The Spring Thread 2011

[espranch]

Spring, with Redbud & Dogwood trees... and this is the view, walking toward my greenhouse...Betty :-)

[espranch]

Here is a better picture...I hope! Betty

[espranch]

More blooming flowers in our yard...

[espranch]

I'm learning to make the pictures BIGGER! Betty :-)

[Brutal_Dreamer]

I was back home this past week visiting my folks. While out working with my dad repairing some fence, I saw these beautiful blooms. What a site! Apparently, there used to be a house here back in the early 1900's. My grandmother was born in a house near this site in 1912. I never realized there were neighbors that close (next hill over... ) haha...Anyway, these flowers bloom here every year and this is the first time I have ever had my camera when out where they grow.

So, after seeing them this time, I drove back to my folks house and got a shovel and a couple of large tubs and dug up some of these bulbs. I brought them back here to my home in Arkansas and planted them. Hopefully, next year I can share some of my own blooms from them.



Cheers,
BD

[espranch]

Bruce, since you like iris, I'll give you some colored ones ( if you want them ) in the Fall. Betty :-)

[Dorsetman]

Here are a few more pics from my garden - taken late March..
Clematis armandii grows along the trellis which screens the greenhouse from sight ; I call it "The Chinaman" - the trellis also hosts several other mid-summer and later Clematis hybrids, honeysuckle. wisteria, etc. These are white flowers - two to three inches across. with lovely large dark green leathery leaves. In mild winters it flowers as early as late January, here.
The white starry flowered bush down at the bottom of the set of four pics, is Magnolia stellata . I never seem to live long enough in one place ( joke) oto grow one of the big Magnolia trees - the best one in England, further west along the South Coast is actually the first Magnolia to be planted in England - now 150 (?) years old and that stretches a length greater than my trellis ( 10 metres ) . But stellata makes a nice bush like this in the six years since it was planted in what started off as a builders site - the house was built for us , so all the garden is "mine" .
I do like plants which seed themselves , and I planted a few Muscari bulbs of several species, as ground cover below my cultuivated blackberries ( we always use the word cultivated in England, since they also grow wild along every lane, all over the country - but the wild berries are smaller and later and not as sweet as the modern hybrids which I grow ). Thes have done well - the are a river of blue, somewhat foreshortened by the camera angle.

[orchidsal]

Where do I begin...... Betty that Wisteria and Dogwood are favorites of mine. Bruce: I love the rolling hills and those flowers are exceptional, especially considering they are essentially 'wild grown' now. The soil around your parents house must be pretty good. Geoff, your garden is full of color. I am very partial to Muscari and just like Oregon I can certainly understand why blackberries grow all over England. They seem to love moist climates. AL

[espranch]

Thanks, Al...We both enjoy our gardening everyday. WE are the gardeners, no one else, so WE can take ALL the credit! It sometimes takes years to do or in our case re-do gardens. Our property was "let go" when we first got it and there was a lot of damage to both house & gardens. Now, after sixteen yrs. and a lot of hard work, we've ALMOST got it finished! Betty :-)

[Germinatorman]

Incredible pictures, I have nothing up yet, daffys are thinking about it. Branka, are those bees in a Hellabore?