Catching up with May Flowers

With many activities happening on weekends during this time of year, there is little time to keep up with the garden, and less time to write about the whole thing.  So, in a attempt to catch up, here are some photos taken throughout the month.

 Here is the Gold Sovereign tree peony, which is growing in the North garden.  This was originally bought for our house in Washington, DC, and grew there for many years.  It was moved out to Maryland a few years before selling the DC house.  I have had trouble finding  place where it can be happy, particularly since it seem much more susceptible to blight in the humid air near the water.  But you would never know that in the Spring, when the leaves are fresh and green, and the pure yellow flowers open up to show the pin cushion of stamens on the inside.  In the fall I will move part of it over into the labyrinth, since I am hoping it would get more sun and be less affected by the blight.

Also in the North garden is this climbing rose.  The name is written down somewhere, but for the sake of getting pictures up, I have to leave it out.  This rose was spectacular this year, with dozens of flowers cascading from its stems.  The pictures that I took were never able to capture the glory of them, so I decided to show this close-up of an opening flower and nearby bud.  Since this rose bush can been seen from our bedroom window, it is quite the sight when getting up in the morning.

The North Garden our secret garden, since it is surrounded on two sides by the house, on the north side by a board fence, and the entrance has a magnolia on one side and Japanese Acuba on the other, leaving a four foot wide entrance.  It could also be called the Deer Candy Garden, since it is packed with hostas, daylillies, and of course the rose, all of which are favorites of those long-legged Rats.

Here is a view of my false indigo, Baptisia sphaerocarpa 'Screaming Yellow' which grows under the Katsura tree in the middle of the labyrinth.  In the four years in that location, it has become quite large, making a ball of foliage that is over three feet in diameter.  I have to trim off some of the side where it crowds the path of the labyrinth.  It blooms earlier than the other perennials, making a good transitional source of color after the bulbs have finished. 

If you look closely, you can see a bee approaching one of the flowers.  I have had a lot of bee activity, so I hope I am doing my part to support healthy colonies in the area.  While many like to leave the seed heads on their false indigo, I trim them off of this plant.  It is right in the middle of the whole garden, and the black and dead seed heads make the whole area look like it is not being maintained.  I leave them on the plants growing down the side of the ravine, and I hope some of the seeds will find places to grow and add more color and soil stability there.

Here you can see one of the Irises that I brought back from my Mom's garden in Amelia, Ohio in 2009.  Cheryl and I had gone in the Spring to clean-up and replant sections of the flower beds.  In the process we found a number of Iris Mom had planted, which were being overwhelmed by a ground cover.  While we moved many up to the front of the house, there were lots of small pieces that I brought back and stuck into the flower beds in the labyrinth.  This is the first one to bloom, and you can see the false indigo behind it in the picture.  I love combinations of yellow with blue and purple!  I wish I could say I planned it, but I really had no idea what the variety is.

In researching Iris grower's websites, I believe this is a "Costa Rica" Iris.  It is quite beautiful, and reflects Mom's delight in dramatic, multi-hued flowers.

This is another Iris with family associations.  There are many clusters of these iris around the labyrinths, and I expect that many of our neighbors will have them starting in the fall.  These original clumps of these came from the pastures around my childhood home in Pleasant Valley, New York. When I was a young teenager, I would cut large clumps of stems and walk around the neighborhood selling them at 10 for 5 cents.  A bargain, since I made sure there were also more buds on each stem.  I once did some research into the various types of Japanese Iris, of which this is probably a species.  But I cannot find my notes, so I am unable to list that here. 

I love these, very simple and clean flowers that go back a long way in my life.

This is the Siberian Iris "Jeweled Crown" which was new last Spring, and has grown much larger just in the year.  It had a series of buds opening, so the length of bloom lasted almost two weeks, making quite the statement.  With the rate it is spreading, this will soon become scattered throughout the labyrinth, and a few years later, into our neighbor's gardens.  But, isn't that part of the fun of gardening - spreading the joy.

There are more pictures to be shown and stories to be told, but they will have to wait for another time.