Saturday, May 17, 2008

Spring Bulbs and Colorful Pasque Flowers

The weather has been warm for the last few days, coaxing the spring blooms open (finally). I have more blooms to admire today, and I notice that the daffodils may bloom soon as well! I will be disappointed if there are no big blooms in my yard when we have visitors a week from now.
Purple Pulsatilla vulgaris:

Here are three shades of pasque flowers (Pulsatilla vulgaris) in my yard. These plants form nice-sized plants in about three years. The flowers make a big show before much foliage has grown. I'd like to grow some more of the dark pink/red ones, but you have to plant the seed fairly quickly after maturity because the seed is "ephemeral", as seed sellers put it (it doesn't last long). I should try using my own fresh seeds. I'd also like to add a yellow one to my collection some day.

I just planted the new white-flowered Pulsatilla last fall.

Grape hyacinths have just started to bloom in the last two days:

Tulipa turkestanica, another botanical tulip. These started to bloom today.

Pulmonaria saccharata "Mrs. Moon" does well under the partial shade of tree branches. It has delicate blue and pink flowers in spring. This one must have self-seeded, because I found about 6 little plants around the large one. I read that other growers complain of powdery mildew with this plant, but I haven't had those problems here.

Pulmonaria blooms:

1 comment:

Amy said...

Your spring blooms are lovely! I was trying to figure out where I've seen pasque flowers before - they looked vaguely familiar. I'm pretty sure there are native ones growing in my region and that I've seen photos in my plant identification book. Growing them in the garden is new to me. They have such lovely blossoms - I can see why you'd like to collect more of the colours available.