Under Cultivation

The blooming time is very short for spring ephemeral wildflowers so the chances are good that you’ll see them on just about any nature blog that you visit now, and rightly so- seeing them on a blog is the only way a lot of people get to see them. But, there are many other beautiful garden flowers blooming now that I think deserve a little bit of our time as well, so here are a few of those.

This native plant is called the pasque flower (Anemone patens.) “Pasque” refers to Easter, and some call it the Easter Flower. Others call it meadow anemone.  They are cold lovers that grow naturally on the tundra and prairies of Canada and the U.S. The showy lavender “petals” are actually sepals. The plant is in the buttercup family along with other plants like clematis, which I think it resembles. The seed heads that follow the flowers are also very showy. The pasque flower was used by Native Americans in childbirth but is considered toxic. Rabbits and deer will not eat it, so it is good in gardens that get night time critter visits. This Japanese bleeding heart (Dicentra spectabilis) grows in my yard and this is the earliest I’ve ever seen it bloom. These large plants are “summer dormant” so their foliage will yellow and die back to the ground by the end of June. This fern leaved or fringed bleeding heart (Dicentra eximia) also grows in my yard, and it’s blooming right on schedule. This is a native shade lover that will bloom until frost. I found this shrub growing in a local park and have no idea what it is. I think it might be a button bush (Cephalanthus,) but haven’t been able to positively identify it yet. I found this flowering crabapple (Malus) growing in a vacant lot. It was a true dwarf tree that was no more than 7 feet tall and was absolutely covered with pink, very fragrant flowers. It was a tree that any homeowner would love to have as a landscape specimen, but there it was in a vacant lot. Oh well-maybe more people are able to enjoy it that way. This barberry (Berberis) was also growing in the park, I thought the tiny yellow flowers and the deep maroon foliage were a nice combination. They were also quite difficult to get a decent picture of. There are several deep maroon /purple colored barberry hybrids with yellow flowers. This bishop’s hat or barrenwort (Epimedium) grows alongside some maidenhair fern in my yard. Some think that the tiny flowers resemble miniature columbine (Aquilegia.) This is a low growing plant that makes an excellent groundcover for shady areas; in my yard it might get an hour of sunlight each day. Bishop’s hat shouldn’t be confused with bishop’s cap, also called miterwort (Mitella,) which is an entirely different plant. I bought this shrub last year and planted it in my yard at the edge of the forest and so far am very happy with it. It’s from Japan and in the rose family so it is called Japanese rose (Kerria japonica.) Each lemon yellow blossom is about the size of a nickel. When fully grown it will be 6-8 feet tall and covered with thousands of flowers in early spring. Is this an azalea or a rhododendron? Gardeners haggle over which is which but the differences between them are so slight that botanists don’t separate the two; to a botanist they are all rhododendrons. The flowers on this small shrub were so beautiful that at the time I didn’t care what it was, but now I see that it’s an azalea. How? Most rhododendron blossoms will have 10 stamens while most azaleas have five or six, so counting the stamens will usually tell you what it is.I didn’t care much for the color of this dwarf bearded iris that I found growing in the park, but it has to take the prize for the earliest blooming iris that I’ve seen. This plant is called spurge and it is in the euphorbia family, which contains over 2000 species of plants including poinsettia, cassava, and many popular house plants. The variety shown here is called Euphorbia polychroma, variety “Bonfire.” If deer and rabbits have eaten your plants this is a good replacement, because they won’t touch it. Many plants in the euphorbia family have a milky, toxic sap. The longer yellow “petals” are actually bracts; the flowers are the very small yellow parts in the center of the bloom.

 I don’t think the early 80 degree temperatures we had in March forced the creeping phlox (Phlox stolonifera) into early bloom, but the plants seem to be blooming much longer than they usually do. I think it has been close to a month now that this plant in my yard has bloomed non stop.

If you truly love Nature, you will find beauty everywhere.  ~Vincent Van Gogh

I hope you haven’t minded straying away from wildflowers for a time. Flowers are beautiful whether wild or tame, so I think they all deserve equal time. Thanks for stopping by. Don’t forget mom’s day tomorrow!

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