Anenomes

(Well, my initial "blog from your phone" experiment was hosed up by gigantic pictures. I've changed my settings...let's see if this is any better.)

I've been enjoying the spring bulbs this year. Our weather has been really mild and everything seems to be popping up early. I remembered seeing a single anemone under the Kousa dogwood last spring (before I was obsessively taking pictures in the garden daily). This year, I was lucky enough to find three. I love Spring!

Daffodils!

I'm trying something new: blogging from my phone. We'll see how it turns out...anyway, here are some of the daffodil varieties in bloom now.

Brent and Becky's Bulbs

Brent and Becky's Bulbs is another company whose catalog I look forward to every single year.

They're a small, family company, located in Gloucester, Virginia.  Their catalog features the typical bulbs: daffodils, tulips, crocus, and hyacinths.  It also has unusual selections, such as Bellevalia, Ornithogalum, Rhodophiala, and dozens of other bulbs I've never seen anywhere else.  They have a really large selection of daffodils and even sell some they have hybridized themselves.  I've never purchased tulips from them (mainly because I'm not a huge tulip fan), but they seem to have a large selection of those as well, especially of more reliable species type.

In the past, I've mainly ordered grape hyacinths, crocuses, and the shade garden collection.  Buying a collection was a good way to become familiar with some bulbs I had never heard of before.  I grew quite fond of Arum italicum and Crocus tommasinianus, so I'll be ordering those individually this year.

This past spring, I found two plants in the new yard I've never grown before: Fritillaria meleagris and Nectaroscordum siculum Bulgaricum.  Both were growing without much care, so I don't have to worry about whether they're suited to the yard or not.  I'll be buying more of both.

Finally, there are two plants I'm going to go out on a limb for.  Erythronium is a type of native lily sometimes called a trout lily or a dog-tooth violet.  They seem like they might be a Spring ephemeral plant and are best suited to moist woodlands.  The cultivar I'm choosing from Brent and Becky's is Erythronium revolutum 'White Beauty', which is marked as one of their favorites.  The other new-to-me bulb is Amarcrinum, also known as Crinodonna.  The big selling point of this bulb is it is rodent and deer proof.  It also blooms in mid-summer through fall.  They're not cheap, so I'm going to try one and see how it does.

Do you have any favorite unusual bulbs?

Look what I found: Allium bulgaricum

(Edited to add: it looks like the botanical name has changed and this is now Nectaroscordum siculum var. bulgaricum.)

Also known as Sicilian Honey Lily or Mediterranean Bells.

As this was coming up, I thought it was an Allium of some sort, but I was expecting one of the purple pom-pom types.  I really enjoy the purple pom-poms, but I think this is even better.  There are three total, but only two have blooms.  The delicate combination of pinky-mauve and green on the flowers reminds me of my favorite Lenten rose.

Unfortunately, these plants are in a bed that will soon be gone.  It looks like the bed was originally shade plants and bulbs in between two trees.  Before we moved in, one of those trees was removed (although some of the stump still remains), which made the bed a lot more sunny.  I'm not sure if some plants died in the sun or were damaged when the tree was removed, but when we bought the house, it was obvious that some annuals were plunked down so the spot wasn't just bare mulch. 

The remaining tree is dying so we'll have to have it removed.  Instead of putting a new sun bed in the same spot, I think we're just going to try to grow grass*.  We've dug up most of what was in there (ferns, vinca major, bugleweed, and a tiny azalea).  I'll need to remember to dig up these bulbs as soon they're done blooming.  There are some other bulbs that came up earlier in the spring (galanthus and scilla) that I need to pull up as well.

I just need to figure out where to put them...

*I know - we're awful people.

Look what I found: fritillaria meleagris

I found my camera!

Saturday was a horrible rainy mess, but on Sunday morning I was able to walk around the yard with my wonderful husband.  I took pictures until the memory card was full.

One of the first things we found was this beautiful little flower.





It  is so dainty, I thought it might be some sort of spring ephemeral...like a trout lily or something?

After some Internet research, I believe it is a fritillaria meleagris.

Fritllaria meleagris is commonly known as the Checkered Lily, the Guinea -hen Flower, or the Snake's Head Lily.  According to Wikipedia, it is the only species of Fritillary native to Great Britain.  There is a great deal more information available at one of my favorite plant websites, Paghat's Garden.

Ours (we only found one) is growing in the shade of a large juniper bush.  It's very sweet and I think I'll have to get some more to plant in the fall.