April 2021 Bloom Day

Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day
What's blooming in the garden on the 15th of the month

March and April are prime times for the garden. I did not believe I have a lot of spring blooms ... until I began assembling photos for this post. (Dandelions were not included.)

Some spring blooms here. Daffodils do very well and return in my climate, whereas tulips do not reliably return year after year - we progress from winter to summer very quckly, so after blooming, the tulips struggle through the heat to bulk up for the following year .

Narcissus poeticus - fragrant

'Rip van Winkle' planted many years ago and lost track of ... until last year.

'Bridal Crown' was a "I have some leftovers if you want" gift

'Sweet Love' cups turn white as they age

'Salome' cups start out yellow then turn salmon

Muscari - this one is a cultivar I think

Closeup of the redbud blooms

I want more of this free giveaway tulip because of the color, but I don't know its name. It displays incredible carmine red blooms and bluish foliage. It came back from past years, albeit smaller.

Closeup of leucojum after the rain

Pieris is suppposed to be difficult. Not in my garden, although after 5 years, leaf spot is beginning to show up.

Who can have spring in Virginia without our dogwood state flower.

Find other garden bloggers' posts at May Dream Gardens

The Best Are Free

The yellow daffodils here are another freebie. And as an added benefit, they multiply like rabbits, holding up well to our variations in spring weather. 'Golden Dawn' are similar to the poet daffodils with their small flower size, multi-bloom stems, small cups, and sweet fragrance. The timing is also similar -- late in the daffodil season.

The green & white daffodils, another free one from last year, only put up leaves this year. I didn't like where I planted them, so moved them very shortly after they finished blooming last spring -- before they had the chance to develop a bulb for this year.

The tulips are amazing. Their smallish flower with a traditional pointed petal tulip shape has the most incredible deep blood red color against the blue-green leaves. I describe them as a saturated red with just a hint of carmine or magenta. They all came back this year - a feat for tulips in my climate. I wish I knew the name to get more.

My Tulips Smell

Being in an area that goes from winter to summer in a two weeks, growing tulips is a challenge. In about the span of one week, they open, bloom, and get fried to a crisp. In subsequent years, whether left in the ground or lifted in the spring and replanted in the fall, they are a big disappointment. So like an addict, I try to stay clean of spending money on tulips.

Every so often in the fall, photos on the tulip packages in the local nurseries (along with a discounted price) tempt me to a point of giving in. And after they bloom one year, my tulip has-beens proudly produce big leaves year after year, but no more blooms. Oh, every other year of so, one might pop out a bloom before going back to growing leaves.

In some years, I fertilize them up the wahzoo and water them frequently. But the weather sears them quickly before they have a chance to develop enough to bloom the following year. And this year we have Princess Irene tulips, the result of my latest willpower breakdown last autumn. They have bloomed now for over a week, probably because of our unusually cool spring.

This week, as I walked by, I noticed a slight fragrance. Only one other tulip I grew, West Point, had a sweet smell. Princess Irene was trying to make me feel good about spending my money on a one time, one-week fling. Lasting longer than normal this year was also a plus.

Also blooming at this mid-spring point in time are a few other tall Darwin hybrids from past years. One pink (Menton) by itself, one yellow (Yellow Dover) by itself, and one red (Red Apeldoorn) by itself. Orange Princess Irene is shorter, sweet smelling, and streaked with maroon on the outer orange petals, like recently graduating from Virginia Tech. Its leaves have a strong blue tint that contrasts with the orange.

After my lonely, homeless tulips are spent for the spring, I will dig them up and mix them together into one multicolored bed. In future years, I will look for three or four pops of miscellaneous color in a bounty of leaves, rather than one red here, one yellow there, and one pink somewhere.

Two Spring Favorites

Although these two spring bloomers have been highlighted in previous posts, I include a few additional notes about them this year. The Narcissus poeticus or poet daffodils were first planted for spring 2007 [8.4.2007]. These bloom a bit later than others, and have a distinct fragrance. And they have easily multiplied in the garden. Here are a few more tidbits about them:

• Poet's Daffodils are cultivated in Holland and southern France for their narcissus oil, one of the most popular fragrances used in perfumes. Narcissus oil is used as a principal ingredient in 11% of modern quality perfumes, resembling a combination of jasmine and hyacinth.
• The fragrant Narcissus poeticus has also been recognized as the flower that Persephone and her companions were gathering when Hades abducted her into the Underworld. This myth accounts for the custom, lasting today, of decorating graves with these flowers.
• While all narcissi are poisonous when eaten, Poet's Daffodil is more dangerous than others, acting as a strong emetic and irritant

The Beauty of Apeldoorn tulip [24.4.2009] is a Darwin hybrid. Nothing seems to represent warm spring like red and yellow tulips. I prefer those that have some interest (such as this two-tone color scheme with black base) over solid color tulips.

New bulbs were planted last fall along side those left in from previous years. This spring, the new bulbs produced larger flowers, but they bloomed later than those left in the ground from previous years. And of course, not all of the old bulbs produced flowers. Planting new bulbs mixed in with the existing ones may be a way to extend the bloom time of a tulip bed. (As long as you don't accidentally slice and dice the old bulbs left in the ground when planting the new ones, like I seem to do.)

Garden Calendar:   • Blooming: grape hyacinth, poet daffodils, peony & Darwin tulips,    snowflakes, ajuga

Earth Month

Red peony tulips were sent as a free gift from Breck's with a fall order of bulbs. They started growing this spring, where I had forgotten what they were. As they started blooming, I then realized they were a free gift - something I would never have ordered. But I actually ended up liking them until it rained. They form a cup and hold lots of water in all those petals, and then tend to tip over.

The orange tulips were bought at a local hardware store late in the season about three years ago after everything else had been picked over. I since lost their variety name. They are mid-season and generally re-bloom each year and multiply.

Update: The orange tulips are 'Beauty of Apeldoorn.'


These are posted as part of a blog meme for Earth Month from FilterForGood Blog Meme Contest. The five actions I will pursue this summer to help out Mother Earth:

1. Install a rain barrel at the rear yard. This will catch rain water from the roof downspout, and save it for use on the vegetable garden during hot summer months.
2. Compost all kitchen vegetable scraps to cut down on household trash. Last year I got lazy and threw out more materials than I would want to.
3. Turn off the modem and router when I leave the house during the day to save electricity. Currently they are left on all the time.
4. Combine auto trips around town when running errands to reduce gas consumption, especially at weekends. This will take some planning at the beginning of each day.
5. Install that extra blanket of insulation to cut down on heating and cooling loads in the house. All winter long, I have been meaning to add another layer to the existing 6-inches (15 cm) in the attic.

For The Record:   • Full sun   • Moderate moisture   • Light bone meal fertilzer in the fall Garden Calendar:   • Blooming: Red peony tulips, poet daffodils, Beauty of Apeldoorn tulips, dogwood, grape hyacinth   • Seedlings progress:      Tomatoes germination, 7 days      Amaranthus germination, 4 days      Lagurus germination, 5 days      Cleome germinated, 11 days      Snapdragons germinated, 9 days

First Bloom Day, April 2009

Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day
What's blooming in the garden on the 15th of each month
This is my first garden blog bloom day submission. I only recently learned what it was all about.

Red Peony Tulips A free gift that came with my fall order	Orange Midseason Tulips Don't remember their name

Poet Daffodils Need dividing	Muscari Still going strong after a week

Fifer Daffodils Found growing around the house 25 years ago	Lemon Chiffon Daffodils Creamy yellow cups turn to light peach

Bad Tulip Posture

The Red Emperor tulips (tulip fosteriana) are one of the favorites because these large-flower plants pop out early in the season. Last year, a few more were purchased to supplement my older collection. However, this year I noticed that these newcomers came on shorter stems in comparison to the older ones. Both were planted in the same bed under the same conditions.

The long stem emperors (right) were preferred since they stood taller and were more visible. As often happens, there were a few very windy days this spring. After Mother Nature calmed down, the long stem emperors all ended up leaning one way as a result of the wind. The shorter emperors (left) remained straight up. Maybe a short stem variety is better after all.

My past experience is that these bulbs always split and multiply, but the resulting bulbs may take two years to actually bloom. Also, warm weather in the spring tends to hasten the bloom decline faster than other tulips.

For The Record:   • Well drained soil   • Full sun   • Bone meal fertilizer applied in the fall Garden Calendar:   • Blooming: Lemon chiffon, ice follies, & fifer daffodils; red emperors & orange tulips   • Seedlings: Tomatoes planted 9 April

Late Spring

A week later and the Poet daffodils (Narcissus poeticus) are blooming. These are a "geranium" type, with multiple blossoms on each stalk. They are fragrant, but only if you are nearby to notice. They came back quite well from last year.

The Red Emperor tulips have since finished blooming. Orange tinged tulips, and the Monsella tulips are now opening. I do not remember the exact type of orange tulips or where I got them from last year. The shorter later-blooming Monsella tulips are yellow with red stripes in them, and open wide in the sun. Although I am pleased with them, they do not resemble the pictures in the catalog, being smaller and less defined in shape.

Late Bloomers

One of the two new varieties of daffodils that grew for the first time last year are beginning to bloom now. The Lemon Chiffon daffodils have creamy white petals and long cups with a lemon yellow color. The lemon color gradually turns to a creamy peach after about a week. These easily multiplied after the first year, so some were lifted last spring and planted last fall for this year.

Red Emperor tulips are now blooming. These are the earliest 'big' tulips to come out. I tried orange emperor a few years back, but they did not bloom at the same time as the reds - a week or two later, and they did not come back or multiply well. Experience with Red Emperors is that each blub splits into 3 bulbs after blooming. Each resulting bulb is not quite as big as the original, and may or may not produce a flower the following year.