Rose 'Glowing Peace'

This was transplanted about two months ago, but despite

that it's still blooming!

The End of Iris Season

When the iris are in bloom I feel like I'm in a candy store. Not only because of the colors and shapes, but more importantly the scent! I'm waiting for the day when iris-flavored candy will be invented, which is probably doubtful since they're quite toxic. I'll just have to settle for the few weeks of scent in May and June (and gin, which is partly flavored with iris root). Anyway, here is some of the "candy" of the garden:

'Supreme Sultan' (bought this at the farmer's market!)

possibly 'Flavescens', a cultivar dating back

to 1813

possibly 'Honorabile', from 1840

'Warchief'

'Before the Storm', by far the most strongly-scented

iris in the garden (and one of the most beautiful)

A Long Overdue Spring Update

As with many graduate students this time of year, my life has within recent weeks been consumed by that weird concept of actually finishing my thesis, which I (successfully) defended last week and will be presenting tomorrow. Regardless, I couldn't keep myself away from the garden blogosphere any longer, even though I promised myself to put extraneous activities on pause in a sort of triage where only work pertaining to my thesis was permitted. Anyhow, so much has been happening in the garden that I had to at least throw up some photos of the action.

Let's backtrack just a bit. Here are some early spring blooms, which are now gone of course (especially after the 90 degree heat wave):

Bloodroot and lungwort in early April

Grecian windflower (Anemone blanda)

Corydalis

Hyacinth, of course

I'll admit I'm not much of a tulip or narcissus fan. But when I'm up at 6am on a cool spring morning it's very difficult not to appreciate these temperate gems, with the rising sun gleaming orange behind their silhouettes:

Darwin hybrid tulip, variety 'Daydream'

Narcissus, possibly variety 'Fortissimo'

Darwin hybrid tulip, possibly derived from the 'Dover' variety.

Apparently the colorful streaks are caused by some kind of

virus.

And of course the more subdued blooms:

Viola sororia 'priceana', apparently called the

"Confederate violet". My favorite violet in the garden.

Fritillaria

Even though they're relatively plain, there's something about

the green variety of Lenten Rose that I find elegant and appealing.

Chilled

So it appears that what I said about a warm week will ring a bit hollow (maybe). Some sort of chill has descended, and although it will certainly rise above freezing for most of the week, it probably won't be the early spring for which I got so excited (damn groundhog ruins everything). The weather is truly fickle (all too often unfortunately), but I'm still going outside tomorrow with my camera to capture something indicative of spring.

Recently, while reading my favorite food blog, I was introduced to a new term; food porn. It's exactly what it sounds like; delectable photographs of food. I've made the tasteful decision to adapt the term for garden blogging, so please enjoy this plant porn from last spring; it is a German iris 'Supreme Sultan' that I bought at the Farmer's Market. And yes, there will be much more plant porn in the future. :)