Even though the foxgloves have been outstanding in the Rose Garden and the roses and delphinium have begun to show off, I am still being distracted by allium. But then class clowns are usually pretty distracting. — In the best way. Last year we ordered more ornamental onions than we ever had before and planted most of them in the Rose Garden in an effort to close the May Gap. Success! And now that an abundant June is well under way, we’re still thoroughly enjoying their company.

I wouldn’t be surprised if the firecracker, Allium schubertii (left) was everyone’s favorite. It only stands a foot or so tall but its sparkling personality totally lights up the garden.

Allium ‘Ambassador’, on the other end of the height spectrum with deep purple globes standing nearly 5′ tall, commandeers attention – but does it diplomatically and with great good humor. — They’re like giant grape lollipops. So are ‘Pinball Wizard’ in the North Garden. Those are a little shorter, standing maybe 3′ tall and even with larger pops on top they carry themselves with an elegance that suits that garden perfectly.

Back in the Rose Garden we also planted A. amplectens ‘Graceful Beauty’, a cultivar of North American native narrowleaf onion. It was almost unbearably cute in bud but now that it’s open it’s a little more grown-up looking and perfectly lovely. My other new/old favorite that you’ll see in that garden is A. caeruleum. Its dainty flowertops are the kind of color that painters covet. It’s been a while since I got out my oils but my guess would be a mix of cerulean blue with maybe a smidge of phthalo blue and a tiny dop of titanium white…

We also threw in a handsome couple — deep burgundy purple A. atropurpureum and shimmering A. ‘Silver Spring’ that has a dome of burgundy centered white flowers. A stunning combo (their portrait is in last week’s post about galore-iousness.)

As far as I know there is only one real trick to growing ornamental onions. Like many plants that grow from bulbs, they tend to eventually bear hideous foliage. (A. karataviense is an exceptional exception.) So I believe they’re best tucked into an intensively planted garden where they can grow up through other plants (peonies, lady’s mantle, nepeta…) that will hide their scraggly yellow ground-level leaves. They can be deadheaded when they’re done blooming but we usually leave the big ones standing because they form seedheads every bit as ornamental as the flowers. And even if we take them down after they’ve dried we think they’re too pretty, too weird, too cool to throw away. That’s when we get out the spray paint…

Do you plant ornamental onions? Which are your favorites? I’m early for the Garden Bloggers Bloom Day celebration – head over to May Dreams Gardens tomorrow to see what else is in bloom in June. (Maybe others won’t be as distracted by allium as I have been!)

I know I say this every year – and then say it again every week for the rest of the season – but the gardens are prettier than ever. I’m not sure if it’s just that we have been so lucky weather-wise that everything is blooming more exuberantly than ever before or if it’s that the gardens really are growing more beautiful all the time. I suspect it’s a bit of both. I realize now since the trees have been so extra-pretty – not just the dove tree – that I should have been featuring a superstar every week. So without further ado, I give you the  fringe tree (Chionanthus virginicus). Honestly, I’m not sure why this gorgeous little tree isn’t as ubiquitous as the Bradford pear. It offers so much more. For one thing it’s native to eastern US and perfectly happy to grow in full sun to partial shade (my own blooms away in too much shade.) and stays small enough (12-20′) to fit even in tiny gardens like mine. And right now, just in time for June parties, it has the most graceful dangles of fragrant white Great Gatsby-style feathers. Given where Blithewold’s fringe tree is, tucked against the wall along Ferry Road between the entrance gate and the garage, I wouldn’t be surprised if visitors missed it. But I am sorry about that. I can only hope that walkers-by have noticed and applauded its display. And now that you know where it is, maybe you’ll make the detour to pay it a visit and compliment too.

I’m more certain that everyone who has visited Blithewold this week noticed the Rose Garden. It stopped me in my tracks and I wish I could have spent every moment in it. (I did find excuses for daily visits…) The chestnut rose (Rosa roxburghii) has been blooming its branches off and the foxgloves alone demand hours of rapt attention. Not to do anything – they don’t seem to need staking (knock wood) and they certainly don’t need deadheading yet – but just to stare. Truly, we have never had such a stupendous display. The white ones (Digitalis purpurea f. albiflora a.k.a Digitalis purpurea ‘Alba’) are a biennial grown from seed by Julie Morris, our director of horticulture, emerita. While Gail and I both remember watering the flat of seedlings in the greenhouse, neither of us can remember when last year (was it June or September?) we actually planted them in the garden. Let this be a lesson to me that no detail is too small to record. With any luck (and if we leave some deadheads standing), these will seed themselves back in the garden for next year, but we’ll start another batch in the greenhouse for insurance too. Now that we know we can’t live without them.

Can’t live without the ornamental onions either. Last october we planted a fresh batch of the firecracker Allium schubertii - they do seem to diminish over time. My other favorites include the tall white and purple dotted (what’s up with me lately? I thought I didn’t like white flowers…) A. ‘Silver Spring’, tiny A. caeruleum and another dainty white one, A. amplectens ‘Graceful Beauty’. They and the giant purple lollipops of ‘Ambassador’ are so outstanding that I don’t even mind that some of the roses haven’t broken bud yet. Next week, when all of the roses are blooming along with the delphinium that are just about to pop, the garden might just knock my socks totally off. And yours too if you visit. (You should.)

Is your garden more beautiful than ever too? Do you have new (or old) favorites for June? –Do you have a fringe tree?

Just because Daffodil Days are over doesn’t mean the daffodils are done (especially this year). But we’re onto the next thing. Even though there aren’t anywhere near 50,000 tulips, they are doing their best to steal the show from the daffodils. Clumps of 10 or 20 here and there is all it takes, plus a warm sunny day like we’ve had for the last week or so, for them to open wide. It’s almost as if they’re demanding their own celebratory event. (Why not?) And every visitor is drawn like a magnet. Especially to the rows of cutting garden tulips. Some of the colors are so super-saturated that they’re nearly impossible to photograph but even I had to try yesterday around midday because that’s exactly when they’re lit like light bulbs and knocking everyone’s socks off.

Every year we trial new-to-us tulips in the Cutting Garden and use them to plan next year’s spring designs in the Rose and North Gardens but I don’t ever remember having as many fast favorites as I do this year. Baby-girl pink is usually too sweet for my taste but ‘Pink Star’ has attitude and the prettiest wavy, baby-blue leaves. There’s no way I wouldn’t fall head over heels for ‘Apricot Parrot’ and it’s even prettier than I imagined.

I thought ‘André Rieu’ was a little bit blah until I looked into its cobalt blue eyes and then I realized that I love its blue-purple color (its picture doesn’t do it justice) and racing stripes. I’m not sure what to think of ‘Red Shine’, which is actually more of a blow-your-eyes out pink but I think I love it.

And it will be really hard not to use the fringed blaze of ‘Miami Sunset’ in every garden next year. They’re extra cool because every bloom came with its own mini-me right alongside.

Gail and I keep sending volunteers up to see the tulips in the Rose Garden as if it’s part of their job. (And so it is!) Along with fat fluffy over-saturated ‘Miranda’ that no one believes is really a tulip, and the tall and lovely ‘Silverstream’ that opened in a multi-colored range of yellows and reds and are fading now to red-edged creams, we have a few extra special species tulips tucked in and around the roses. ‘Lady Jane’ has been a favorite for a few years now and my new all-time, number-one favorite might be Tulipa orphanidea ‘Flava’, shown below right, still closed up on a chilly morning and complemented perfectly by cerulean blue forget-me-nots.

Last year we lost a lot of tulips to the squirrels (there were no acorns). This year we also lost a few in every garden mostly to deer grazing instead even though we dutifully sprayed stinky stuff and even spread a little Milorganite around (they hate that smell too). –And just yesterday the volunteers removed whole patches of bud-nipped tulips from the Idea Garden. But I can’t say I miss them. The ones that are left are showy enough to celebrate spring in style.

Do you have a favorite tulip this year — or ten? Do you do anything special to keep them from being eaten or do you just make sure to plant enough to go around?

Whether or not you got your taxes in on time, spring is sending out huge returns right this minute. As a gardener I have paid close enough attention to spring that I really shouldn’t ever be surprised by it but yet again, I’m feeling amazed at how quickly it’s happening. Tree buds that were still tightly closed (if swollen) last week when I checked them must have opened over the weekend. Mayapple (Podophyllum peltatum) that was tucked under the leaves in the bosquet last week is poking up today like a forest of tiny umbrellas. Ferns that were still tightly knobbed are beginning to lengthen into fiddleheads. Grape hyacinth are out in force; trout lily are displaying their peeled banana blooms; and a close-up look at a red-tinted horizon reveals the most delicate garnet flowers on the red maples (Acer rubrum).

And the daffodils. I knew it was coming (and we predicted that this would be the week) but they’re totally peaking now. I am tempted to say that it doesn’t get any better than this but of course it does. By the day.

So if you’re on vacation with your kids this week, I sure hope you return to Blithewold for Daffodil Days or at least get outside to reap spring’s awesome reward. (Given the weather forecast for the next few days — no hot weather in sight yet — it looks like the daffs will be in peak right through and into next week. And by then there should be a few more tulips too!)

Is spring at its peak in your garden too? For a look at spring’s return all over the country and the world, head over to May Dreams Gardens for April Garden Bloggers Bloom Day.

I was only away from Blithewold for a week (and not very far away either — on staycation at home) but it’s amazing how much happened here in that time. Spring happened. Almost. The start of it anyhow. At least inside the greenhouse. The propagation house is chock-a-block full of seed trays — it’s hard to believe we can make more room but Dick, vegetable gardener extraordinaire, was in today to sow some more. And like a clown car, we stuffed four more trays (of eggplants and peppers) on the benches. The sweet peas are all up — and uneaten by mice. Such a pretty sight! The whole greenhouse in fact, is gorgeous. The scent of the Ponderosa lemon in full bloom is enough to knock me over. And our jasmine, which is only about a third open yet, is so strong it’s almost too much. But I’ll take it, breathing deeply, especially since I’ve been away from it. I realize now that I’ve been taking the greenhouse’s early spring totally for granted and even on a raw day like today, it’s kind of heaven in there. (If you’re nearby, please visit. Especially if you’re feeling as demoralized by the weather as I am.)

Outside, since we have another layer of slushy snow on the ground and are being pelted with freezing rain, it’s hard to believe that spring’s official start is only a day away. But there are more signs showing than there were a week ago, mostly in the bed just outside the Rose Garden’s moongate. I took these pictures yesterday… Click on any of the pictures for a bigger view or hover over for the caption.

With weather like today’s, we can be sure that spring – meaning the daffodils – won’t be extra early like they were last year. Probably right on time. We hope. (Did I hear more snow for next week? Say it isn’t so!) We’re opening for the season, snow or shine, on April 2 this year. And then Daffodils Days start up, whether still budded or blooming, on Saturday, April 6. Is March blooming in your garden? How about inside?