When I started our gardens here, I wanted to create a place where one set of blooming plants rolled into the next. Crocus to daffodils to hyacinth to tulips to asian lilies to irises to … It was a great idea but my husband was not crazy about the look, especially as things died off and we were left with a few … sunflowers! It was also busy, and it looked like a giant mess as the siberian irises gradually took over a large part of the garden. So I dug them out and gave them to my mother-in-law who had space, along with, regrettably, some daylilies that I had put in front and didn’t look so good there. Then I started to build the gardens we have today.
Along the way I also discovered that no matter how many crocus, daffodils, and hyacinth I planted here, they would only come back one, maybe two years. Believe me, I planted hundreds, en masse, and they just don’t thrive here. Some don’t even come in one time! So, I decided tulips are enough. Some stay (I have one patch of purple tulips that has come back 14 years)
and some come back every year as greens (not too exciting). Once again this fall I bought a bag of tulips, and have already picked out the spot for them.
After the tulips come the clematis (from the original garden). Then come the asian lilies (some original, some newer) and then the hostas, the weigelia (original) and the ninebarks (newer). Then come the daylilies for months, followed by the sedum, with the hostas blooming throughout. Continuously blooming are the shamrocks and the hibiscus.
They bloom even when they are brought in mid-October, and go well into December.
In January I head off to the garden store and get a watch ’em grow garden, which blooms into March, and somewhere in Feb the amaryllis blooms. In late Feb the hibiscus starts up again along with a little bit on the shamrocks. And then in April, as the hibiscus and shamrocks are lightly blooming, we are moving outside again.
This progression has run through my mind lately. Yes, I am sad the daylilies are done and the hostas are wrapping up, but truly we are never long without blooms in our “garden”.
Susan's Daily Garden 