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?

It’s a lucky visitor whose gaze turns east along the path between the mansion and the Enclosed Garden, instead of west across the blooming North Garden and Great Lawn to Narragansett Bay. The western view is a compelling one to be sure and even I am caught up short by it every time I walk by. But right now to the east there’s an even more spectacular view. If slightly more subtle. The Davidia involucrata, otherwise known as the dove tree, handkerchief tree, ghost tree or laundry tree (I would never call it that) is in full bloom.

Blithewold’s dove tree was given to Marjorie Lyon in 1973 for her 90th birthday (along with several other trees including the Stewartia pseudocamellia that died in this past winter’s blizzard). It was a particularly interesting gift because it was unlikely that she’d live long enough to see its flowers. And in fact, she didn’t. (They usually take about 10 years to come into bloom.) But like so many of the trees at Blithewold, it was planted and cherished for its promise to provide future generations with an eyeful of gorgeousness. So we are the recipients of that gift — a generous one this year because it seems more loaded with flowers than ever.

I always try to remember to walk over to the tree in late-April/May because a few days before it becomes showy enough to catch anyone’s eyes from the path, the flowers emerge along the branches like teeny-tiny burgundy-black buttons flanked by teeny-tiny green bracts. They’re totally adorable. And almost fast enough to watch, the bracts grow into dangling tissues that remind me of homemade Halloween ghosts, and the flowers expand into fuzzy greyish spheres. Right now it’s as beautiful — and strange — from a distance as it is close-up.

Although the dove tree would seem to deserve a more front-and-center placement, it was tucked back against a windbreak of rhododendron and chamaecyparis for protection because with a zone rating of 6-8, it’s considered marginally hardy here (we’re Zone 6b/7). It hails from central China and wants full sun to partial shade and the ideal garden combination of organically rich, moist, well-drained soil. It will stay in the 20-40′ range and has a pyramidal habit. So pretty.

Do you have a dove tree or have you seen one in bloom? What did you think of it?

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?

Daffodil Days culminates this coming Sunday with our annual Fairy Festival and we expect all of Blithewold’s fairies to come out for the party. Conditions should be just right. A warm and sunny day is in the forecast and there will be plenty of believers on the property… I’m pretty sure I know where they’ve been hiding lately too. If I was a fairy I’d probably hang out with the daffodils in the Bosquet (they’re still in peak bloom) probably under the open parasols of the mayapple (Podophyllum peltatum) and kicking back on trout lily leaves.

But there’s really no better fairy camouflage than epimedium. Especially now while it displays tiny blooms that look enough like real fairy wings to earn that as one of its common names. — Or is it the leaves that look like fairies’ wings because, come to think of it, to me the flowers look more like court jester hats. But then the leaves look more like hearts… Maybe on Sunday, when we get a better look at the fairies, we’ll be able to tell what’s what.

In any case, anyone who wants to attract fairies to their garden should definitely consider planting epimedium. And even if you’re allergic to fairy stings, you might fall for epimedium just because it’s one of the prettiest groundcovers of all time for shade. Our biggest colonies are planted in the Rock Garden and just outside the Rose Garden moongate, in a bed we refer to as the “dry shade bed”. The ground under the Pagoda tree (Sophora japonica) is dry and compacted but these dainty and delicate looking plants have been perfectly happy to spread their wings (so to speak — rhizomes, actually) over the last few years to fill in where not much else wants to. They’re a whole lot tougher than they look. If you’re not already a fan, here’s another point in their favor: most are practically evergreen and need no more attention than a once-a-year haircut in late winter/early spring to make way for these spectacular (and sometimes speckled) new leaves and adorable flowers. And if you are already a fan, you know that planting one leads down a slippery slope to craving a whole collection. (There are about 40 species and who knows — I certainly don’t — how many cultivars.) Rarity though, is another point in their favor — despite their willingness to spread, they are not always easy to divide, which makes them a little bit precious and sometimes hard to find to buy. (Our favorite local source is Avant Gardens.)

Do you have fairies or fairy wings in your garden? Any favorites?