Thursday's Flowers

Tulip 'Quebec'
Tulips here are pretty much planted as annuals since they don't reliably return. We have a few, especially the species ones planted in with the cactuses that come back, but the fancy tall ones make a wonderful show the first year and then may or may not return.

Trillium cuneatum
This is a smaller, or at least shorter, trillium and is the first one to bloom this year.

Spirea thungerbii 'Mellow Yellow'
This is the most amazing Spirea. It is a bush about 3 feet tall and wide and, up until this year it had a sprinkling of tiny white flowers in early spring. This year it has really come into its own and is just covered. It has become one of my favorites.

Sanguinaria canadensis 'Multiplex'
The double Bloodroot blooms a week or so after the single flowered kind. I'm not sure if it is always that way, or that we have the double flowered ones in a colder, shadier place. The single one self seeds, but I've never seen that with the double one. The clump expands, but I don't get new clumps a distance from the parent plant.

Muscari armeniacum 'Blue Magic'
Once the daffodils are all up and blooming the Muscari start. We have added one or two different ones every year. This is a tall one and have shadings of blue from darker at the bottom to lighter at the top.

Muscari 'Alba'
The white flowered muscari seems a little more difficult and is a smaller plant. As with many white blooms, as they start to face, they 'brown' a bit and are less pretty. The same thing happens to the blue ones, but the blue color covers the fading blooms better.

Magnolia loebnerii 'White Rose'
Our most recent Magnolia addition that is blooming well for the first time this year. The blooms are very much like a small white rose and smell wonderful. Most all of the early magnolias are blooming now, though I'm not sure what they'll look like after tonight as we are expecting a freeze. Things closer to the ground should be all right since the ground is quite warm. We've covered back up all of the potted things, but they should be able to come back out by Saturday. I hope things don't look too bad for the Open Garden on Sunday. Daffodils should be all right. They can take quite a bit. Our fondest hope is that the maples will be in enough bloom that the buds will freeze and we won't have to spend so much time next year pulling out maple seedlings from all of the gardens around the house.
Jane