I can hardly believe it’s mid May already and time once again for Garden Bloggers Bloom Day hosted by Carol at May Dreams Gardens. Check out the gajillion comments on her bloom day post to see what’s blooming this very minute around the world. But before you go, here a few pics of some of what’s “on” at Blithewold: (click on images for a larger view)

It’s nowhere near Halloween but the Dove tree (Davidia involucrata) has been decorated in tissue ghosts. Its other common names are “Ghost tree” and “Handkerchief tree”- go figure…

The Carolina silverbell (Halesia carolina) is not to be outdone by the Dove.

Father Hugo (Rosa hugonis/R. xanthina f. hugonis) is sparked to be a fully lit candelabra.

I looked up for once as I walked the path to the summer house and spotted the Rosebay rhody (Rhododendron catawbiense) on fire too.

Juicyfruit anyone? The Carolina allspice (Calycanthus floridus) is starting to bloom.

True or false? This is Speiranthes convallarioides or False Lily-of-the-valley. It’s evergreen, hardy to zone 5 and happily increasing in our dry shade bed (in a spot that gets some sun).

This is Lily-of-the-valley (Convallaria). And that’s the truth.

Nearby, the Mayapples are blooming – you have to get down low to see the blossoms under the leafy umbrellas.

There are lots of sweet blooms in and around the Rock Garden: like Tulipa batalinii

Fern-leaf corydalis (Corydalis cheilanthifolia)

Tiarella ‘Mint Chocolate’

Wild oat lily (Uvularia sessifolia)

A wild geranium that the volunteers refer to as “Herb Robert” (that might have to be the name of my next pet!)

This Hellebore in the Rock Garden is about done blooming but look at all the seedlings! We think that this spring has been particularly outstanding for bloomeriferousness (yes, it is a word because my editor -that’s me!- says so). Our theory is that last summer’s drought must have stressed everything out so much they decided to put on a mad show of survival propagation this year. I think it’s kind of like when I neglect my African violets and just before they go limp they give up one last gasp of glorious blooms – which of course reminds me to pay attention again… Are you seeing more-more-more, bigger-better this spring too?

It’s all about the little things again. Yesterday Gail spotted an adorable flock of Cedar Waxwings feasting on inchworms and pooping on me (nailed twice, lucky me!) and today Gioia spied the Oriole sweetly serenading as we weeded the Display Garden. I was also lucky enough to spot this little guy today hunkered down against the wind (it’s blowing a gale out there!). Anyone know if it is what it looks like? – I think it must be a new baby dragonfly. (click on pictures for a larger view)

We’re shifting our focus this week from planting to weeding.

It happens every year like a bomb went off – last week’s rain sparked a flash flood of seedlings that are all of a sudden big enough for us to name (with names like “a weed” and “not-a-weed”).

It takes practice to recognize the wants and the don’t wants and patience to extract them from each other. Some of us would like to take a hoe and wipe out the whole lot and start fresh but others of us enjoy the surprises and the challenge. The cutting garden is full of volunteer annuals (and we love our volunteers almost as much as we love our volunteer weeders) like Snow on the mountain (Euphorbia marginata), Bupleurum, Papaver somniferum ‘Peony Flowered’ and in the North Garden we came across some cosmos and bachelor buttons amongst our usual thugish favorites like Milkweed (Asclepias). Occasionally, sometimes, every now and then, even we don’t recognize a weed when we see it – Gail sighs, “Professional horticulturists that we are…” and shakes her head in dismay. We let some things become specimen-sized before we yank them out with a hot blush of embarrassment (“yikes! Hope nobody noticed that!”) or we’ll miss something completely until it’s a suddenly giant horsy thumb poking up out of the back row. We hope that visitors see the humor too… How well do you know your seedlings?

This time of year I absolutely live for the softly warm spring days that get me out in the garden. But after a few days of that I’m always ready for the rain days that pull me out of the garden and back into the greenhouse. We potted up; I went nuts spraying insectical soap on the few (very few) whiteflies and aphids (it’s better for the plants to spray soap and hort. oil when it’s cloudy) and we did a little more moving out. Our greenhouse days are numbered now and I am cherishing them – especially while it’s not too hot in there.

We’re very lucky at Blithewold to have The Julia L. Morris Horticultural Center. But before it was The Julia L. Morris Horticultural Center (named in honor of our bosslady director of horticulture, Julie) it was a falling down wreck of rusted iron, 100 year old cypress, broken glass and potty bricks and was pretty much held together with 5mil plastic stapled to the muntins. Some of you might remember the sign on the door: The Greenhouses Are NOT Open To Visitors Trespassers Will Be Composted. It was dangerous enough for the staff to be inside – a big wind was particularly scary – but the thought of visitors tripping on the rotten boardwalk or being beaned by falling glass was severely cringe inducing. Only one of the big houses was heated – with a giant noisy blower hung above the door like a booby trap – and the other house was left to freeze with only the hardiest of tender inhabitants – a couple of collection fig trees planted in the ground. The little propagation house was warmed (ever so slightly) with rickety radiators and was stuffed to the gills.

I only risked my head a couple of winters in that greenhouse before the dilapidated Lord & Burnham was restored to its present glory (thanks to grants and generous donations and a contractor named Stephen Wacha) using modern materials. We have efficient radiant heat in all the houses, a safe walkway, benches that stay standing, vents that open and close automatically and new fans that have helped regulate the temperature and keep the bug and fungal activity to a minimum. And it’s open to the public! Some of the original features remain – the south gable end is restored cypress, the iron work finials were cleaned up and put back up and the vent cranks were reinstalled as decorative features. The old greenhouse lives on in other ways too – sills and foundation blocks and iron gutters are being recycled in all sorts of different ways in the gardens and – look at this – a most handsome railing for the pumphouse that Fred, Dan and Joel put up yesterday using what looks like cypress and iron from the old palm house (dismantled long before our time).

I keep hearing stories about people who have unused greenhouses on their property and I go green(house) with envy. I know that heat and maintenance cost an arm and a leg but still what I wouldn’t give… Most gardeners I know make do with sunny windowsills, grow lamps in the cellar or a cool southside porchlet like mine here. What does your greenhouse look like?

This Sunday Julie and expert plantsman and volunteer Gil Moore will be here from 1 – 4:00 hosting an open (green)house. They’ll have answers for your Mom’s questions and there will even be a few choice houseplants and tender perennials for sale. Happy Mother’s Day!

If you learn how to read the looks of things in nature you can figure out just when it’s the right time to do just about anything in the garden. — You can be your very own farmer’s almanac! I have no good memory for this stuff – I know that when birds are on the wing, it’s time to do something… And I remembered something about oak leaves being as big as mouse ears – but Gail had to remind me that that’s the rule for when it’s safe to plant the tender annuals. We did get our lettuce in right on time today – as it happens, the lilacs have leafed out. The thing that’s confusing to me just dabbling my toes in the phenological pond is that things like oaks and maples (you can plant perennials according to this site’s list when the maples unfurl) have timing that’s all over the place – our gardens and streets are full of so many varieties now. Some of our oaks are still tightly wrapped while others’ leaves have exceeded mouse and are now fully cat. Which one do we believe? (I think the later ones or whichever ones are native to these parts.) Here at Blithewold we tend to go more by the moon when it comes to putting out the tender stuff. We’re typically safe from frost after the full moon in May – so oak leaves or no oak leaves after that is when we’ll start getting plants out of the greenhouse in earnest.

And then there’s full-on gardening by the moon: Dick and Cathy planted leeks today. According to the moon it might be just the right time – depending on whether they’re considered an above-ground or below-ground crop! (I’m easily confused.) Above-ground crops should be sown/planted during the waxing moon and below-ground with the wane.

Or you can do things according to your own busy schedule and hope for the best! We most often get things done exactly when we have a moment to do them. So I’ve decided to make up some of my own rules:

When the Maackia amurensis leaves are still silvery jewels, the Golden Larch is leafing out and the crabapples are starting to bloom, it’s definitely time to pot up dahlia tubers – which, speaking of mice, look an awful lot like a box full of them. — We pot up the dahlias that are earmarked for the North Garden so that when we plant them, they’re already up – we’re much less likely to trample them that way when we’re working in there.

Do you follow any of nature’s rules? Which ones? And better yet, do you make up any of your own?

Yesterday, the Rockettes and I were walking back to the greenhouse from planting teeny poppies and blue woodruff in the Rock Garden and I finally saw a tree that my eyes must have bounced off of nearly every day since I started working here. The tree has beautiful peeling bark that would have been a perfect feature in a Winter Interest post (maybe next winter I’ll write one of those…) and according to the AHS A-Z it has midsummer flowers (insignificant according to Julie) followed by pea-like seed pods. But this is what the Maackia amurensis has now and what my eyes finally lit on and saw:

From a distance the emerging leaves looked almost purple/blue and up close they were sterling silver busting out of an 18k greengold wrap! The thing that I can’t get over is not that it was one of the most incredible color combos I’ve ever noticed in nature but that I simply hadn’t registered the tree before. My challenge for you, if you choose to accept it, is to look at something new that you see everyday. You might find a surprise every bit as sublime and stunning and knock you off your rocker gorgeous (like these Red maple samaras).

There are other things we’re noticing in the gardens that aren’t so wonderful but are just as important to keep an eye out for. Gail and I spotted Cedar-apple rust (Gymnosporangium juniperi-virginiani) on a Juniper near the greenhouse. These alien orange gelatinous globs of disgusting goo appear in April/May usually after a rain on the host plant – Junipers (Juniperus virginiana) a.k.a Eastern Red Cedars – and then spread by spore to infect apples and native crabapples (most non-natives are resistant). Damage on apples appears as leaf spots, poor quality fruit and repeated infection can eventually cause the tree to die. Take a look at your junipers – if you see an orange Martian with horns, cut it off and throw it out (but not in the compost).

Today we moved some perennials from the North Garden to the Rose Garden and as I was digging my planting holes I came across these critters. The larger brown-orange one I think is a Gypsy Moth pupa (anyone know for sure?) and when I suggested putting the wriggling guy on the pavement for the birds to find both Gail and Julie said “Awww…” and the Mom in Gail said “We don’t harm nature, Kris.” So I rolled my eyes and buried it again. I squarshed the other one though and several of its siblings. And I would pay any child a penny a pinch to do the same because it was a Japanese beetle grub and future rose devour-er. I had half a mind to keep digging up the Rose Garden to try and find them all… Instead I did something much more pleasant – I nipped and pinched and groomed our lavenders. Older specimens often open up in the middle and pinching can help keep them young at heart.

Daffodil Days are still going strong although the daffodil show is beginning to go by. It’s a good thing the parade of (other) blooms has only just begun!