 $ “was a good idea — and someone gave me the plants for free!”

I am not the only one in that category, I wonder :)

 

a peaceful Sunday sunrise garden tour —
Rhodo “Seaview Sunset” … with a parent called “Canadian Sunset” (cue the Andy Williams crooning song)

I thought I’d lost this one in the past few summers of heat and winter cold at coast

tho hère it is a lovely as the label name promised (I am a fool for labels and names on plants and paint chips and so forth )

we also have a perennial geranium with an interesting leaf and a short lived flower that bees like — it’s mourning widow (speaking of label names ?!)

a native fern meets another native fern — I adore spring green colours … and sword fern native here does very well in our hot cold coast climate

sweet woodruff is also a reliable favourite

Empress Wu Hosta unfurling next to tall dicentra —- the deer stop by to say hello to this Hosta and so I enjoy it at begin of season … also I noted a couple of tiny dew drops on dicentra (bleeding heart) — the details in this tiny blossom are astounding to me

fritalleria - I am enthused because they are longstanding and have an interesting look next to ferns and early hostas - there’s something jewel like about them in their intricacy

Kanzan and Rhodo combo with blue skies … the geese V formations have been common this past 10 days way high overhead over this tree. You just know that “Pacific Flyway” sound when you hear it, and there they are, valiantly migrating north under their own power and technology — for me, another wonder of the seasons gardeners and garden watchers! notice - enjoy.

 

I think it's to do with the red stems in the Summer Georgia and reference to the army Red Coats.
We have always wanted a stumpery, but don't have the room
as maples take up so much space... and yes Highgrove is very impressive, but so it should be, lol.

It should be a good year for Hostas, as long as the slugs don't go mad.
Glad yours are unfurling, you must post some photos as soon as cherry blossom spotting is over.

 

Flower shape is not a match - English bluebells are tubular, with points that curl back tightly as though scrolled. Also: are they fragrant? If you can't get a noticeably assertive (rather than faint) aroma out of them then that is a problem with what you were told they were right there. (Unless it happens you can't smell this particular scent).

Otherwise, note that who a plant came from is not an identification characteristic. Whereas what it does is relevant.

Here in Washington State, I've known a grand total of one person who had English bluebells. He got several variant forms via a British enthusiast who sent them to him directly. With it appears possibly no commercial sources serving the North American market supplying correct material under the name at this time. Even a local botanic garden, where their also white (like yours) supposedly English bluebells came from Britain (as did yours) is quite apparently growing the common hybrid (H. x massartiana) instead. Told by it having intermediate floral characters between English and Spanish bluebells.

 

Just for the record, it seems this Asian Dicentra bleeding heart has been renamed to Lamprocapnos spectabilis. The North American bleeding hearts are still Dicentra.

 

Finally had a break to look in on the gardens.....

IMG 2264 - rhodos are finally flowering with Lady de Rothschild being the first
IMG 2269 - new fronds on the maiden hair ferns
IMG 2271 - giant leaf bamboo faired okay
IMG 2285 - tatting ferns are appearing amongst the mouse plants
IMG 2287 - arctic raspberries are spreading and flowering
IMG 2278 & 81 - Clematis Joe Zary is looking strange this year - should be purple - but it appears healthy (it was also flowering in December...I blame the strange weather)

IMG 2193 & 2262 - show you what has been keeping us busy the last few weeks - we had to replace our lower deck (before and after)

 

@GS Indeed I have had hostas in leaf for well over a month. That's for 2 reasons, first I grow most of my hostas in pots and secondly because I actively participate in the Alpine Garden Club's Spring Sale I have taken to bringing in the stock I need to have leafed-out in time for the sale the first Saturday in April, experience has shown me that I sell my plants much better when people can see them in leaf as opposed to having to do with a picture when all that's showing in the pot are cataphylls at best. Growing them in pots results in quicker warm-up of the potting mix and an earlier breaking of them compared to the ones planted in the ground plus it gives me the opportunity to shuffle them around and change the display year over year. Yes, it's a bit more work but moving pots around is for us an effective way of dealing with the roots of the arborvitae hedge. This time of year I check on all the pots and assess whether or not the planting medium should be refreshed, I usually end up doing that about every 3 years or so for any pot. It can be a bit of a production because the larger ceramic pots are rather heavy, particularly after it's got a good soaking but it's a necessity and the process gives me the opportunity to check the roots and invariably I end up dividing the plant, some are prone to 'fairy ring' quite quickly and dividing them can result in a tighter clump when you replant them 'backwards' from where they were. Division is also necessary when you encounter a plant that sporting. I'd noticed last year that a ceramic pot with Hosta 'Striptease' had a couple of shoots that were showing signs of sporting and now that the leaves are unfurling I could see there was more of what I call 'going out of tune' or 'changing song sheets', you get the drift. I was due for a re-pot anyway so I man-handled it into the wheel barrow and went to town. Here's some of what I ended up with.

The 3rd picture gives you an idea fo what the mother plant looks like. 'Striptease' is part of the Hyacinthina family, H. 'Fortunei Hyacinthina' is rather prone to sporting, a propensity that carries forward with the sports. Hyacinthina by itself has around 40 named sports and many of those have as many sports themselves. 'Striptease' comes out of 'Gold Standard' and it has 40+ sports itself and on it goes. My brother Chris gave me a division of 'Hyacinthina' years ago and it sported for me about 15 years back or so and the initial sport was in the form of streaking with an eventual stabilized medio-variegated form coming up which has proven to be unstable in that it has a habit of throwing streaked offsets. Frequent division is necessary to maintain the variegated morph and that's something I end up doing with a number of other variegated cultivars, such as 'Revolution' and 'Risky Business' - the latter is a 'Striptease' sport. Both of these have a habit of throwing all-green sports which look remarkably similar, one I call "Green Revolution' and the other is "Finished Business". There is a difference in leaf substance though, GR is out of a polyploid and while I cannot confirm ploidy on RB its parent 'Striptease' is a diploid. Both are rather vigorous and do have a commanding presence.
Talking about unstable variegated hostas, I ran across a 'Snow Mouse' that was reverting: going solid-coloured on a couple of shoots. It's a fair question to ask why this is called a reversion when the solid-coloured shoots on 'Revolution' are called sports and the answer is in the term itself. You call it a reversion of the shoot goes back to the phenotype of the originating cultivar. Both 'Revolution' and 'Risky Business' came from variegated stock so a reversion of say 'Revolution' would be 'Loyalist', the variegated plant it came out of and the all-green offsets are called sports.
This perfectly illustrates the impact of soil temperature on the breaking of plants in the spring. This what I call my blue corner where the bulk of the hostas are blue with a couple of yellows thrown in to brighten things up a little. I prefer to use this shady corner for most of my blues to keep them blue. The blue we see on some hostas is the result of a waxy coating and too much direct sun will end up melting said coating and you end up with splotchy looking or even green leaves.
About a third of the way from the left near the very bottom you can see a shoot starting to poke up, that's a 'Hyacinthina' and it's always one of the last ones to break because this corner faces north and doesn't see any direct sun so it takes its time to warm up in the spring. Yes, it's in the ground -sort of- under my cedar hedge but it's in a so called spin-out bag that's made of a material that keeps tree roots at bay. I use it for 4 hostas, a painted fern and a couple of hellebores.

 

Wow! Nine posts added to this thread so far today while I was busy hosting a brunch.

This gives me the perfect excuse to pour another cup of coffee so I can read them all at leisure.

Thank you; this is wonderful!

 

thank you for your tour
… and it appears that your four-legged (canine?) boss is helping supervise the deck replacement :)

 

Yeah....both of them, making sure there are no "mousies" about :)