Spring Hazards

I think all gardeners enjoy complaining about the weather but this spring has been particularly difficult. Here in Northern New England we generally have a spring that lasts from five minutes to a few days between the long winter and summer. But this year the spring came very early and it has lasted for months. This should be a joy but there is always a price. The warm weather brought early and lush growth. Then last week we had night after night of killing frost and many of my perennials were hit hard. Hostas, Japanese anemones, some of the heucheras normally don't emerge til late in the season and grow slowly in our cool springs. But this year they came up weeks early and grew fast.
My anemones, a favorite and very special Autumn treat were killed to the ground though there are a few new shoots which should save the plants. I am not going to have much of a show this fall however. The hostas are a mess, big soggy piles of dying flesh. I will cut then back when all danger of frost has passed.
Now we are back to hot weather with even hotter predicted for later in the week. Global warming or merely New England weather?

Meanwhile I am scanning flowers as they open. Here is the iris cristata again. I love the way it looks like it has been x-rayed. And a double tulip scanned front and back.

I call this mohair scarf Smoke Gets in Your Eyes. It is like wispy gossamer lace, soft shades of grey and gold. I am offering it for sale on Beadedwire though it will be hard to part with it.

Spring flowers

Iris cristata is a favorite spring flower. It is a tiny iris, only a few inches tall with a fleeting bloom but it spreads prolifically even in shade. And the flowers are so beautiful. It is also a trouble free ground cover.
In the evening I have been beading rings. I use Delica beads in a simple peyote stitch and then embellish with larger seed beads, triangle beads and crystals.

Chartreuse

I had dinner at my friend Virginia's the other night: she is a terrific potter and had new worked glazed in gorgeous chartreuse, my favorite color. I am a sucker for any plant with chartreuse flowers or foliage. It glows in the garden bringing light and air to even gloomy flowerless shade.


In the first picture there is a bouquet of chartreuse Lady's Mantle flowers and steel blue eryngium, a pretty but prickly flower. The garden shot shows the little iris cristata which blooms briefly each spring with the golden leafed grass hakonechloa macra "Aureola" and the beautiful chartreuse cultivar of thalictrum.


In choosing chartreuse plants you are limited only by the size of your garden and your pocketbook. There are dozens, if not hundreds, of golden hostas, and several gorgeous heucheras including 'lime rickey'.


Two pretty ground covers are vinca 'illuminatation' and lysimachia nummularia 'aurea', which is chartreuse in shade but bright yellow with too much sun. For a taller lysimachia there is 'goldilocks'.


The thalictrum mentioned above and filipendula aurea are lovely bits of golden lace. I have some chartreuse leafed columbines I grew from seed. The foliage is gorgeous, the flowers a rather drab blue purple. Herbs include golden oregano, several thymes and sages though I have had some trouble wintering all of these over in my cold garden. Centaurea 'gold bullion' and spiderwort 'sweet Kate' are both spectacular with their blue-purple flowers against the golden foliage. And the foliage of dicentra 'gold heart' is lovely with the little pink hearts.


Though not hardy there are many pretty chartreuse and gold varieties of geraniums and coleus.


There are beautiful chartreuse shrubs: several Japanese maples, philadelphus 'aurea' (mock orange), golden spirea, carytoperus 'Worcester gold'. The latter should not be hardy in my garden but has lasted here for several years.


Find of the Day


I usually like to include a flower find in my post. These earring are not flowers but I cannot resist the color, I have a purse that matches this lovely green. Paring the bright blue finding with this green is color genius. They are made by Strange Little Bird (http://www.strangelittlebird.etsy.com/).