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.

Garden panoramas

Well, I've taken the end of August panorama and I thought I'd show off the progression of the back garden through this spring and summer.

April

I didn't have the idea of doing the panoramas at first, so the mid-April pictures are actually two sets that didn't overlap enough to allow them to be stitched together.

Mid April left side of hill

Mid April right side of hill

The early daffodils really stand out against the red mulch.

Late April

Beginning to see where the bigger elements of the garden are returning to the spring garden.

May

Mid May

Beginning to see the Azaleas in the center show their color.

Late May

By late May there has been a lot of growth and filling in, even the vegetable garden on the far right is showing growth.

June

Mid June

In June we started seeing the Primrose and the Rose Campion - bunches of yellow and pinkish red.

Late June

July

Mid July

By mid July we were seeing a LOT of the green spikey plants all over, but particularly in the center - blocking our view of the butterfly bushes..

Late July

I made a decision that the green spikey things were weeds - they were taking over and growing so big that we couldn't see much else. - except the mutant tomato bushes taking over the vegetable garden.  There are only 3 tomato bushes in that garden over there on the right.

August

Mid August

It was a very mild August, very few days in the 90's and none that I can remember in the 100's. Everything continued to thrive, but we don't have much blossoming out back in the late summer.  We had a very healthy hibiscus in the front yard, but those pictures are in other posts.

Late August

August has continued mild (a little hot this week, but nothing to complain about.) The mutatnt tomato plants are still going strong - we're getting between a pint and a quart of cherry tomatoes almost every day.

September and October

There will still be plenty to do and more tomatoes to harvest, but the major flowering and gardening for this season is winding down.  I'm already making plans for next year, but this project has given me a longer perspective on the cycles of the garden through the Spring and Summer months.  I need to find some more late blooming plants o help fill out all the greenery of August and September.

Primroses and Rose Campions

The heat of summer is coming on in Bowie. It's not in the 90's yet, but we're going to be in the mid to upper 80's all week. Amidst the heat and afternoon thunderstorms, the garden is flourishing.  Early June is the bloom time for the primroses and the rose campions.

I finally (after trying to track it down for two years) know what the silver plants with the dark red flowers are.

They are rose campions.  Due to some detective work done by a friend (thanks Karen) I know that these are rose campion.  And a few more details (they are short lived perennials [2-3 years] that reseed easily and can be planted with yellow flowers for a "hot" garden.)

Speaking of yellow flowers:

the primroses are taking over the garden in cahoots with the rose campions.

Looking down the path from near the holly trees on the left in the panorama

The two compliment each other well in color and in bloom time.

Across the back fence we have 4 butterfly bushes coming along nicely that will start adding a wildlife dimension to the blooms very soon.

Butterfly pictures should start showing up soon. We've seen one or two butterflies already, but they'll be more as soon as the butterfly bushes start to bloom.

Early Fall visitors passing through

On Sunday afternoon we saw a few visitors that we hadn't seen before in the yard.  I went to get the camera, but didn't take time for the tripod, so these shots were "freehand" and some at high zoom.  But I wanted to get some pictures.

This was the first one that caught my eye while I was out with the dogs on the patio.

I haven't seen any monarchs, so I was excited to get some pictures.  He was probably migrating through, given the time of year, but it was still fun to see him. He was checking out some of the late blooms on one of the butterfly bushes.

While I was out there with the camera I decided to get some shots of the daisies. They're finally blooming and adding a lot to the garden.

They were having their own visitors too.

But then I spotted this guy.

Thanks to Google Image Search (where you can upload a picture and search for similar images) I was able to identify this as a Variegated Fritillary.  The site where I found the other pictures like this had a lot of examples from North Carolina, so he could have been migrating south as well.  I haven't seen him before, so I'm glad I already had the camers to get a couple pictures to be able to identify him.

I'll be using the Google image search more often to help me identify the plants and visitors in the yard.  One of my goals is to identify the different plants we got when we bought the house.  It's been over three years now and I want to be sure I know how to care for the plants, and how to identify what might be toxic to the dogs.

Starting off with the Cherry Blossoms

Since this is the first post of a new blog, I think I should start with an iconic subject: Cherry Blossoms.  Living near Washington DC, and loving to take pictures of flowers, I have a growing collection of pictures of Cherry Blossoms.  This one is from a tree in our backyard - and is my current favorite.

I had to remove some deadwood from this tree this year. I noticed the branches last year, but didn't want to do anything yet.  But this year I'm feeling more confident - I hope the yard survives!

The cherry blossoms only lasted a little over a week at their peak, but they're iconic to the DC area.  For the rest of the summer we get to enjoy the shade. Since it's on the west side of the patio we get late afternoon shade.

Moving forward I am hoping to share pictures and stories from the garden, the dogs, and cooking efforts.

About three years ago we bought a house with a spectacular garden and yard. We are sharing with 4 rescued dogs (all cocker spaniels from Oldies But Goodies Cocker Rescue) and a rescued cat.  I'm currently trying to rescue my yard from myself as I learn more about what grows here in a Maryland suburb of Washington DC (zone 7.) I'm also learning about what these things are that are already growing here - the former owner loved perennials.