GBBD May! An Embarrasment of Riches.
posted by Ki at
4:46 AM
Thursday, May 15, 2008
Previous Posts
- Deciduous Azaleas, Mountain Azaleas, Exbury Hybrids
- More Recent Acquisitions, Dodecatheon etc. and Mis...
- Recent acquisition - Mayapple (Podophyllum peltatum)
- Rhododendrons and Azaleas
- Flowering Cherries, Prunus 'Kwanzan'
- Tree Peonies at Their Best Now, and Some Trees Aro...
- Need Identification plus One Weird Plant per Year
- Ok Hank, This is for you...dogwood trees.
- What's Blooming Now?
- First Bloom of the Tree Peony, Paeonia suffruticosa
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20 Comments:
Riches, indeed. That's a wonderful set of pictures. Your garden must look amazing right now. Don't you just love May in the garden?
Carol, May Dreams Gardens
Hi Carol,
Thanks for creating and hosting GBBD. Indeed the garden is at its best now. June will be a big let down I think. Ah ha!, now I know why you named your blog May Dreams...sorry, a bit slow on the uptake.
So much.....
so beautiful.
I must admit: I am envious.
My finger fell asleep rolling through the photos.... would there be no end to the parade of beautiful flowers??
What a gorgeous Blooming Day you have, Ki! If pressed to choose a favorite the photo with Lilacs, Japanese Maple and Allium made me feel faint, the combination was so splendid.
Annie at the Transplantable Rose
You weren't exaggerating. I love the Alliums with the Chamacyperis (purple & chartreuse being one of my fav color combos). My Calycanthus 'Athens' is still in bud. It is quickly becoming my favorite shrub in the garden. (Have you noticed I like chartreuse?)
What a wonderful collection of blooms. Thanks for sharing.
Thank you Joco. 6 years of constant toiling in the garden is yielding a wonderful reward. Thanks for your lovely comment.
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Hi Annie,
Sorry about posting so many pics. It was difficult to pick them from the numerous photos I took. Even the merest bird's foot violet called out to be included and it was difficult to cull the less interesting.
I was photographing the Korean lilac and on to the alliums when I noticed the reddish purple of the Japanese maple blended perfectly with the darker alliums and light pink Korean lilac. I assure you it is a chance placement. The Korean lilac was being crowded by a Douglas fir and bald cypress so I moved it in its present location a couple of years ago. Same with the Japanese maple, this the infamous Villa Taranto which was chopped in half by a rogue deer. I moved it to a shadier location so it could recuperate and it turned out to be a serendipitous one. The picture didn't quite make me swoon :) but it is one of my better efforts in photographing multiple subjects something I'm trying to get better at. Thanks for your generous comments.
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Hi Mr. McGregor's Daughter,
One would think chartreuse and purple wouldn't be an especially complementary combination but Mother Nature pulls it off effortlessly. ;) I didn't even know the name of the Calycanthus. We just bought it at a native wildflower center annual sale last weekend. They had the more common red one as well as this white/green, ok, chartreuse one so of course we picked the uncommon one even if it was $5 more than the red. An older helper at the center said she could remember when they had one and at certain times of the day it would release a wonderful scent. I tried sniffing it but detected no odor. As I was planting it, all of a sudden I smelled quite a strong scent of perfume, spice and turpentine. Not off putting at all and quite interesting. But as she mentioned it does not give off it's scent continuously which makes it all the more precious. I always wanted a calycanthus and actually bought one previously but it was mislabeled and turned out to be a lilac instead. I waited four years for it to bloom! A huge disappointment but now ameliorated.
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Hi Les,
You are most welcome. Thank you for stopping by to look.
Ki, it was not a complaint - just an attempt to make a humorous compliment... and now I'm amazed at the serendipity of the combination.
Annie
Annie,
I knew it wasn't a complaint even if I am thick headed most of the time :)
I don't have a fast cable or fiber optic connection so I noticed it takes about half a minute for the picture to load. I don't know if it's my connection or Blogger's servers but I was concerned I may have included too many photos.
Just after I left my comment last evening, I couldn't connect to Blogger again and I noticed recently that photos seem to be loading at a more leisurely pace. I wonder if all the photos and especially videos are taking a toll on the bandwidth?
Many times it better to be lucky than good. I just happened to move in a good position to view all three plants and even a dense person could hardly miss that setup!... though sometimes you miss seeing something so obvious. ;)
Wow, all the photos are great, but the first one set the standard!
I hope my garden looks half that good in 6 years ;-)
Holy cow! Very impressive. I'm jealous, both by some of those plants, and how much further along you are! Lovely maples, too.
Wow, this is a beautiful collection of lovelies! So much in bloom and all photograph well.
Gail
clay and limestone
Beautiful shots, Ki. My garden is only a couple of days behind yours. But with this weather, I might not get out to photo shoot my garden. Boooo.
Hi Entangled,
From the photos I've seen of your plants and garden, I'm the one doing the catch up. I thought the first photo was the best too but one of the lilac/Japanese maple/allium is subtly wonderful in it's own right as is the pink azalea/yellow mountain azalea/gold Chamaecyparis. I guess I should take more group photos rather than single flower photos.
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Hi Benjamin,
We were lucky this winter which was very mild while you guys in the Midwest got socked. After a warm start to spring it's back to normal so the plants have settled back to a more seasonable pace. Thanks for your comment.
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Hi Matt,
Thank you doubly. I clicked on your link but apparently you haven't enabled access to your profile or blog. I hope you share it with us.
Your comment was a little cryptic - Gail clay and limestone? Thanks for stopping by.
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Thanks Julie. Yeah, what a yucky day but we need the rain because we are apparently about an inch below normal. Rain I don't mind but drought I do because I have to haul around the hose and spend hours hand watering the plants.
Hey, you're south of me so you should be at least a couple of days ahead! I guess if you're closer to the ocean, the maritime influence may account for the difference. Tomorrow's supposed to be nice tho so shoot away.
Ki, you're right. The maritime influence is where you're ahead of me. I have the influence of two rivers, the Susquehanna and the Conestoga, but it's not the same. You get more influence.
Oh my goodness... you're so right! An embarrassment of riches indeed. I especially love the third rose, and the alliums coming up through the (I think?) Japanese maple foliage. Wow.
Hi Julie,
For some reason I thought you were in southern NJ or Pennsylvania close to Delaware. I must have gotten you mixed up with someone else. I guess you're west of the mountains but I don't know if that makes any difference in temperatures. Surprisingly I've seen some pictures from the midwest showing their jack-in-the-pulpits already blooming and mine are only showing shoots now. Go figure.
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Hi Kim,
The third rose was one we bought just a few weeks ago. I don't remember the name but it has a beautiful strong fragrance too like old time roses. We had to remove all the flowers because the heads were so large for the spindly stems they drooped to the ground in the rains we had this weekend.
Yep alliums behind the Japanese maple 'Villa Taranto' with Korean lilac in the background. I took the picture at the right time. In only 2 days the lilac is dropping its blossoms and some of the alliums were knocked down by wind and rain. This photo was Annie's favorite too. Thanks for stopping by. I have been too strapped for time and haven't even made the rounds to look at other blogs. :( Hope to do so soon.
Holy smokes... I don,t even know where to begin here. As I was scrolling through, I had the thought that you could post some of these in the winter months again ... there is a wonderful collection of flowers here. I am trying to remember the name of the yellow pea-like blossoms. I grew it in my Ottawa garden and the name escapes me. Your Columbines are so prolific. I love the colour of the Acanthus. And then there are the roses. My, it was a good Bloom Day for you, Ki!
Wow, what a wonderful bounty of blooms you have! Happy Bloom Day!
Thank you Kate. The yellow pea blossoms are from the Golden Chain tree, Laburnum. Sorry about not labeling the photos. I must say this was an outstanding year for May blooms. I don't remember any year which produced so many flowers with more to come. Thanks for stopping by and your indulgence for posting so many photos. It takes a while to download the pictures on my rather slow DSL connection.
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Thanks Lisa. I'm sure you've already caught up with we who have had a mild winter. It will be interesting to see what remains to be shown for June GBBD.
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