With a Little Help from our Friends

Amanda’s Meadow starts the season with Narcissus poeticus – cheerful and fragrant.

Never has there been a time when I appreciated my friends more than right now.  I’m regularly talking with my gardening buds about what’s happening in our gardens and I have more pictures to share from here, there, and yon. (click on the small pictures for a closer look)

It is prime time for Epimediums in the Southern Appalachians.  These plants have various common names, but two of my favorites are Fairy Wings and Bishop’s Hat.  Elizabeth reminded me that we both bought E. ‘Domino’ at the Bullington plant sale last year.  I had to look around for it; found it in the Moss Garden.

Elizabeth’s garden is really lovely right now.  More from her garden.

Sunny’s Cherry at peak bloom.  Check out that Carolina blue sky!A recent homeowner in Charlotte is digging in and enjoying a few plants already in the landscape.

A few pictures from a discriminating South Carolina gardener.  The first plant is Stachyurus praecox, an early bloomer with showy dangling flower racemes.  Never heard of it before, but now I have one in a pot on my driveway awaiting a place in the garden.Also from South Carolina, an unusual Edgeworthia and a buttery Camellia.

And now for something completely different.  From Gary and Irwin’s garden in Florida, a shot of the tropical!And a few of their glorious orchids.

I found this little darling growing in a roadside ditch.  I didn’t know what it was until I called my plant-know-it-all friend Sieglinde who told me that it is Isopyrum thalictroides.  I thought that leaf looked like Thalictrum.  She has a patch growing in poor soil in her woods.Since I have time on my hands, I am studying the stages of leafout of my Japanese Maples.  I took pictures of all 30 or so on one morning.  Some were fully leafed out and some still in tight bud.  Budburst on these trees is beautiful.  Beeches are also stunning at budburst, but that’s still a ways off.

My earliest maple is Acer plamatum ‘Murasaki Kiohime’.  It is a shrubby little plant, 3′ high by 6′ wide.  It is often wounded by our notorious late frosts and is one of the few plants I take the trouble to cover when this happens.  The leaves are like a thousand little stars.We started this post with Amanda’s Narcissus poeticus, and I’ll finish with a few of my favorite Daffodils.

Thank you to all for sharing your gardens and for your friendship!