Eyed verbenas

Eyed verbenas 

I was tempted to call this post "auricula-eyed verbenas", but I'm not sure if these modern eyed verbenas are identical to the ones called "auricula-eyed" more than a century ago. In doing a Google search, I also learned that there are modern seed-grown strains of sweet williams which are called auricula-eyed. I'll be on the lookout for those.

Verbenas in solid colors are handsome as bedding plants, but for cutting I prefer these with the white eye. The eye gives them an old-fashioned charm lacking in the ones with solid colors. Those in the image above are probably two of the modern Quartz strains.  

Poppy in search of girl

Does this poppy flower remind you of anything? It does me: I can't look at it and not be reminded of Vermeer's painting Girl with a Red Hat. Here's a link to the Vermeer painting - see for yourself!

http://www.essentialvermeer.com/catalogue/girl_with_a_red_hat.html#.V18S8RFVgoI

Poppies like this were well known in Vermeer's seventeenth century Delft.

This poppy is one of the ones often sold under the bogus names Papaver laciniatum and Papaver paeoniflorum; in fact, it's one of the many cultivated garden forms of the opium poppy. Unlike the more familiar corn poppies, forms of Papaver rhoeas, these garden opium poppies produce comparatively huge flowers - the name paeoniflorum, which means peony flowered, is no exaggeration. On the other hand, unlike the corn poppies, they have a very brief season of bloom, and the individual flowers are not likely to last more than a couple of days in our climate.

Here's a link to more information about Vermeer and the art world in general:

https://www.artsy.net/artist/johannes-vermeer

Tall bearded irises: a painterly view

Tall bearded irises May 2016

The sensory overload in my gardens now is almost overwhelming! The sense of exuberance provided by the abundance of new growth, the colors, the fragrances - it's almost too much. Thousands of rose buds are beginning to open, tall bearded irises are in full bloom. At home, the noisette roses on the south side of the house are providing an avalanche of soft yellow, sweetly fragrant blooms.
I'm taking lots of pictures, sometimes a couple of dozen in a few  minutes. Working that fast is an invitation for mistakes, and a fascinating one occurred the other day.
When I got home and downloaded that day's images, I had a couple of apparent duds. I almost deleted them, but one in particular caught my eye: it's definitely a keeper! That's the one you see above: I've already got an 18" x 24" print out hanging on the living room wall. From a few feet away, it looks like a painting, not a photo. It reminds me of the color plates sometimes seen in early twentieth-century gardening books. To my eyes this image has wonderful qualities of color and composition. And that's not self-praise: I had nothing to do with it. It was pure serendipity!

Pansies

Frizzle Sizzle pansies 

This year of all years I'm glad there are pansies in the garden. They are the most cheerful thing in the garden right now. Week after week of rain has not marred their cheerful faces. If anything, they are better this year than they usually are.
This has been a rough year for some of the early bloomers: the tree peony season this year was mostly a flop: the buds developed during a period of drought and the earliest flowers were small and sometimes misshapen. And then the rains came: one by one the buds swelled with the water and then began to flop and rot. The early herbaceous peonies had the same fate.
The arillate irises would have been ruined but for the improvised rain shelters which did their job well. Last night we had hail during one of the thunderstorms: the thunder and pounding of the hail woke the dog and me up.
Early roses, day lilies, kniphofias, late herbaceous peonies  and bearded irises are blooming now, and so are cornflowers and corn cockle. When the sun returns, the first corn poppies should open.  With all the rain, the coming rose surge should be spectacular. If and when the rain ends. 

Lychnis viscaria

Lychnis viscaria "splendens 'Feuer' " 

This handsome old-fashioned flower is largely neglected in our gardens now. It reminds me a bit of lavender, and a mass of it in full bloom must be striking. The one in the image above is that sold by Jelitto as "splendens 'Feuer' ". I'm beginning to take a more serious interest in the genera Lychnis and Silene: lots of charming old-timers go around under those names. 

Iris iberica elegantissima

Iris iberica elegantissima 

A few days before Iris kirkwoodiae bloomed, Iris iberica elegantissima bloomed. How's that for an embarrassment of riches?
The name of this iris might be confusing to most modern readers. It has nothing to do with the Iberian Peninsula of modern geography. The name refers to the ancient kingdom now usually called Caucasian Iberia. According to the Pacific Bulb Society wiki, this species occurs in Turkey, Iran and Armenia. 

Iris kirkwoodiae

Iris kirkwoodiae 

Iris kirkwoodiae 

Iris kirkwoodiae 

In March 2012 I posted about one of the great gardening experiences during my 20s: the flowering in my garden of Iris susiana,  the famous mourning iris. If you don't know the plant, take a look at that post to get an idea of what the excitement is all about:
http://mcwort.blogspot.com/2012/03/iris-susiana-legacy-slide.html

Now, forty-five years after Iris susiana bloomed in the garden, one of its close relatives (perhaps one of its parents) bloomed up at my community garden plots. Ever since I learned about it years ago, I've been on the hunt for a reasonably priced rhizome of this one, Iris kirkwoodiae. It's very similar to Iris susiana; in fact, that long endured longing for the mourning iris  is now largely assuaged.

The seed game

Zinnia 'Sombrero' from seed purchased in 1996!

I acquire a lot of seeds, and most of them end up in the refrigerator. The seeds of many plants seem to retain their viability indefinitely if they are stored cold. I used to think "cold" meant frozen - some seeds stored in the freezer do remain viable for decades - and that's from my own experience. But seeds stored in the refrigerator at temperatures above freezing also last and last.
In the image above you see germinating seeds of Zinnia 'Sombrero' : those seeds were purchased in March 1996. That makes them over twenty years old (and they were probably a year old when packaged).  As you can see in the image, they are giving good germination. And they germinated quickly: it took only four days for them to show signs of life.
Some of you might be horrified by the potting medium. I use unsterilized soil mixed from whatever is available. The pots stand outside in the fresh air and sunshine, exposed to whatever weather occurs. Fresh air and sunshine keep the bad guys in check.
Update, September 4, 2016: when these plants matured and bloomed they proved to be misnamed. They are zinnias, but they do not have the 'Sombrero' color pattern. 

Like a pansy in the velvet of its medium scale...

"Like a pansy in the velvet of its medium scale..." is the way early twentieth-century soprano Geraldine Farrar described the voice of Amelita Galli-Curci.
Other flowers with this velvety quality are the roses 'Tuscany' and 'Tuscany Superb'; if you like this quality in flowers, look for the Latin word "velutinus" in old lists.

This posting marks a milestone: this is the seven-hundredth post I've published since I began blogging in July 2007. 

a favorite pansy

Pansy Frizzle Sizzle Yellow/Blue Swirl

Pansies which combine blue/purple with yellow/bronze are my favorites - they remind me of some of the old breeder tulips and especially of some of the broken tulips in this color combination.  A similar strain of pansies  which does this color combination very well (and without the ruffled petals)  is Karma Blue Butterfly - in fact, I think I like the color balance in the Karma type even better. 

These are the sorts of pansies I like to have in a cold frame during the winter.

Lilium 'Muscadet'

Lilium 'Muscadet'

This one is here because of the story behind it. The bulbs were purchased in the fall of 2014 and then put in the refrigerator. I ignored them until sometime late in 2015. When I checked them in the refrigerator, they had grown a 30 inch pale green sprout. I brought them out and placed them outside in a very shady place to give the foliage a chance to green up. And then a sort of waiting game began: what would they do next? What they did was to get back to the business of producing an inflorescence as if nothing unusual had happened. By the time the first frosts arrived, they were showing signs of flower buds. I brought them in for the winter and watched the slow development of those buds. It took a long time but they finally began to open last week. The scent is great!

Narcissus 'Topolino'

Narcissus 'Topolino'

This one has grown on me over the years, and now it's a firm favorite. When the flowers are freshly picked they have a delicious scent. It's not the smallest daffodil in the garden by far, but it's still well within the cute range.
Topolino is the Italian name for Mickey Mouse. Be sure to check out the wikipedia page for Topolino: that little guy has had quite a career.

Daffodils say Hello!

Daffodils greet both spring and visitors!

A group of daffodils in a Chinese pen holder greet visitors at our front door this week. 

The Orcs among us

Anti-vine hysteria wins again 

Why do people do this? Who's teaching people that it's OK to do this? Will they vote for Trump?

A dog and frog duet

Biscuit gets her main meal of the day at about 1:30 P.M. She spends most of the morning keeping her eye on me or snoozing nearby if I'm working at my desk. She can tell time: you would not know that she is nearby most of the morning, but as 1:30 approaches she becomes more alert. She will come nearby and quietly sit there looking at me. If that does not have the desired result, she will make a soft growl. If that does not work, she will begin to bark.
Once I get the signal, we go off to the kitchen to get her meal ready. Usually that means something goes into the microwave oven. She barks while the food is warming up.
Today she had some company in the barking. Each time she barked, the wood frog in the garden pond answered. Biscuit barked, the frog croaked - over and over. It got me laughing! 

Crocus tommasinianus, the amethyst and pewter crocus

Crocus tommasinianus "amethyst and pewter' 

The crocuses in the image above are Crocus tommasinianus in one of its many forms. This crocus is sometimes seen naturalized in lawns here in the greater Washington, D.C. area. If I could have only one crocus for this season, this would be the one. 

In particular, I would want what I'm calling here the amethyst and pewter form, the ones with a marked contrast between the pewter colored outers and the vivid amethyst inners. I would not know where to send you to buy these: the named forms of Crocus tommasinianus such as 'Baur's Purple', 'Ruby Giant', 'Whitewell Purple' and so on don't show this pattern to advantage if at all.  And if you order something called Crocus tommasinianus you won't know until they bloom if they are the more delicate wild forms or simply a mixture of these named, cultivated forms. 

The ones naturalized in the garden here show this amethyst and pewter combination to varying degrees. My favorites are the ones shown above where the contrast between the pewter and the amethyst is strong. 

Colchicum hungaricum, a colchicum for late winter bloom

Colchicum hungaricum 'Valentine'

If you are new to this group of plants, you probably associate the name colchicum with plants which bloom in late summer and early autumn. But there are some which bloom very late in the autumn, and some which bloom in late winter. Here's one of the late winter bloomers: Colchicum hungaricum. I grow two of the forms now making the rounds: 'Valentine' (seen above) and 'Velebit Star' (which has white flowers). These are smaller plants than the big late summer blooming hybrids, but at this time of year they have no competition from those big ones. 

Geese on the move

Geese, probably Canada geese, on their way northward. 

One of the really thrilling sounds of the season is that of geese on the move.While working out in the garden the other day, I heard them off in the distance. They flew over me before I actually spotted them - lots of them., way up there. There are about ninety geese in this chevron. This photograph was made on February 29, 2016.

Rana sylvatica has started to call

Rana sylvatica, the wood frog, started to call this evening from the garden pond. Last year I made recordings of the calling, and I'll try to post one later. This species is very cold tolerant: I've seen them walking on frozen ground. I have not yet heard peepers this year. 

The robins did it...

On February 2 of this year, the heavy snow had started to pull back a bit and under shrubs and near walls bare spots appeared. When I looked out the front door that day I noticed that something had scattered dead leaves on the sidewalk. It wasn't hard to figure out who the culprits were: they were still at work around the yard: a flock of robins had flown in and they were busy scratching up bare spots in search of food. I suspect these early arrivals are on their way north: a few days after their visit, the number of robins in the yard seemed to drop suddenly.