Finally, we have tulips!

(Left) My Lewisia cotyledon "Little Plum". I love this little perennial so I recently bought a few more of them for the rock garden by mail order. I haven't had the ability (or was it patience?)to grow them from seed. The flowers look so delicious and exotic -- pink mixed with a hint of orange -- and the rosettes of leaves are so perfect and never scraggly.

The long-awaited large tulips are now blooming. The botanical tulips are all done and my single late variety tulips are in early bloom while the Triumph and Darwin hybrid tulips are in full bloom. I was out in the flower bed digging and weeding until 10 pm last night. The long days are nice and the plants are growing at an incredible speed.


These are the purple "Negrita" Single late tulips, with a single "Menton" peachy pink tulip at the left side. The Saskatoon berry shrubs are blooming in the foreground and background.

I picked up a few shrubs (Nest spruce, Spirea mini sunglo) at distant garden center yesterday and I'm still working on their final placements. I also got some additions for the rock garden, including hens and chicks and woolly thyme. This is part of my shift towards smaller, more appropriate plants for the little rock garden, which is a bit overpowered by some taller plants. Oh yes, thanks to resident-lawnmower-man who got me the gift certificate for the garden center!!!


These peachy pink "Menton" single late tulips are flowering for their second year. They grow very well here in the raised bed, where they get several feet of snow cover in the winter. We don't bother with shoveling any extra snow or mulch onto them. They are not the most "perennial" of the large tulips, and are said to only flower well for a few years. I don't especially like the peachy hue of the flowers, which clashes with the purple and blue flowers that are nearby.

Resident-lawnmower-man balks when I discuss these horrendous "clashes", but to me, the technicolor dissonance can be enough to cause nausea, or even insomnia (I must not have enough other life issues to worry about). I am hoping "Florissa" (single late) is closer to what I am looking for, but those were planted last fall and are not yet flowering. I am also still waiting for the bicolor "Skagit Valley" single late tulips to flower. If one of those last two tulips blow my socks off, I'll dig up the "Menton" tulips and replace them.



Finally, this is my tropical touch in the yard. I brought my cannas (this is "Stuttgart") indoors last fall and overwintered them as a houseplant in my bedroom. They started to flower again a few weeks ago. I put them out in two barrel planters and hope they'll thrive out in the long and warm days. This particular one has had a long battle with aphids, but it seems to be holding its own.