Daffodils - Division 3

Division 3 daffodils are 'small cupped' ones. The cup is less than 1/3 the length of the petals. I didn't exactly measure these, but you can start to see the proportions if you look at enough of them. My major problem with deciding from pictures is that so often they are taken straight on and you can't really tell. There I'm depending on my memory of what the flowers look like. Unless you're entering flowers in a show, it really doesn't matter all that much anyway. Pretty flowers are pretty flowers and names or classifications are pretty irrelevant when you're just out enjoying a walk in the garden.
This first one is 'Ring Leader' and has a pretty intense red rim on the cup. It would probably be considered a 3 WWY-GYO.
This next one is almost a beige sort of color - a bit unusual. It's name is 'Oryx'. It is really a pale yellow, but in some lights it looks definitely more beige. I'd call it a 3 YYW-Y

I've really started liking the pink daffodils, even though in some years thay are more apricot. When the pink is good, they are exceptional, especially since the pink color is usually paired with a chalk white which just emphasized it even more. This one is 'Elizabeth Ann'. A perfectly feminine name for a dainty, feminine daffodil. 3W-WWP. If there is more than one color on either the petals of the cup, they divide in thirds so you would know now much of the section is one color and how much another which is why the 'W' repeats in the code.

Last for this morning is 'Centerville'. The petals are a creamy white rather than the chalk white of the last one. 3W-YYO. They are still considered white for classification since there is nothing between white and yellow colorwise and these definitely aren't yellow.

Yesterday turned out to be quite a nice day after the fog burned off. I did way too much weeding and mulching and just general garden cleanup. Today I hope to get to spend some time in the veggie garden if the soil has dried enough to walk on safely and at least get the broccoli and cauliflower plants put in the ground. Strawberries too if I have time. Too much to do and not nearly enough time or energy.

Jane

Daffocils - division 2

Missed you all yesterday, but I had to leave here way too early and when I finally sat down to write in the late afternoon, Blogger was having some sort of outage for maintenance.
Back to daffodils today.
I guess it would make sense to just go down the division of daffodils in numerical order, so today we're on to division 2. Rather than rewrite all of the details of the classification system, if you're interested just follow this link to the American Daffodil Association's page which does a wonderful job of describing things.
http://daffodilusa.org/daffodils/classdefs.html
This first one today is a lovely, chalk white with a pink rimmed cup. 'Bilbo' would be classified as 2W-WP. It is probably a mid to late season bloomer.


This next one is 'Gracious Lady', 2W-YP. I'm not looking these up, in a registration book, just doing this by sight. Sometimes pinks are more apricot or orange and reds can be red or pink of orange, depending on the weather conditions. Some pinks some out more orange and then go to pink or it can be the other way around. From year to year you can't quite tell what to expect. This year our pinks are expecially good, so maybe heat gives you the weird colors since we aren't exactly having a heat wave here lately.
This pretty is 'Loch Naver' and is one of those that I got from a nursery in Northern Ireland. It would be a 2Y-YO. This whole group of daffodils, there are about about 150 of them in total, were really late bloomers the first few years they were here. I don't know if it was the change in climate or what. They are now more in line with the others in the yard, though still slightly later. They are also in more shade since they are interplanted with my tree peonies, so I'm not sure exactly why they are slightly later blooming.
It's really hard to choose what pictures to put up with so many pretty daffodils out right now. I'll keep up with them and then go on the all of the other pretties that are starting. Redbuds are now out and magnolias continue to be gorgeous and some of the viburnums are also beginning to bloom. I didn't have to see that the viburnums were starting, you can smell their sweet scent all over the yard. Bleeding hearts have the beginnings of bloom, expecially the red ones and trilliums are everywhere.
Jane

Daffodils - Division 1

These are the daffodils you think of (at least I think of) as traditional daffodils - the ones that were around 50 years ago when I thought daffodils were all yellow and looked like 'King Alfred' which is one of the old standards.
This first is one of Hank's favorites. You can't really tell from the picture, but it is a really large flower and pure white. Sometimes when it first comes out the cup is slightly shaded as it is here, but it is very quickly absolutely chalk white.

This next one is 'Pineapple Prince' and is a relatively new one in the garden. It is almost a greenish yellow when it first comes out and has a band of white at the base of the petals and the bas of the cup.

This one is about as different from that as you can get with its pink cup and white petals. It's a large flower but still looks so delicate.

A note on color coding for daffodils. If you come across any of the specialty catalogs, you'll get a good description of what the flowers will look like without ever seeing a picture. They will be listed with a code that starts with a number, in the case of the above it would be 1 and then there are up to 6 letters divided into two groups. The blossom above would be 1W-P. The color coding moves from the outside of the petals (the first group of letters) to the inside and the coding for the cup from the base to the end. I'll try and put the official coding for all of the pictures from now on.

More rain today, the old 'April showers bring May flowers' stuff, I guess, but I'm not getting anything done outside and we open for the season in less than 2 weeks.

Jane

Daffodils - Doubles

I've written about a lot of the spring bulbs, but up until now haven't tackled the daffodils since they are such a large group, especially in my gardens. They are just everywhere from one end to the other, between all of the peonies and scattered throughout the daylilies. I think the best way is to tackle one division at a time and this morning it will be the doubles.
Daffodils have been divided into thirteen divisions for classification purposes. Miniatures have their own division which doesn't have a number since they can be a number of different shapes. A daffodil is in the miniature division if the bloom is under 1.5 inches in diameter. Doubles are in division 4.
This first one is called 'Christmas Valley'. It is a deep rose, but I expect that with a Christmas name, it might be more red some years. Colors on daffodils are extremely weather dependent. Pinks and reds are expecially variable.

This next one is 'Pink Parade'. This one is a pretty reliable pink, rarely coming out in that orange/peach color that so many pinks do.

I like this one. It's quite bright and called 'Smokey Bear'. No idea where the name comes from, but that is probably the case with most named plants.

This double is has orange/deep gold for its extra petals and is called 'Grosvenor'.

This last one is 'Cheerfulness' and is a double, but is also a tiny flower with 3 or more blooms on a scape. This one is different from the others in a major way besides size. It is extremely fragrant, smelling much more like a hyacinth than a daffodil. One small scape can fill a room with fragrance. It is more properly classified as a miniature, but since it is, by appearances, a double, I've added it here. I'll probably do that with the other miniatures as I work my way through the division.

Off this morning to neaten up the garden at our local post office. When they finally built our new post office (the old one burned and they had been using a room at the firehouse for over 3 years) the postal service in one of their dumber moves, built it with a garden space in front. That's nice, but the postmaster isn't allowed to 'garden' it during business hours (though they're expected to clean the building) and there is no money allocated to planting or upkeep. We volunteered to do it and planted grasses and daffodils around the two light poles, added a variegated sweet gum and put hostas at the base, put daffodils around their sign by the road and then put perennials in the bed at the front of the building. Everything is growing well, but just needs a bit of weeding and some fresh mulch. It does perk up what would otherwise be a pretty ugly prefab building.

Happy Birthday to me.

Jane

Iris japonica

Iris japonica is not an outdoor plant here except in the summer, but it lives (and blooms) happily in my greenhouse over the winter. it is about 18" tall in the pot, though it would be half again as tall if it could live in the ground. It is from Japan and China and is found there in relatively wet grasslands on hillsides, or at the edges of open forests. As a potted plant it has no problems I can think of and I've never seen any pests on it. The blooms last a few days and it often blooms twice a year, once in the greenhouse and then again outside during the summer. I have 2 pots of it now since it had gotten way too big for one. The blooms are about 4 inches across and mostly white with just the little bit of purple and gold. I've had these pretty much forever and would recommend them even if you have to grow them in pots.
We had an inch of rain last night - yeah!
Jane

Catching up

First, this morning, an invitation for any of you close enough to stop into the gardens. Our daffodils are at peak bloom so we're going to open the gardens tomorrow afternoon, April 11th, from noon to 5 for anyone who wants to walk among the daffodils and maybe take some home for your table. Can't promise that I'm all cleaned up and ready for the season, but the daffodils are definitely worth the 45 minutes or an hour it takes to walk through the gardens. Hope to see you all on Saturday afternoon.
This was sold to me as Ranunculus 'Brazen Hussy' but it has mottled foliage and not the solid black so I'm not sure if it is the same thing, a variation or a different plant. Same pretty flowers, though.
The next one is a double flowered Ranunculus which has naturalized out as Glasshouse Works. No such luck here, yet, but it has formed a nice large clump.

This is Ranunculus 'Brazen Hussy' in bloom. I wish they stayed around all summer, but even though the flowers bloom over a fairly long time, the whole thing will go dormant once the hear gets here. They self seed and come try from see, so they seem to be popping up everywhere this time of year and also seem to flower the first year.

This is another of our double Hellebores. Can't get enough of these flowers this time of year.

Last is one of our oddities. This is the bloom from Petasites hybridus. It blooms much later than all of the others in the garden, not blooming until the leaves are emerging - very un-petasites-like as the others bloom long before the leaves appear. This bloom starts out looking somewhat like a red, warty, morel and then the stem gets longer and the top elongates and then the blooms open. It makes fluffy seeds that fly around like milkweed. It seems to hybridize freely with the other hellebores and we have a number of seedlings in the vicinity that are like none of the others in the yard.

It's about to rain so I'm off to take pictures before I need my canoe to get around the yard.

Jane

Ornithogalum

Ornithogalum, Star of Bethlehem, is a late spring bloomer. Here you see it next to a hosta. Unlike most of our other spring bulbs, this one came from Europe and so will thrive in places that are a little damper and possibly a little shadier than the tulips and daffodils. They grow about 6 inches tall, maybe a bit more and are good in a rock garden. It will naturalize if it's happy. The outsides of the petals are a light green and the flowers close up for the night, sometimes even in late afternoon, and open when the sun hits them in the morning. Not a good trait in a cut flower, so don't grow them for that purpose. This is one thing that we grew when I was growing up and I still love them. Not fancy or anything, just a nice childhood memory.
So many things are starting to bloom or come up that I don't know where to head next. Probably tomorrow I'll play catchup and post some pictures I promised to take over the past week or so and maybe some things just coming up. It will be a nice sunny day and so perfect for a walk around the garden (after the weeding is done).
Jane