Ol' Blue Eyes Are Back

Day 196: Frank Sinatra might have sung it with a slight grammatical revision: Ol' Blue Eyes Are Back. Brunnera "Jack Frost" and Lithodora are center stage in my flower beds currently, the only blue I'm likely to see outdoors for at least the next week. And they are intense! While Brunnera resembles those pesky forget-me-nots I keep pulling, it does not have the same tendency to spread. The foliage of "Jack Frost" is particularly lovely, and even once the flowers have faded, it brightens the shady area at the end of my carport. Lithodora is a ground cover, evergreen foliage reminiscent of rosemary, and even in winter, it nearly always provides at least a few winks of its blue eyes. I love it when my garden is singing the blues!

I've Got The Blues

Day 207: I've got the blues, and I mean that in the best possible way. I had never realized how difficult it was to find plants with vibrantly blue flowers until I started trying to theme my flower beds. I started with delphiniums because they came with the house, planted lobelia to fill in and then promptly regretted it when it turned weedy. What other possibilities were available for a true blue? I tried cornflowers, but could only find them in a mix of colours which leaned strongly toward pink. Blue columbine was a must-have, and I found several variations, pulling out the old pink-rose ones and replacing them with blues and purples. Then I discovered Lithodora, a creeping groundcover which is as blue a blue as you could possibly ever hope to find. Little by little, my garden began singing the blues. My, that's music to my eyes!

As Blue As It Comes

Day 218: You want blue? Lithodora will give you blue almost non-stop! Even over the winter, a few flowers held on, but once the weather warmed up, this dainty, sturdy ground cover took off at high speed. It has a mounding habit, but also spreads rapidly and will form a nice cascade over a rockery or low wall. It isn't difficult to confine, although you'll need to trim it back a couple of times during the growing season if you want a more structured look in your plantings, but if you want a carpet of blue, let it run and enjoy the intensity.

May Day Bouquet

Day 200: Sound & Fury Morris is dancing the sun up at Gasworks Park in honour of May Day, and I will have been on the road for several hours before dawn. That won't prevent the May faeries from carrying out my instructions to leave this lovely May basket on your doorstep, though. Okay, in some cases it will arrive a little early; we must make allowances as the need arises. It would seem that the practice of leaving May baskets for friends and neighbours has all but gone by the wayside, in my opinion a sad thing for such a lovely old custom to fall from use. I have fond memories from my childhood of constructing paper baskets and filling them with pretty posies, sometimes purloined from the flowerbeds of the very neighbours who were the intended recipients of the baskets. And if no cultivated blossoms were to be had, there were always dandelions and forget-me-nots and the occasional fern to brighten someone's day with a floral consideration. It was the thought behind the remembrance: you are my neighbour and my friend. Here is a gift from a simpler time, my May basket for you.

Virtual Tour

Day 227: My readers have often heard me speak of my lackadaisical approach to gardening, but over the last several years, I've put more effort into it than previously, putting in new flowerbeds, planting trees and shrubs, working in soil amendments and so on. Well, I am reaping much greater rewards than anticipated for the little effort those labours have actually been, and this year, I am pleased to say that my yard actually looks like a gardener lives here. Please join me for a virtual tour of a few of the plants currently in bloom.

We'll start in the upper left corner with Bachelor's Buttons. They are regarded as something of a pest by many people, but they remind me of my mother's garden when I was very young. I nicked my plant from a roadside ditch where it had strayed from someone's garden. It grows like a weed, so I maintain it to keep it from spreading.

The second image is of the Bridal Wreath Spiraea I added to the front yard last year, again a plant which recalls the gardens of my youth. My grandmother had a huge one. Mine is only about two feet tall, having grown about a foot since I planted it.

Next in line is a commercial cultivar of the blue Columbine familiar to most Montanans. I purchased it as a tiny start a year ago as part of my colour replacement plan to substitute blues for pinks. It is my favourite Columbine.

The daisies in the fourth photo are Delospermum, an annual. They fill the top of a small strawberry jar. They are succulents, and therefore can survive near-drought conditions. I couldn't decide which of three colours I liked best: orange, yellow or red, so I got all three.

The bottom row starts with Siberian Iris, and yes, these can also become quite a pest. Mine came with the house, and I thin them out every few years to keep them from taking over the yard.

Next is the lilac, and thereby hangs a tale. It was not in good shape, so I took the recommendation of a gardening handbook and hacked it off a foot above ground level. The manual assured me that it would come back to full glory in four years. Only this year, approximately fifteen years from its major surgery, is it in full and lavish bloom. Lesson learned. I'll never do that again.

Oriental poppies are a flower I can't hate but can't exactly love, either. They also grow like weeds and spread wildly. It took me ten years to remove the last traces of this one's forebears from the east-side flowerbed, but I couldn't bear to kill it off entirely. It now lives in the "Barren Wasteland" between my house and garage, happy as Larry and providing a blast of colour where it's really needed.

Lily-of-the-valley brings back memories of sitting on my grandmother's back steps when I was three or four years old, surrounded by sweet fragrance. The scent was one Grandma also wore as perfume: Muguet de Bois.

Last is Lithodora, its vibrant stars so shockingly blue that visitors can hardly believe they're real. As far as I'm concerned, it can take over the entire bed beside the driveway, a spot in which it seems to be quite happy.

There are other things in bloom in my yard as well: Bleeding-heart, Kerria, fat blood-red peonies, heather, snapdragons, the Akebia vines...and there are even more things to come, to say nothing of shrubs and ferns and other foliage plants. When I look out over the garden now, somehow I forget all about those days of weeding until my back ached and my fingernails were broken and filthy. It's been worth it all.

Rainbow In The Garden

Day 8: Time for a confession, here...yes, I arranged this shot, but when I saw the brilliant colours of the dogwood leaf in proximity to the Lithodora, I couldn't resist the opportunity to capture a rainbow.

Most of the leaves are still hanging on our deciduous trees despite some rather windy conditions of late, the exception being the big-leaf maples which are starting to look weary of carrying their gold. Nearly all of the vine maples (a species with much smaller leaves) took a miss on turning red and went straight from an unenthusiastic yellow to a shopworn brown. The dogwood (a "red" cultivar in my yard) is green but dull and without its summer luster, though a few leaves like this one seem to insist that autumn is for celebrating. I'm sure it will convince its cousins before too long!

Getting Down And Dirty

Day 164: It's time to get down and dirty at my house! I darted out between rain showers today to add two juniper tams ("Furzee") and one more pink heather to the new bed, an extension of the barked area beside my driveway of almost 100%. As soon as they become available, I'll pick out one more hardy fuchsia to keep the hummingbirds happy, and I may add another Lithodora for colour.

Planted last year, Lithodora "Grace Ward" held a few of its intensely blue flowers all winter long, something which recommends it highly. It's not easy to find colour in winter, and the bright blue eyes of this mounding groundcover are a cheering sight on a chilly day. The evergreen leaves are reminiscent of rosemary, though much more closely packed and slightly furry. In summer, it becomes a mat of brilliant blue as it puts on new growth. I was happy to see that it took readily to living in one of the colder corners of Zone 7, and even if I don't install another plant in the new bed, there are several other spots in my yard where it would be quite content.