Garden Bloggers Bloom Day - April 08

Happy Garden Bloggers Bloom Day!

The 15th of each month has been designated GBBD by Carol at May Dreams Garden. To see what other gardeners around the world have in bloom today you can click on the link to her site and visit with many other wonderful bloggers.

Today at Old Country Gardens in South Huntington, New York (on Long Island) I've found quite a few blooms. Some were posted just two days ago under the title "Sunday Bloomers". Here are a few more.

To open, we have one of my favorite Daffodils, 'Jetfire'.

The Hellebores are in their glory now, I really do find them such wonderful additions to the early spring garden.

Just popping it's sleepy head up is Viola 'Bowl's Black' which enthusiastically seeds itself throughout the perennial border.

You'll have to look carefully to see the blooms here but the Dicentra spectablis' (Bleeding hearts) all over my garden are plumping up like crazy and the tiny miniature hearts are just visible today.

A sweet lavender violet given to me a number of years ago. Unfortunately I'm too soft hearted and this beauty has invaded several parts of my perennial bed. I keep holding off until they bloom so I can cull the blue ones and leave the lavender ones but that doesn't seem to work. This year I vow to win the war!

Oh my, this is as good as staring at a pile of wrapped Christmas presents. The Sanguinaria canadensis (Double bloodroot) is just about ready to unfurl it's leaves and burst into bloom. I'm willing to bet that it will be open by this evening.

As a closing shot, I was so delighted to find the first bloom on this Hellebore seedling. A gardening friend, Mary Kay, shared some seedlings with me and what a wonderful day for this beauty to begin.

Happy bloom day to all of you! If you are a blogger, consider posting your own GBBD post, it's fun!

Garden Bloggers Bloom Day - February

Today is my first contribution to "Garden Bloggers Bloom Day". A great big thank you to Carol at http://maydreamsgardens.com for letting me know about this event. As I understand it, on the 15th of each month garden bloggers photograph what is blooming for them that day.

I thought for sure that I would not find any blooms as I walked around our chilly garden this morning. While I didn't find anything actually blooming, I was pleasantly surprised to find some plant material worth photographing.

While the crocuses and the snowdrops still have a chance to sneak up and surprise me, the first flower bud visible is on the stand of Hellebores out front. This one clump of Hellebores gives me the most wonderful bunch of seedlings each year. Two years ago it was almost decimated when the oil delivery truck backed up through this bed (OUCH) but it is finally starting to fill in that spot again.
Here you can see lots of little black berries still on the Liriope. These berries must taste awful or must be poisonous because we have tons of birds and bunnies look for nibbles around here.


More Hellebores, this one looked so nice with the sun shining through and the crispy brown oak leaves. I also love the way the Hellebore foliage looks in the summer when they are finished blooming.


Lots of Sempervivum (Hens & chicks) in the garden. They look so frozen right now. This one here turns a deep red once the season warms up but for now almost all the varieties have this grayish greenish coloration.


Here's another Sempervivum, I didn't bother to copy down the names for this post as they don't look like they will during growing season. While their fuzzy webs aren't visible in the winter, the light frost gives them a similar appearance.


More buds here on the Pieris japonica by the back shed. I can't wait to smell them when they begin to bloom.

The Silene armeria seedlings are everywhere, just carpeting the ground. This year I think I will have to pot them up and share them with friends. They're not at all invasive, one year I almost lost them. Now I leave them be so they can seed about to their hearts content. A simple pass with a cultivator pulls them out any undesired location. To see what they look like in bloom you only have to scroll down to my Valentine Pink post and see them combined with the Edelweiss.

So, no pretty eye candy today but who cares...my daughter Lauren is coming home for the weekend! Homesickness has struck again and she's taking a bus and a train to get here. I've got to stock up on some of her favorites and hang her bedding outside so it smells like "home".

What's blooming for you today?