Tangled Branches: Cultivated
happenings in and around my zone 6b gardens in northern Virginia and in central Virginia
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Late March Flowers and Mysteries
March is turning out to be a busy month here. I've written blog posts in my head, but as far as I know there's no way to upload those. Speech-to-text maybe? Until I get that figured out, how about some pictures?
It's the beginning of daffodil-and-little-blue-flower season here. I have mystery plants of both kinds - products of long ago planting and sloppy no recordkeeping.
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| Chionodoxa sardensis. Looks like a huge plant here, but really isn't. |
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| Mystery Chionodoxa. Flowers are one to a stem. |
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| Scilla siberica and Sedum rupestre 'Angelina'. This was a happy accident. I forgot all about the Scillas when I planted the Sedum last summer. |
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| The violets seem especially floriferous this year. |
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| Narcissus 'Lemon Glow'. Still don't know if I like this one. The flowers are huge and the stems seem way too short for them. |
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| Mystery Narcissus. One of my favorites. It came from Costco in a bag of mixed bulbs, many years ago. |
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| Narcissus 'Ice Follies' and associates. They were all supposed to be Ice Follies. |
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| Mystery seed pod. Found while working in the vegetable garden a couple weeks ago. It's large - about 1 1/2 to 2 inches long. |
If it rains today, look for a post about basil and tomato soup tomorrow. If no rain, I'll be composing in my head again while in the garden. Which reminds me - does anybody else remember Herman's Head, the TV show? I always liked that show...
Labels: chionodoxa, narcissus, scilla, vinca, violas
8 Comments:
Love the blues and what a unique seed pod. Tree? Your daffs look very happy it's spring!
Frances at Faire Garden
Oh, Entangled, the photos are just beautiful! How I used to love my Scilla and Chionodoxa, even with no names. Your 'mystery' tags sent me off to look up the difference between the two genus, which seems to be 'partially fused tepals' on the Chionodoxa. Some botanists expect that all of Chionodoxa will eventually fall under Scilla, but who wants to give up such a nifty name?
Annie at the Transplantable Rose
What a wonderful burst of spring! I know what you mean about the posts (and in my case, articles) composed in our heads; luckily the weather is still crappy here so I can write, as I can't garden. It grows very, very tiresome, but then I see photos and posts like yours and I know we'll make it through.
Gorgeous pictures .. and we need them where I am, Ontario ... and Jodi with Nancy in Nova Scotia .. our winter seems never ending so posts like these do help a lot .. gives me hope we will see Spring ... eventually ?
Yes ! Herman's Head .. funy show : )
Joy
Frances: The seed pod could be from a tree, although there aren't any close by where I found it. In fact there isn't much of anything close by where I found it. It reminds me of part of Kim's Abutilon flower.
Annie: I'd really hate for the taxonomists to run out of things to do (half-jokingly), but thanks for the heads-up that Chionodoxas may turn into Scillas one day. I think the Chionodoxa must be C. forbesii, formerly C. luciliae, formerly C. gigantea, although it's not very gigante. Most of the original planting has disappeared, but the squirrels planted this patch for me.
Jodi: Spring has definitely sprung here, although I have to keep reminding myself that last year we had snow in April. I learned that it happens often enough that they have a phrase for it - dogwood winter - meaning snow after the dogwoods have started blooming.
Joy: Oh, I'm soooo happy somebody else liked Herman's Head. I was starting to think I was the only one. I hope you'll see spring soon! I have a feeling that it's going to warm up a lot in the next week or two.
Quite and interesting winged seed. Very lovely flowers. I see I will have to augment my Chionodoxa forbesii with other varieties. The flowers on your mystery Chionodoxa looks a bit like the C. forbesii except for the difference in color. I'll have to see if C. forbesii comes in a variety of colors. Lovely violets. Does it have a fragrance? I'm happy that my V. odorata survived the winter and will be extremely happy if it blooms this year.
Ki: I'm a big fan of Chionodoxa sardensis - the color is a very clear blue and the flower spikes are fairly large for a small bulb (if that makes any sense). The effect is similar to Scilla siberica, but with larger, darker blue flowers.
I'm now thoroughly confused about Chionodoxa taxonomy - just looked at Brent and Becky's Bulbs, and they list C. forbesii and C. luciliae as distinct. I got the idea those were both the same from Paghat's Garden. From Brent & Becky's description, I would guess that mine are C. luciliae.
The violets have a very faint scent. Those were one of the very first things I planted at our house over 20 years ago. They're very well-behaved and never spread beyond making a larger clump, unlike some later-blooming violets I have. I'd like to try some V. odorata varieties. I used to believe they weren't winter-hardy enough but I've lately been reading of someone who grew them further north.
Wow... whatever that seedpod is, it's very cool looking. I love the scilla and the 'Angelina' sedum. Looks beautiful together! Happy accidents rock.
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