Bloom Day - April 2015

I've got blooms again after a long winter.  I haven't tried to participate in the garden bloggers Bloom Day posts since last fall.  But now that I have something to share, I'm going to start posting again. If you haven't heard of it, Bloom Day is the 15th of the month and is a chance for garden bloggers to share what is in bloom. It is hosted by May Dreams Garden blog - an entertaining and fanciful blog full of the exploits of her garden fairies.

I recently got a new camera and have been taking a lot of pictures as I learn the new capabilities of the camera. So, I don't want to limit myself to just pictures from one day. In my reading, one of the suggestions is to take time in post processing to capture the best image, much like it would have been done with film, in judging the exact time in the chemical baths o set color, contrast, exposure, etc.  I am taking more time and do not want to rush through a batch of snapshots when I already have a collection of images of the same subjects. So, I am going to expand the concept of bloom day to include images of what is currently in bloom, but that might have been taken before the 15th of the month.

So, on to the early bloomers in the garden this year.

Cherry Blossoms

This is iconic in the Washington DC area.  The Cherry Blossom Festival is a perennial rite of Spring as the weather finally starts feeling warm and people come out to the national mall for weeks of events celebrating the cherry blossoms.  I have two ornamental cherry trees and these pictures are from my trees; I did not go downtown to face the crowds when I could just enjoy my own yard.

Forsythia 

Some other early bloomers are the forsythia bushes.  The sun is reaching the west side of the house and the forsythia bushes are sending out their own bright beams of yellow. I have memories of forsythia at my parent's house, so I really enjoy seeing the forsythia in bloom at my house now.

Daffodils 

The third messengers of spring in our yard are the daffodils.  They were the first green we saw as we were trying to get over the late snows this year and a late ice storm.  We were looking for some sign of growth and saw the tips of the daffodil leaves breaking through the brown.  The daffodils are up now and we are beginning to see sprouts for the irises, buds on the dogwood, the red maple, and the lilac.  They're coming, but right now I'm enjoying the early bloomers.

I am not planning on repeating last summer's project of semi-monthly garden panoramas. I have the pictures from last year printed out with a diagram of the yard in a binder for reference purposes now.  I might try again in a few years as the garden changes and grows in the future.  This summer will be close enough to last year that I don't think I'll need a new set of images.

Mid-October Panorama and Garden Bloom Day

I was able to get ouside to take some pictures earlier this week, but haven't been able to write up a post yet.  I's mid October so I went out to get pictures for the panorama.  Since the most "popping" elements were the Montauk Dasies I was glad to be able to get some pictures in diffuse light.  I've been reading several books on photography lately and playing with my camera settings.  For these daisies a diffuse light is best because the strong white blossoms will not be washed out bu direct sunlight.  These daisies are all over the hill from end to end, and even out in the front yard under the weeping cherry tree.

The Montauk Daisies are the white blossoms that have taken over the hill. I got some pictures to have for the Garden Bloom Day over at May Dream Garden.

I've been waiting all summer for these to bloom. I couldn't remember what they were and all summer these bushes have been adding a nice deep green foliage, but I've been waiting to see them in bloom.

Now that I've seen them I've been able to identify them (thanks to help from a Facebook group called Plant Identification.) It's a great group for getting help identifying what a plant is - just join the group then post a picture of two of what you have and you'll get suggestions about what it is.  Several people made suggestions and I looked them up and agree that these are indeed Montauk Daisies.

I was able to print out the panorama pictures from this summer and Gloria and I were able to look at them side by side.  We noticed a couple of things. An interesting observation (by Gloria) was in the growth of the holly trees we have outside the fence in the holly grove. We had these planted there to grow into a natural barrier to block views into the yard from the street.  Here are the pictures from April and from October showing this summer's growth.

April 2014

October 2014

And here is a picture from when they were planted in April 2011,

April 2011

They've come a long way, and so has the yard and the gardener.

And just because I really like this picture, I'm going to post it one more time.  I sent this to the channel 9 meteorologist, Topper Shutt, and he used it on the air and gave it an "A+." Then he tweeted it out.

Mid August Panorama and Bloom Day

We're half way through another month and it's time to double up on a panorama shot and bloom day.  Bloom Day is a project at May Dreams Garden that invites people to share what is blooming on the 15th of the month.  August's post is here. We don't have much blooming this time of year, mostly the butterfly bushes, the hibiscus and some phlox hanging on.  The panorama is very green (plenty of great weather here outside of Washington DC.)

The most activity we are having out in the garden is actually harvesting the tomatoes.  It rained on Tuesday so we didn't get out there and on Wednesday Gloria picked a quart of cherry tomatoes.  We just keep them on the breakfast bar and they're handy for healthy snacking, just grab a handful as you're passing by and looking for a quick nosh.  The vegetable garden (on the far right) is almost completely overtaken by 3 tomato plants and the cherry plant is taking over the heirloom and jumbo plants. This was the harvest a couple weeks ago.

On to what's blooming.

Across the back fence are 4 butterfly bushes, but we have had very few butterflies this year.  I'm seeing a lot more bees (and a dragonfly earlier this summer) than butterflies.  For this post I didn't see any butterflies, but there were a couple of bees.

I don't know if it's the cool summer, or the damp spring but even the butterfly bushes don't look as healthy as in past years.

At least some pollinators are able to take advantage of the bushes.

And as a bonus - just because I like this picture - I'll let you see the dragonfly from earlier this summer.

And because it is bloom day, not because they are particularly photogenic, here is a shot of some of the phlox still holding on.

The big bloomer right now is the hibiscus in the front yard.

OK, I was playing with the macro setting in the camera and got this "in your face" shot.

Here are some more shots of the Queen of Sharon hibiscus.

I had to get a ladder out of the shed to get up high enough to get  these shots, it's blooming right at the roofline and that's a rain gutter just behind the blossoms.

I love the gentleness of these blossoms.

Mid July Panorama and Bloom Day

I'm cheating a little, I decided to take advantage of a Sunday afternoon for my pictures and blog post for Mid July instead of trying to get lucky on weather on Tuesday evening after work.  We've been getting a lot of afternoon thunderstorms over the last couple of weeks, but today is bright, sunny, and hot.  So I'm taking advantage of the sun, and the excuse to sit in the air conditioning and post on the blog.

First, the mid July panorama:

There's a lot of green, but not a lot of color - but it's there if you look.  We talked to our neighbor about the tall spikey growths in the center (and all over really) and couldn't decide if they're weeds or not.  I'm willing to give it some time and see if it flowers and what any flowers look like.  Here's a closer look.

Against the back fence we are just in the last two days getting blossoms on the butterfly bushes.  There are four of them back there.  And with the blossoms I was able to get some pictures of a white moth checking out the blooms.

Over in the vegetable garden, we're still getting blooms as the vegetables are continuing to come in.

Tomato buds.

Zucchini blossoms

And inside the fence at the far right (over by the holly trees) we have a flourishing patch of phlox.

And there are still just a few of the June bloomers, the rose campion and the yellow primrose.

And we have a visitor who is growing under the fence from our neighbor's yard - a day lily.

I know that the lily is potentially poisonous to the dogs, but I haven't wanted to pull it out.  I've accepted that despite my professed intent to create a totally pet friendly garden, I'm not really ready to pull out all the plants I would need to.  It would mean getting rid of the big cherry tree, the azaleas, and enough others that I had to come to terms with my goal.  I will continue to try not to add any hazardous plants, but in 4 years here we haven't had any problems with the dogs chewing on the plants (running them down - yes; eating - no) Maybe I'll need to refocus and work on rescuing the garden from the dogs. 

The Garden Bloggers Bloom Day page is at http://www.maydreamsgardens.com/search/label/garden%20bloggers%20bloom%20day

Bloom Day

Last month I came across an interesting blog post.  The May Dreams Garden blog invites people to take pictures of what is blooming on the 15th of the month and write a post and share a link to show what's going on in the garden.  This month's post is at Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day - June 2014.  So, I've taken some pictures (what a surprise.)  It also fits well with my project this summer to take panorama pictures of the back hill at the beginning and middle of each month to keep a video diary of what blooms and when.

So I'll start with a panorama of the back garden from pictures taken yesterday afternoon.

The flowers in bloom right now are Yellow Primrose, Rose Campion, and Cucumbers, Zucchini, and Tomatoes. 

I'll let the Primrose go first since they are the flashiest.

They are all over the hill, but they're so pretty that I'm happy to see them.  They are also accompanied by Rose Campions.

It's taken a couple years, and some help, to identify what the Rose Campions are, but now I know what they are so that I can call them by name.

Over on the far right of the yard (in the big square planter) is the vegetable garden. This is our first year planting vegetables so we're excited to see all the blossoms and nascent vegetables on the vines.  I didn't get pictures of the zucchini blossoms or the tomato flowers, but here is a picture of some cucumber flowers.

We've put bird netting over the vegetable garden to try and protect the veggies until we can harvest them.

And it wouldn't be a celebration around here (Father's Day this weekend) without food.  I butterflied a chicken and rubbed some garlic herb butter under the skin before I grilled it. We also had corn on the cob, roasted veggies, grilled pineapple and (not shown) cowboy beans, bread and brie, and a bottle of Far Eastern Shore wine - Lotus.

And some no sugar added blueberry pie for dessert.   It was a good day to enjoy the flowering garden and family gathered for dinner.