A sudden burst of spring!

When spring finally decided to descend on this part of Wisconsin, it did so with a vengeance! One day in the 80's and the next in the 50's... it's looking like our spring blooming season may be condensed to between two and three weeks. One hardly knows if they're coming or going! I once compared the bloom seasons of spring to the movements of a symphony... well this year we're playing Charles Ives! The '4th of July' from Ives work 'Holidays' is amazingly interesting in the very least... some may say cacophonous... all at once you hear all the sounds of a New England 4th of July... one upon the other...  yes, maybe cacophonous is an appropriate descriptor! So too our spring... cacophonous with all sorts of unusual sightings in the gardens occurring simultaeneously! Subtle... perhaps not but interesting... indubitably!

In the photo below are 'Wada's Memory' magnolia, one of my earliest blooming is cavorting with 'Elizabeth' magnolia, one of my latest blooming.

This is going to be a very "picture-laden" post. I took most of these between 5:30 a.m. and 8:30 a.m. this past Thursday prior to going in for my second surgery... which, by the way was successful. One more week of restrictions and I should be able to regain my gardening life... it's will have been a full month so I'm ready to get down and dirty!

Magnolias really have been the stars for the past couple weeks so I will share some pictures from their portfolios...

'Angelica' was amazing... especially the fragrance. The blooms are massive and the small branches bowed under their weight. With 1.5 inches of rain last night all vestiges of tepals departed leaving me excited for next season!

This soulangiana cultivar has been blooming beautifully for an extensive time, considering some of the high temps we've already experienced. I suspect it could well be 'Lennei' but am not certain of that.... the 2nd photo shows a still good looking bloom faded by 80+ degree weather. 

The only disappointment magnolia-wise this year has been 'Rustica Rubra'. I have a friend who has  a mature one in a very protected site and its bloom is outstanding. Once again all my flower buds were destroyed as it probably gets too much winter sun. I could try moving it, but with so many fully hardy cultivars to choose from, I really don't see the point and will fire up the chainsaw as soon as I'm able.

I have three plain old 'Soulangianas' growing along the road with a stellata. I love these young trees for the sheer mass of bloom they provide... it should be quite stunning a few years from now.

A Bill Seidle kobus selection that is starting to prove its value is 'White Rose' While bloom is still somewhat limited, I expect great things in the future...

If I were to choose a favorite magnolia right now, 'Simple Pleasures' might well be high on the list. Each year it blooms heavier than the previous year and has in a normal year a good month of bloom. Even now I can see many buds to develop over the course of the next couple weeks.

'Wada's Memory' has been spectacular this season and is still carrying a good number of blooms...

There are a number of other magnolias in bloom just now, with the later ones just beginning. By next week the remaining magnolias will be accompanied by the flowering crab apples.

Roseanne is just starting to open. despite being a mere youth, it carries a lot of blooms... I am partial to its color...

'Ann' is the first of the Little Girls series to bloom this season...

I'm still encouraging my little chance seedling that blooms so nicely with miniature blossoms...

'Verbanica' is another lovely soulangiana... my tree, a ground layer from a friend, is very young but I have admired from whence it came and look forward to its future beauty...

There are several more magnolias to begin their bloom cycle in the days to follow. One which has just started to open looks to be an amazingly lovely selection... its name is 'Blushing Belle' and this is the first time it has bloomed for me... at this point I would describe it as a soft peachy pink tone becoming more pink as the blooms age... it shows well from a distance, even with only one flower open...

'Butterflies' is opening and true to form, frost is indicated for Sunday night. This happens every year... My two 'Butterflies' are protected enough that the damage is generally minimal if the frost is light and not of a lengthy duration...

While the daffodils are slowing down... I really suspect it's time to divide many of them...

...and did I mention tulips? Here are a few...

I'll depart with a couple of favorites... Trilliums and Lathyrus vernus...

By the way... my foray into cypripediums is going well... 5 out of the 6 lady slippers are now showing leaf buds coming through the soil... this pleases me greatly as I was quite concerned about the soil amendments I made for their special little garden bed... so far, so good!

Larry

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The good, the bad, and the ugly...

There comes a time to everyone when we realize just how few things we actually have full control over. It has been a long time vision of mine to someday experience the perfect spring in the gardens... to that end I edge the beds in the fall and overseed the lawns, I plant hundreds of bulbs and wrap and protect a myriad of shrubs and trees.... but alas, there is little perfection in this spring as in many others...

By the way, to my surprise... that is a magnolia in bloom at this very minute! 84 degrees yesterday and 76 degrees today have that sort of effect on magnolias... where there was no swelling of flower buds two days ago, every magnolia in the place seems like it could burst forward at any moment. We'll chalk this up to the 'good' column, although cooler weather would keep them around longer.

This magnolia is of the soulangiana persuation, although I'm not sure what cultivar it actually is since it was sent mislabeled... 'Lennei' perhaps?

Before I continue with my soliloquy, let me show you a few more magnolias just now coming into bloom... they include, the stellatas...

And 'Wada's Memory'... Simple pleasures is a mid-season that is opening as well, but the blooms were too high up to capture at this point...

So... I would definitely count the magnolias amongst the good... let's skip to the ugly column. Last season's drought absolutely devastated the lawns and the snow load of winter didn't help much either. I over seeded in the fall with 50 lbs of grass seed and I have yet to see a single blade emerge... probably because we are very dry already with most showers missing us... while the early daffodils coming on strongly are in the good column... check out my really sad lawn, which I watered often last season... I suspect much of this is probably snow mold, a fungal infection ....

I would have replaced much of this lawn had I not ended up with surgery scheduled tomorrow and two weeks of pain meds that have caused me to sleep most of the day and night... so I guess we'll count that as the 'bad'. It's amazing how quickly one can lose strength in a situation such as this... I'm really hoping the second surgery a week from tomorrow won't be necessary. On top of it all, I will be missing "The Lion King" at the PAC friday night which I've been looking forward to for months (it's not been a real good two weeks, can you tell?)... but I digress... maybe all that grass seed will germinate yet!

As far as daffodils (this is in the good column for sure), cutting the foliage back by 2/3rds last season hasn't had any negative effects whatsoever... because we had excessive warmth in March and then cold, the foliage grew extremely long and inundated the daylilies planted between the daffodil clumps, necessitating removing some of it much earlier than normal...

...and these are just the early blooms... there are many hundreds more to come...

So there you have it... the good, the bad, and the ugly... I'll close with more good since it really outweighs all the rest... many hellebores are at peak with many more just now preparing to bloom. While a great many additions from last season appear to have died from the drought and the winter, some such as the hepatica are doing well. The jury is still out on many of the epimediums although several are showing some signs of life. I think that the soil settled under the weight of the snow and many crowns were left exposed. It's still early to say regarding the new cypripedium bed, although I have discovered one shoot coming through the pine needle mulch which gives me hope.

It would be great to be in control of it all, but life just doesn't work that way... 

Larry

Hepatica

Anemone

Hyacinths

A  couple nice double hellebores

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