All Bulbs Planted!

I finished up a lot of garden chores yesterday -- emptied the rain barrel and put it in storage, emptied all the compost buckets into the veggie garden, emptied ceramic pots for storage over the winter, and I planted the last of my bulbs yesterday. Now it is the long winter wait for spring when I once again will see all those beautiful bulbs bloom. Seeing the first blooms really helps me shake off the winter blues. Don't get me wrong, I love winter, but only for the first few months, after that I just want to go to sleep until it is over. The only way I stay awake is cook and bake! So stay tuned for recipes!

New Approach to Bulbs

Now that my garden is so full of tulips, I am finding that when I try to plant more tulips, which has to be done in the fall when the tulips are invisible, I am digging up tulips that I have already planted! I have tried marking areas in the spring, but the summer is long, and I usually un-mark the areas during that time. I have tried maps, but without specific distances, it only gives me a vague idea as to where things are planted.

I have decided to experiment with a new approach. I bought a couple mixed packs of tulips from Menards, purple mix -- I'm hoping for some nice ones. I always save the pots from my garden plants, so I had a lot of them. In each of these pots I planted one tulip bulb. I also packed compost around the pots.

I sprinkled bone meal over the top of the pots and covered the whole deal with leaves. To ward off curious squirrels, I sprinkled cayenne pepper over the leaves. I started using cayenne pepper as part of my bulb planting routine a couple of years ago. It works pretty well at keeping the squirrels out of newly planted anything!
I am hoping that the tulips will sprout in the spring and I will be able to transplant them where ever I see a gap. If this works, I will be using it in larger scale in following years to fill out my garden without disturbing the current occupants. I figure my vegetable garden will be a good place to overwinter them as I won't be using it during the winter anyway!

Tulips 2008

Last weekend I spent weeding the crap out of my garden so that I could get my newest tulip haul into the ground.Altogether this year I had a modest 285 bulbs to plant in my garden. I got some from Brecks, but the majority I got from Menards. They had a great selection, as always. I managed to score a few new varieties:
Upstar -- a pink peony tulip
Margarita -- a purple peony tulip
Bastogne's Parrot -- a multi-toned red parrot tulip
Orange Toronto -- an orange gregii, multi-stemmed tulip
Allegretto -- a two-toned peony tulip (yellow and red)
and my favorite one from Menards--
Elegant Lady -- a two-toned lily tulip.

I can't wait to see Elegant Lady bloom. If it looks just like the picture, I will totally be kicking myself for not getting more!

The tulips I got from Brecks:
Rai -- a purple and green parrot tulip
Gemstone -- a rare, blue centered species
and one that I have tried to order for the last three years --
World Expression -- a two-toned, red and white tulip.

As you can see, I also got a few other bulbs, but it is always the tulips that I really look forward to. The other bulbs are just fillers.

Working on Overseas Garden Post

I am still going through all my trip pictures for an overseas garden post.
But in the meantime I thought you might enjoy some of my pictures from Iceland.

Thingvellir National Park


Geysir Park


Gullfoss

Marshmallow field


Seljalandsfoss



Skogasfoss



dry pond by glacier



Svartisfoss



Oraefajokull (glacier)



glacier flow


glacier flow with JD and SSB


glacier creeping over smooth mountain


ancient lava field


ancient lava field


butte and lake


Vik


Icelandic farm with glacier


Icelandic farm

Smokey Bay

cool silos

The Forgotten Garden

I got back from my trip last week Tuesday. It was a fantastic adventure! Iceland, Scotland, Ireland, Wales and England. SO much to see and do -- waterfalls, mountains, oceans, geysers, glaciers, amazing rock formations, castles, sea birds, dolphins, riding the train and ferry, blooming heather, Stonehenge, and, of course GARDENS!!

The climate in most of the places that I visited were mild and rainy, great conditions for growing things. I took lots of pictures. LOTS of pictures! And they will be coming once I sort through the 5027 pictures and video that we took!

There were enormous, gorgeous gardens at the castles that we visited, but even the homes and businesses had fantastic gardens as well. Every garden I saw gave me ideas for my own garden back home. I couldn't wait to get started.

But first... I have a new adventure! Taming the jungle that three weeks neglect made of my garden.






Hardly looks as though it could even be the same garden that I left (see previous post).
My vegetable garden looks even worse. I lost just about everything but the tomatoes and peppers.
Oh well. It was worth it!

Last Week In June

I was very busy last weekend so I didn't get a chance to post the pictures that I took of my garden, so I'm doing it today.

Lychnis coronaria. I got it at a local department store nursery several years ago. It is doing a wonderful job of multiplying and looks great with the variegated dogwood.

Pennycress. It is considered a weed by most, but I find it to be a very lovely garden plant. It has 3 stages. In the spring it is covered in tiny white flowers, much like baby's breath. The flowers turn into green coin-like seed pods. And finally there is this stage, the green seed pods mature into golden coins. This plant is an annual, but is easily propagates.

Delphinium. Of course, the delphinium. They are always fantastic.

A wide shot of the main garden. It still needs work, which is good, because I'm not ready to let it go on auto-pilot yet.

But, I must admit that it is lookin' pretty good!

Peony & Clematis

I forgot what these two peony are (the one pictured above and the one below are two different varieties), but I thought one was supposed to be Sarah Bernhardt -- neither look very pink to me, they are more wine color.

But still very beautiful. I have decided that I need more peony because there's not much else blooming in my garden this time of year, and they just pack such a punch, much like tulips.

The gazebo is starting to come together. Remember last year I planted clematis to climb the legs of the gazebo? It was worth it. All the clematis made it and have almost climbed to the top of their legs.

Comtesse de Bouchard was a spur of the moment choice that is really proving to be wonderful fate. I am in love!

A Few More Tulips

My tulips have pretty much reached the end for this year, but I realized that there were a few tulips that I hadn't shown off yet.

These are Angelique (mid-height, late). I highly recommend them. I first saw them at the Minnesota Arboretum. They look like a rose and peony had babies. I planted them near the chives so that the chives might lend a baby's breath look. I think it worked out.

They come with a bonus, they are muti-flowering. Each bulb produces about 5 flowers, so it doesn't take many to really fill in an area!

Maureen turned out to be one of my tallest tulip ever. It is very graceful looking and pure white. I think that they resemble boiled eggs.
I may have to move them -- I planted them at the front of the bed thinking that they would be stout!


Exotic Emperor (mid-height, mid-season) was a substitute for the Spring Green that I couldn't get my hands on. I planted them in the Asian garden due to the "emperor" part of its name. SSB (my husband) didn't like them at first, he thought they weren't very exciting; but when he saw that the green stripes stuck around for the entire show, he was digging them.


Claudia (mid-height, mid-season) were supposed to be a lily flowering tulip. I thought that they could have been a little more edgy, like the Maytime (a 9 year old tulip which has multiplied over the years and is one of my husband's favorites) -- but I enjoyed Claudia all the same. They have a nice glow about them.

The Shirleys (tall, mid-season) seem to be over whatever was bothering them last year. They are in perfect form. I thought by now they would have multiplied from the original three that I purchased (another 9 year old tulip!), but I guess I should just be happy that they come back so great year after year.

Are these hostas?
No! They are Chinatown tulips! My husband LOVES Greenland tulips, so I thought he might like these too. He does. They are the only tulip that I have seen with this kind of pattern on the leaves. They are great looking before they even bloom.

The flower doesn't look that spectacular when it first opens, but as it ages, the dirty pink brightens and looks fantastic -- plus the leaves keep the white edge throughout.

They are short, but you'd want these to the front anyway to show off the leaves.

Blue Heron (mid-height, late-season) was another tulip that looked less than appealing when it first bloomed. It looked muddy. But as it matured, the lavender filled the flower and these dark stripes appeared. It is a good thing that I gave it some time to redeem itself. I was ready to toss it when I first saw it; but now I want more!

There was something about Sweetheart (mid-height, mid-season) that caught my attention as I ended up buying several boxes of them from Menards. They were just what that spot needed! They looked like butter when they first began to bloom, but as they matured, the edges turned white making them even more beautiful. They went perfectly with the Sunrise tulips and the White Emperor tulips in the background.

Paradise Island (late-season) were touted to be "the rose tulip". They do look like roses, but they were also supposed to multi-flowering -- that didn't happen. I still like them though, but I wouldn't pay as much as I did for them.


These Abbas (mid-season) I got from Menards for about $3-$4 a box. They are a deeper red and look similar to the Paradise Island tulips. Although they aren't as full a peony tulip, I would get more because I have a plan for a grouping. Plus they were cheap enough.

Both the Albas and Paradise Islands are shorties. Plant to the front.

I had bought some of these Bright Parrot (mid-height, mid-late season) tulips two years ago from Brecks for my son. He loves fire colors and these fit that. These were the ones that the tulip picker came right into my yard after! She had pulled them up even in her zest to obtain these humungous beauties.

I liked them too, so when I saw them at Menards, I grabbed an armful of them. The ones I got from Menards bloomed just as big as the ones that I had gotten from Brecks. This has convinced me that Menards will be my first stop for tulips. They rock!

Another tulip I got from Menards, Queen of the Night (late season). I really wasn't expecting much from them, in fact, I almost didn't buy them. I'm glad that I did though. They really do look black! The flowers weren't as large as I thought they might be, but their color makes up for that.

They are another tall one, so put them to the middle to back of the bed.


And of course, my favorite tulip -- Princess Irene (short, mid-season). These tulips are 7 years old and still going strong and slowly multiplying. I don't even feed them bone meal because I forget that they are there when it comes time for a round of feeding. They don't seem to mind the neglect.
Strangely, as much as I love them, I have yet to purchase more.