In bloom this week

I've been super short on time for the past two weeks so this is a minimal-word post. It's suddenly humid and hot and gone are the nice morning breezes. We've not had a lot of rain so I'm already trying to make sure my plants aren't wilting. And here I thought it would be a shorter summer due to our seemingly extended winter.

In bloom right now:

Iris in front of my neighbor's rose

The hellebore I bought a couple of months ago is STILL in bloom!

Hosta, Nepeta "Walker's Low", and on-its-way-out azalea

Salvia and Amsonia "Blue Ice"

Baptisia australis "Solar Flare Prairieblues" (it's itty bitty still, as it's only a year in the ground)

Spiderwort. Closed for the evening, but you get the idea.

Chives

Baptisia australis

What's blooming in your garden?

Blooming right now

My neighbor's annual plant divide party is this coming week. As my yard provides a backdrop against her garden, it's a mad dash to try to navigate around the rain we're having to make sure everything looks presentable. I'm tempted to leave some of the flower beds alone in their craptastic-looking state, but as someone always wanders through her gate into my yard to look at what I'm growing, I suspect I'll be having a weedathon tomorrow. 

They'll see that there's not much in bloom right now, but what is blooming now represents the second phase of spring. The forsythia flowers have ended, most tulips are gone, and daffodils are a memory. Coming soon will be peonies, roses, and baptisia. 

Azalea with iris

Allium

Bleeding heart (a little bit late)

Lilac (with half-dead dogwood in back)

Spiderwort

Red twig dogwood

Bushy  lilac

Centaurea montana "Amethyst in Snow"

Wordless Wednesday

Neighbor M's tree peony

Visit to David Culp's garden - the special gardens

This is the last post about my visit to noted plantsman David Culp's Brandywine Cottage gardens last weekend (the first two posts are here and here). I titled this post "the special gardens" because, though all of his gardens are special, I needed a catchall phrase for the rest of what I saw. There are some unique spaces that most people would not think of planting in, yet he has and it all works so well.

Upon entering the property, you notice the driveway garden. He has planted many bulbs and plants in the gravel so that they look as if they just popped up and he left them there.

Species tulips, hellebores, and other plants in the driveway

Hellebores and pansies in a pot

The patio. I'd love to have a meal here.

Entry into the vegetable garden, with unique birdbath in the middle.

The ruin garden

The ruin garden

The garden on the road. Has a hell strip ever looked this amazing?

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I feel very fortunate that I was able to visit and see such a beautiful place. I'm both inspired and intimidated by what experienced, but will use my trip to spark some more creativity in my own garden.

Visit to David Culp's Garden - Perennial beds

Continuing where I left off from my last post on my special visit, I'm going to show some pictures of his perennial beds closer to the house. You can see from this picture how spectacular they are during one of their peak bloom times:

From davidlculp.com

Spring is not quite as dramatic, but no less beautiful as seen during my visit:

The same bed as above (different angle)

The north bed, same as above

From the north bed looking to the rest of the garden

Another bed around the vegetable garden

Bleeding heart

The hellebore bed. The vegetable garden gate is in the background.

The hellebore garden

I clearly need more spring-flowering bulbs!

Wordless Wednesday

This is an iris in my mother's home (photo by my father):
 

 

It was given to her by a friend, and I'm hoping to get one when it makes little babies (apparently when a flower blooms, it becomes a new offshoot of the original plant). I know nothing about this iris but think it's absolutely amazing!

Visit to David Culp's garden - Hillside Garden

I had the good fortune to secure a spot on a tour of David Culp's garden this weekend. I devoured his book, "The Layered Garden", this winter when it was cold and gray outside, and the photos of such an amazingly beautiful garden perked me up and inspired me. Dave has quite the horticultural pedigree and as the book is simply gorgeous, I couldn't wait to see it in person.

Today's pictures are of his hillside garden, an acre of land on a shady hillside on which he and his partner tore out almost everything 22 years ago and remade it bit by bit. He doesn't amend the soil and scarcely waters. 

As an aside, he said that at the time of writing the book, he'd counted 3,000 plant specimens on his property (of which the hillside is but one garden) - and then he stopped counting - so I'm not going to even pretend to know the specifics of each plant you see in the photos. (Dave, however, can point to any plant anywhere on his property and rattle off its botanical name just like that.)

They built all of the steps themselves

They also built the wall themselves

I love that he has random plants, like this hellebore, tucked into the wall

The hillside garden abuts the gravel driveway

Another lovely set of steps

There must have been thousands of hellebores on the hillside

More hellebores 

There are paths up on the hill, but we were not able to walk on them this weekend. Still, the tranquility of the space emanated down the hill and it was breathtaking to observe from my place on the ground.

Wordless Wednesday

Radishes in my community garden plot

Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day - My first!

I've been waiting for months to have something in bloom so that I could finally post today. Spring was a long time coming and things are coming up later than usual, but I'm just grateful to have signs of life in my garden once again.

Kerria japonica

Tulips and daffodils

Brunnera

Hyacinth ending their show 

This lilac is about to bloom, so I think it counts

Forsythia. I'm having second thoughts about removing it.

Creeping phlox usually bloom together but the light purple is a little slow out of the gate

A double daffodil. I don't remember planting it but it's really pretty.

Well that's it for my first Bloom Day. I'm looking forward to next month's, when flowers will be bursting all over the place and will hopefully be hiding all of the onion grass!. Don't forget to check out the other bloggers at May Dreams.