Some tall bearded irises

Tall bearded irises 'Golden Panther' on the left  and 'Cherry Blossom' on the right with  Allium 'Firmament' 

A view of the tall bearded irises at poppy time. 

Another view from the opposite direction

Iris 'Golden Panther' again 

I finally took the plunge. And the water is deeper than I anticipated. Although I've explored the genus Iris pretty thoroughly as a gardener, and I've enjoyed tall bearded irises all of my gardening life, I've always sensed that the world of the tall bearded iris was a world of its own, one so potentially rewarding and absorbing that it should be approached with caution. The standard of enchanting, riveting beauty is so generally high among these plants that once one’s connoisseurship begins to fan the embers of acquisition fever,  one is likely to be sucked into a world from which there is little hope of return. Didn’t Henry Mitchell write somewhere that he alone once grew hundreds of cultivars?  

In 2012 I ordered a collection of about three dozen cultivars. That was a difficult period for me, and those did not get planted until well into the fall. Most of them did not survive the winter. It’s quite believable to me that my gardening guardian angel arranged for this failure. He was watching out for me.

But I reordered in 2013, and most of those plants survived and grew well. The only plague the gardening guardian angel could arrange this time was an infestation of voles: they took some of the new plants. Some of the survivors bloomed in 2014, but it was not until this year that I finally realized what I had gotten myself into. For the last two weeks, every time I visit my community garden plots (that’s where the irises are) I fall into a state of spellbound enchantment as I move among the blooming irises; and what I see is not the only delight - their varied fragrances can be a huge source of enjoyment.  I forget what else I might have had in mind in visiting the garden; I neglect other projects. I take too many pictures. I keep asking them, “where have you been all my life?”

Keep in mind that the varieties I grow are nothing special: they are good, very good,  modern hybrids, some of them among the best iris of their debut year, but far from the newest and most expensive sorts. The average cost for mine was about $4 each. It’s hard for me to believe that more expensive sorts could possibly give more satisfaction.  Of course, there is that seemingly inescapable and disagreeable side to human nature, that infirmity which causes familiarity to breed contempt, and I might find myself numbered among the iridomanes of the future.

But for now I’m happy.

Here are some of the ones I’m enjoying this week.

This first one is well named; here are three views, two showing the opening buds.

Iris 'Drama Queen' 

Iris 'Drama Queen' 

Iris 'Drama Queen'

The intense color of this one amazes me: again, the developing buds are as fascinating as the open bloom.

Iris 'Rustler' 

Iris 'Rustler' 

Iris 'Color Strokes'

As the following two show, tall bearded  irises do black and close approaches to black very well. The falls on the first one are to my eyes as black as can be - it's as if some trick of the camera is taking place. 

Iris 'Black is Back' 

Iris 'Diabolique'

 The richness of color of this next one is better seen in the garden:

Iris 'Medici Prince' 

 This next one introduces us to the one color failing of tall bearded irises: none is what most people would see as a true red. To supply that lack, I plant corn poppies among my irises: see the second photo at the top of this page.

Iris 'Red Masterpiece'

Iris 'Social Graces' here with Allium (Nectaroscordum) siculum  

Iris 'Social Graces' in early morning light 

Iris 'New Leaf' 

Yellow peonies

Paeonia 'High Noon'

The yellow peony collection gets better year by year. There was a nice surprise in this department this year: a peony bought in 2009 as a tiny thing out of tissue culture and labeled 'First Arrival' bloomed for the first time this year. But it isn't 'First Arrival' : it's 'Bartzella'. Now there are two plants of 'Bartzella' in the collection, although the other one has yet to bloom and perhaps it, too, will have a surprise for me.

Here's the current line-up, which includes herbaceous peonies, Itoh hybrids (partially woody) and tree peony hybrids.

This first one is the newly revealed 'Bartzella', an intersectional hybrid, sometimes confusingly called an Itoh hybrid, although it was raised by Roger Anderson , not by Itoh.

Paeonia 'Bartzella' 

The identity of this next one is not yet resolved: it came labeled Kinshi ( which should be 'Chromatella' but so far the flower does not resemble 'Chromatella').

Paeonia incertae sedis 

Here's 'Yellow Crown', maybe my favorite of these. This one is a hybrid raised by Itoh. The flower shown is about to fall apart.

Paeonia 'Yellow Crown'

The flower color of this next one, 'Roselette's Child', seems to depend a lot on temperature. It can be white, white with a peachy glow, or, rarely, the yellow you see here.

Paeonia 'Roselette's Child'

This next one is grand old 'Souvenir de Maxime Cornu'; this was probably the first lutea hybrid peony ever raised, and is now over a century old.

Paeonia 'Souvenir de Maxime Cornu' 

And here, again,  is  A. P. Saunders' 'High Noon', still, a half-century after it was raised, the only one of Saunders' hybrids to be widely available.

Paeonia 'High Noon'

And finally, a later addition: after I published this post, I realized that I had not included Paeonia 'Garden Treasure', Don Hollingworth's entry among the intersectional (Itoh) peonies. This has grown here since 2007, and was the first of the intersectional yellows to bloom here. Take a look:

Paeonia 'Garden Treasure' 

Paeonia 'Garden Treasure' 

Acer ginnala the lilac scented maple

For the last two weeks or so, when I walk Biscuit in the morning and pass a next door neighbor's house, I've been noticing the scent of lilac. By now, the few Syringa vulgaris lilacs in the neighborhood are over for the year. The nearest tree lilacs are a few blocks away, too far for the scent to carry. 

Where in the world was the lilac scent coming from? 

As I passed under it I could see that the neighbor's small maple tree was in full bloom. But who ever heard of a fragrant maple? I knew this maple to be Acer ginnala, the Amur maple. I've been walking under this one for years and never before noticed the lilac scent. Perhaps this is the first year it has bloomed. I checked the books. Sure enough, some of them mention that it is fragrant (Bean in fact says very fragrant).  But none mentions that it is lilac scented. Who would not want a lilac scented maple? 

Aril bred iris time

I'm lucky enough to have known and grown arilate irises since I was in my twenties. But it has only been recently that I have confidence about growing them in the the garden, and so far that confidence extends only to the "easy" ones. Here are some of these easily managed hybrids. These were obtained in 2013 through the annual rhizome sale of the Aril Society International. I ordered eleven and they sent me fifteen. Only three of these bloomed in 2014, but this year the count is up to twelve.
What are aril bred irises? They are hybrids whose ancestry on the one hand includes members of the regelia and oncocylcus groups, and on the other tall bearded irises. As a result, these hybrids show a range of variation from those with obvious oncocyclus ancestry to those which could easily pass as tall bearded irises.

Back in the 1930s, when William Mohr began to hybridize irises of this sort, there were three main characteristics of the oncocyclus species which were carried over into the best of the hybrids. One is the high-domed standards seen in the oncos;  another is the intricate veining seen in those species. And a third is the large black signal patch on the falls. What was not carried over from the onco parents was difficulty of culture. Some aril bred hybrids are touchy about summer moisture, but few are as much so as their onco ancestors.

That's the aril bred iris hybrid  'Grand Vizier' in the image above. It shows all three of the distinguishing characteristics of hybrids with onco ancestry: the high domed standards, the intricate veining and the black signal patch. Here's another view from a different angle:

Here is 'Byzantine Ruby', again with all three characteristics, but with the emphasis shifted to the big signal patch. The hybrid 'Big Black Bumblebee' is an earlier hybrid with this same characteristic.

Here is 'Desert Plum', with the veining somewhat muted:

Here is 'Bold Sentry' where the characteristics of the aril ancestry and tall bearded iris ancestry are well blended:

Here is 'Satan's Mistress' which could easily pass for a tall bearded iris:

And here is 'Doug Goodnight', another one well on the way to being a tall bearded iris:

Tree peony flowers: how to extend their life from days to weeks

In some respects, it's hard to believe that the last post was on March 26 of this year. Where did April go? Where, in fact, did spring go? We're still in the first half of May, and we have already had daytime temperatures in the 90s F. We shivered through most of April, and when the garden woke up, there was such a surge of growth that there was no keeping up with it. This has been the kind of year which makes me wonder if my gardening hobby has gotten so big that it's out of hand, if maybe it's time to begin cutting back. For instance, during the first two weeks of May I cut about 120 tree peony buds; they're in the refrigerator now. The ones I did not cut lasted about two days and are now heaps of petals shriveling on the ground. Past experience suggests that the ones in the refrigerator will last about two weeks. But there are so many other things stealing my attention: when will I have time to enjoy the tree peonies?
If you want to try to save your own tree peony buds in the refrigerator, these will show you how I do it. The system of double bagging the buds and blooms makes it simple to handle these otherwise very fragile blossoms.

The image below shows a single bud/bloom in a sandwich bag: poke a hole in a corner of the bag, insert the stem of the bloom through the hole, and carefully draw the bag up over the bud/bloom..

Below you see four buds packed into a gallon sized bag. After you have placed several in a gallon sized bag, add water to the gallon sized bag and be sure the stems poking out of the sandwich bags are in the water.

Here's a group of about thirty buds about to be moved to the refrigerator:

These bags of four make nice gifts to flower loving friends. Few people have ever had tree peony flowers, and even people who know them are often amazed at how magnificently these stored bloom expand when brought out into the light and warmth of a room. 

In the image at the top of this post is a tree peony obtained without a label. I don't like the imprecision of poor labels, so I hesitated to show this image. From the earliest days of imported tree peony plants, two of the most commonly cultivated "varieties" are  "tree peony without a label" and "tree peony which does not match its label".  But a rose by any other name...

seed cake

I don't remember when I learned about seed cake, but I do know that it was years before I actually tasted it. It sounded so interesting, but no one in my circle had ever heard of it. I've been making it for years now, and I've never tired of its simple but intriguing taste. It's basically just a very rich biscuit dough flavored with caraway seed. I generally add orange or lemon zest to the dough. A newly made one has a half life of about a day here.

Tetramerous snowdrop flowers

Typical snowdrop flowers are built in threes: three large outer petals and three smaller inner ones. Every once in a while a flower appears which is in four parts - it's tetramerous. Here are two which appeared this year. As far as I know they do not keep this structure from year to year. Too bad: the snowdrop game is such a freak show that a permanently tetramerous form would probably fetch a pretty penny from some crazed galanthomane. 

Lilium canadense and Maryland

The image in the middle of the plate shown here is the image of Lilium canadense in Parkinson's Paradisus. The Paradisus was published in 1629. Parkinson says the English got it from the French, and the French got it from the French colonies in Canada (and saying it that way makes it sound like a social disease). This name Lilium canadense antedates Linnaeus by well over a century, and it is the name we still use today.
But here's something fascinating to think about: the first permanent English settlements in Maryland were in 1634. So Lilium canadense got to England before permanent settlements of English people got to Maryland.

Crocus reticulatus

If it's possible to have a least-favorite-crocus, then for me,  this one, Crocus reticulatus,  is it. The flowers always look dirty and dull. I acquired this one in 2005, so it's one which takes pretty good care of itself. If someone wants to try to convince me that this crocus is really C. versicolor, that someone might find that easy to do.

This has been such a cold, late year that we are only now at the peak of the late-winter, early-spring crocuses. The big Dutch crocuses have yet to bloom for me - maybe the first will open tomorrow.
The signs seem to point in the direction of a year in which a lot of early bloomers will arrive all at once. While walking Biscuit this morning, I noticed that the flower buds of our local flowering dogwoods, Cornus florida are already opening a bit.

Merendera sobolifera and Colchicum hungaricum 'Velebet Star'

These two interesting and related plants are blooming today. I took advantage of this and cross pollinated them. Merendera sobolifera is sometimes called Colchicum soboliferum, so this effort is not so far-fetched as it  might seem.

They are both tiny little things with anthers which are about two millimeters long; the styles and their stigmas are in the same size range. I had to lie on the ground to get to them. While I was pollinating the Merendera, a neighbor who happened to be walking her dog nearby saw me on the ground and began to run towards me excitedly calling “Are you alright? Are you alright?” When I realized what was happening, I was a little embarrassed. “Just gardening” I told her, but I don’t think she believed me. Maybe “Just crazy” would have been more like it.

The form of Colchicum hungaricum used was ‘Vebelet Star’. 

Bread-eating Buteo

It's not a great picture to be sure, but the story behind it perhaps makes up for it.
The hawk shown here moved into the neighborhood a month or two ago - it's then that I would occasionally hear it and see it lording over the local woodlands. It often roosts at the edge of the woodland in back of the house. It's big: when seen near crows, it's conspicuously bigger. Is it a nearly mature red shouldered hawk?
It's hard to get close to this bird: when I see it roosting at the edge of the woods, it generally flies when I come into view. But recently I've gotten to within five or ten feet of it. How can that be? It happens when the hawk comes down onto our deck to eat, get this, chunks of donuts I throw out for the other birds. Times must be tough when these top predators are reduced to eating donuts!
Now might be the time to put up a  platform for feeding hawks.
The photo was taken with my Canon SX700HS with the zoom lens maxed out. The hawk was maybe seventy feet away at the time. I took the photo from inside the house through a less than pristine glass door. When I went out onto the deck to get another picture, the bird flew immediately. It's been back several times since. I guess I'd better buy more donuts. 

Primula obconica

Although I’ve known about Primula obconica for most of my gardening life, this is the first time I’ve had one in the house. It was purchased at one of the big box stores two weeks ago. These are not garden plants here. Although  primroses as a group are generally very cold adapted and most species flourish in areas with extremely cold winters,  Primula obconica is generally treated as a greenhouse or house plant in areas with freezing winter temperatures. I’m uncertain about just how much cold it will actually tolerate: as a wild plant it almost certainly occasionally experiences freezing temperatures. This one has already been moved to one of the cold frames: temperatures down into the 20s F are predicted for tonight, and later this week typical winter weather will return. After closing the cold frames later today I’ll make the additional concession of covering them with a tarp. But other than that the primroses and cyclamen now blooming in the frames will be on their own.

The paragraph above was written a few days ago and is now ready for an update The temperature this morning was about 10 degrees F (that's about minus 12 degrees Celsius!). Late in the afternoon I went out and removed the tarp to allow the sun to warm things up a bit inside the frame. I did not open the frame. But I could see that all looks well inside the frame: this raises hopes that it might be possible to establish Primula obconica in the frame - or at least to enjoy it for much longer than if it had been kept inside a warm house.  

Ruscus aculeatus ‘Christmas Berry’

Ruscus aculeatus, the butcher’s broom of old books, is nothing new in this garden: it’s been here for decades. The original form grown here is the one distributed by Woodlanders as ‘Wheeler’s’.  There are ten plants, and not a one of them has ever been particularly reliable about fruiting. ‘Elizabeth Lawrence’ and ‘Christmas Berry’ were acquired a few years ago: these fruit heavily and can be very ornamental. That's 'Christmas Berry' in the image above. 

These are definitely not plants to cuddle up to: they are unpleasantly spiny, the dried pieces sold for Christmas decoration being especially so.

Helleborus niger and bees: a delightful prelude to things to come

Yesterday afternoon, after things finally warmed up a bit, I went out to check on what was happening in the cold frames. The Algerian iris is blooming, and the primroses purchased a while back are in fine form and very colorful. But what really caught my eye were the two Helleborus niger. These are in full bloom, and the flowers are particularly handsome now because the cold frame provides such good protection. In our climate they certainly don't need cold frame protection, but the cold frames mimic a good snow cover, and that's what these plants are adapted to. Blooms which mature in the open garden generally show signs of the battle against the elements; those which mature in the cold frame are lush in comparison.

As I was admiring the hellebores, I remembered something which needed attention inside the house and left to take care of that. When I returned a few minutes later, I had a nice surprise: bees had already found the hellebore flowers. It's so good to see bees again: for years we seemed to have none. I made a five minute video of the bees visiting the hellebore flowers. A brief snippet of this can be seen below. Be sure the volume is up: you will then be able to hear the buzzing of the bees.

Spring in Washington

This morning at 6:52 A.M. I was awakened by the call of a male northern cardinal; it was not prolonged and it sounded as if he was warming up - but it was a trial run of a sound which will soon become very frequent in the garden.
In his  Spring in Washington, published nearly seventy years ago, Louis J. Halle records the January 22nd day he left his home at daybreak and was greeted by the sound of a cardinal calling in a tree across the street. He wrote
"The mathematicians reckon that spring begins March 21, but the mathematicians are a month behind the season the year around. For those who observe the first signs, spring comes earlier than others know. Before the end of January, while the scenery remains desolate and the sun leaves no warmth, the first sparks are already being enkindled in the breasts of songbirds. As I left my home at daybreak January 22, under a cloud rack becoming visible, in a dead tree across the street a cardinal was singing cue-cue-cue-cue-cue-cue, rapidly, all on one pitch and without variation. "
This wonderful book has been my generous companion for decades: who would have guessed that so much pleasure could be bought in a used book store for 50 cents?

Later in the morning Biscuit wanted to go out, and as I opened the front door I got a real surprise: the front lawn was spangled with starlings and robins. A flicker flew out of a nearby tree, and I could hear a blue jay calling from the back yard: the birds are on the move!

Here are some of the robins:

Cephalotaxus harringtonia 'Fastigiata'

This is the upright form of the conifer Cephalotaxus harringtonia, sold as C. harringtonia ‘Fastigiata’. In its youth if forms a narrow upright column. The plant in the image was planted about fifty years ago, and like the person who planted it now grows sideways rather than upright. It’s now a relatively massive plant, and more than one visitor has mentioned that “that’s the biggest yew I’ve ever seen”. It’s not a yew, at least not in the sense of being a member of the genus Taxus: it’s a plum yew, a yew relative. Because this fastigiate form has its foliage in whorls, it does not really look like the typical wild forms of C. harringtonia. I know I’ve got a live one when a visitor, seriously contemplating this plant in an attempt to place it, avoids the obvious mistake of calling it a yew and instead asks “Is it some kind of Podocarpus?” That’s the kind of visitor I like!

Years ago the local mall had a group of the typical form planted at the major entrance to the mall. Once the plants settled in, they began to bloom and produce fruit. That was the end of it for them: the last time I saw them they were surrounded by sidewalks and streets spattered with the juicy, staining fruits.

Of course it’s not a rock garden plant, although you might be tempted to plant one to enjoy the distinctive foliage and growth form of the young plant. But it is the sort of plant some rock gardeners like: one which will catch the visitor’s eye and provoke conversation.

Rohdea japonica

This handsome plant was grown as a houseplant long before most of us realized that it had great potential as a garden plant. It certainly does not look as if it would be hardy; but hardy it is, and it seems to thrive in local gardens. The flowers are creamy white and are placed in a thick cluster which superficially suggests the bloom of some parasitic plant such as Orobanche or Conopholis. The evergreen foliage remains handsome throughout the winter and rarely shows cold damage here.
The colorful infructescence is about the size of a hen's egg, and the individual, bright red fruits are about a quarter of an inch in diameter.
The plant is easily if slowly raised from the large seeds.
Watch the spelling of the genus name: so many plants have names beginning with the letter combination rh- (the traditional transliteration of the Greek letter ρ – rho – into Latin) that the name of this plant is sometimes misspelled Rhodea, The pronunciation is tricky, too: the English eponym's name was Rohde  and was almost certainly pronounced the same way as "rode" (past tense of the verb to ride).  Thus, Rhode + a = rode-a. But one almost invariable hears rode-e-a.

Biscuit gets a big gold star

Wayne and I were in Bridgewater last weekend to visit with his mom and other family members. We took Biscuit with us and she behaved very well indeed. We stayed overnight in a pet-friendly motel, and the rest of the time we were in the nursing home. Biscuit was one of three dogs in our party, and they all behaved well.
Here's a funny Biscuit story. Biscuit is very good with children: she seems to enjoy it when children come up to pet her, and she usually rolls over onto her back to let them pet her tummy. Biscuit got plenty of tummy pats during this trip, but one I don't think I'll forget. Three young brothers, the oldest perhaps seven or eight, the next younger maybe five and the youngest maybe four gathered around Biscuit to pet her. The oldest took the lead, and the younger brothers stood back to watch. Biscuit rolled over for him almost immediately. The other two brothers then became very interested: the middle brother moved in closer and reached out, then suddenly pulled back his hand  - he did this several times until he got up the courage to actually touch Biscuit. His older brother was petting Biscuit's chest, so the middle brother began to pet her tummy. Meanwhile, the youngest brother was nervously getting closer and closer. Finally he reached out and began to pet Biscuit's back end. The oldest brother quickly called out "Not there, not there". I had a good laugh over this.
In the image above you see Biscuit at home waiting for her meal to defrost in the microwave oven. She will stand there and watch until the alarm goes off, then she will come and get me.   

Primula vulgaris

One thing which sets this blog apart from most other gardening blogs is my determination to keep it confined to plants I have grown here in my gardens (the home garden and my community garden plots). Almost every image which appears on this blog is of a plant growing in this garden. Almost every image, but not all. There are views of the local woodlands and some other images obviously not taken here, but overall I take a certain pride in the fact that what you see here is almost entirely my own.

Today I'm swallowing my pride: I didn't grow these primulas. They came from one of the local grocery stores where they were sold for the give-away price of three for five dollars. These primulas at that price are great value for the money: with care, they can bloom for week after week, as long as they are kept cold, cold as in above freezing but below 55-60 degrees Fahrenheit.

Other than that, the only challenge in their culture is keeping them watered. That lush succulent foliage and those bright blooms require a lot of water. Once they go into the cold frames (maybe tomorrow if the temperature gets above freezing by early afternoon) their water requirement lessens, but since they are in pots they are still very vulnerable to drying out. The smart thing to do is to remove them from the pots and plant them into the soil of the cold frame - that done, they practically take care of themselves as long as they remain cool.

Update February 13, 2015: they are still blooming freely. These were purchased at the end of December, so they have so far given a month and a half of bloom. And most of them show no sign of slowing down. They have taken well to cold frame life.