Flowerbeds Part 4

The mid-Spring white daffodils were at their best.

The last quandrant of daffidils are yet to come, but starting.

One later planting of late yellow daffodils are blooming.

It looks good...

Some late clumps in the far backyard are nice too.

A closeup...

 

Flowerbeds Part 3

The 2nd blooming of the daffodils... The mid daffodils were opening.

And you can see a hint of the 3rd group at the left.

But the midddle bllom whites were at their best.

I love the changes from week to week.  Changes are better than "one-time-all-at once".

Flowerbeds Part 1

I've been slack about posting about the yard.  Too much griping about the computer (new one arrive 4-21 I hope).  So this starts 4 posts about the flowerbeds for this year, grouped by dates.

I covered the entire area of the main daffodil bed with black plastic last fall afrer the first hard freeze to try to smother the weeds.  Can't do it earlier than that because rain collects in small pools and mosquitos love that.  

When I saw the first daffodils emerge near the house (where it is warmer and they come up faster) I pulled all the plastic off.  There were some daffodils struggling to find light there already.  I should have realized that the black plastic warmed the soil.

But they recovered and greened up quickly.  So here are the first.

I planted them originally in pie-slice segments.  Daffodils come in varieties than emerge early-middle-late.  I thought the succession would look best that way.  Had I to do it again, I would have planted them randomly so that the entire  bed would be in partial bloom early to late.  But it seemed like a good idea at the time.

The earliest ones bloomed rapidly...

In the front yard, the same daffodils were also blooming.  Fortunately, I DID randomly plant early and late daffodils, so there are blooms March-April.  And I chose yellow for early and white for late, so it changes the front yard "look".

The Nandina bushes are lovely and hardy.  And I have 24 rooted and healthy ones growing from seeds I collected.  Some will grow along the drainage easement and some will form a property line with a neighbor.  They are very deer-resistant and around here, that is a very good thing.

A closeup of the early daffodils at their best...

And I have individual clumps in the back yard.  Daffodils are toxic to voles, so they just go on blooming every year.  These are probably 30 years old.

More old clumps.

More old clumps.

A nice hyacinth.  I originally planted 50 in a 4' circle.  They are not toxic to voles.  So this is one of the last (lucky) survivors who haven't been found yet.  They smell AMAZING!

Closeup of the main flowerbed early daffodils...

And from a different angle.  Well, I do walk around the beds.  

Two weeks later, the next batch were blooming and the older ones still had flowers.

Best pic of both together...

A mid-bloom clump.

The fullest bloom of the frontyard daffodils.

A closer pic...

I decided to plant daffodils shortly after I moved here.  Well, I knew they lived long (and prospered).  But there was a yard I drove past frequently (not in my neighborhood, but on a sidestreet shortcut to the grocery store) that had a large daffodil bed.  I admired it a couple of Springs before I realized "I can do that".  It took some work (nothing good is easy, or everyone would do it).

And I planted tulips and hyacinths among them.  The voles ate all of those.  So I bought mesh wire and made cages to protect a 2nd planting.  That worked better, but tulips don't live long and maybe the wire mesh small enough to keep the voles away were also too small for the hyacinths.  I need to mark where the cages are and dig them up to try again after the stalks of the surviving bulbs die back down.

Later blooms next post...

Spring Flowers

The blooming season has started!  

 

Flowers! Spring!

It is finally Spring.  And not just by the calendar, by flowers.  I am thrilled to have some...

The first daffodils...

These all come from one bulb I planted.  I remember that spot...

Crocuses growing where I didn't deliberately plant them.  Squrrels or just is soin I used from elsewhere?

My favorite crocus...

This last one is a very old planting in bad soil and that was covered by overgrown brambles and vines and still survive.  THIS year, they get full sunlight and attention...

Daffodils 2

So I had daffodils in some tubs and meant to replant them last Spring after they bloomed.  But didn't.  I got busy with other stuff.

I tipped the bins over last week and picked the bulbs out of the soil,  Wow, those bulbs loved the rich soil!  Most had multiplied into 4.  Well, I have this new island around a tree and boulder in the front yard.  About 40'x20'.  I tried planting Astilbe there, but the deer just kept pulling them up (couldn't eat them, but kept trying).  Well, I know they sure can't eat daffodils (toxic to most mammals). 

The bed was covered with large saucer magnolia leaves.  I raked them just off the bed so that I could use my little electric tiller (which is great for small areas) to kill the weeds.  I have a large tiller, but it isn't good in small areas.

I planted those recovered 100 bulbs in the front island. 

I am now utterly worn out.  I have put away all my planting tools.  I am done for the season...

And actually, this was several days ago.  I am really done.  I've pushed myself to my limit, getting inside before sunset and sitting in a chair exhausted.  I get muscle cramps from all the digging and bending.  I've been getting my hands clenching up, cramps in my legs, stitches in my sides.

I AM DONE FOR THE YEAR!

But oh next Spring is going to look SO wonderful...  It will all have been worth it. 

Daffodils

I wasn't just working on the hose reel platform this week.  I was planting daffodils too.  And a LOT of them.

The original plantings looked like this...

One quarter daffodils...  I decided to complete the circle this fall (avoiding where I had planted tulips and hyacinths in vole-proof metal cages) 2 years ago.  I ordered 500 daffodil bulbs and they arrived 3 weeks ago.  I looked at them all and said "OMG, WHAT was I thinking"?  How could I ever plant so many?

It took 2 hours per day for 4 days.  First, I thank technology for drill augers!


Attached to an electric drill, you can get fast holes  for bulbs to go into.  They even cut some small roots and lift out small rocks.  It takes some work, but works better than those cylinder push-down bulb-planters in rough soil.

I kept track of where I planted bulbs from day to day by surrounding the planted area with bright yellow nylon marine rope and leaving the closest row of bulbs unburied.

And I had to do some exploratory digging.  I had covered the tulip and hyacinth cages with cardboard cut to size and pinned with tent pegs.  And the whole are was covered with black plastic sheeting to smother the weeds and keep the bulbs dry (which they like).

But even then, I was surprised to discover that some of the cardboard markers rotted and some were loosened when a windstorm came through right after I removed the plastic.  Sad timing.  But the tent pegs were still there and I spend a whole afternoon finding them.  Which allowed me to replicate where the cardboard covers had been,

The recreated covers looked like this...

I planted all the new daffodil bulbs around the cardboard covers the other 3/4 on the bed.

Almost.  I came short a 6'x5' section at the end.  Home Depot had 40 bulb bags on clearance.  Most were blends and I didn't want THAT!  But I found ONE bag of one kind (King Alfred) and JUST barely filled up that last area.

Bed Complete!

But I had some in some tubs that needed a permanent space.  That's tomorrow...

Flower Pictures

After the Spring Bulbs are gone, I'm offerring a cascade of pictures of them.  Just to share and remember.