Last Day of May

Sunny days are here again and my yellow bulk-purchase tulips are blooming nicely. My only disappointment is that they are not very tall. My Single Late tulips are much taller.

(1) Iceland Poppy (Papaver nudicaule) -- bright yellow flowers all summer! Commonly also found in orange and cream colors. If you're lucky you can find some pink ones too.

I am happy to see all the plants did well in the newly built raised beds, as there were concerns about the hardiness of plants in this situation. However, the dry-stack rock walls are two feet thick and probably provide a reasonable amount of protection.












(2) Yellow Tulips, exact variety unknown (bulk deal -- I shouldn't really complain).
(3) Lamb's Ear (Stachys byzantia) with pink Phlox subulata in background-- this fuzzy silver-leaved plant gets a bit taller and eventually produces some inconsequential purple flower stalks, but I prefer it at this stage. It is easily divided and my one original plant is now five! Looks excellent in the rock garden. It creeps out at the edges and if not divided regularly, may die out in the middle. Those gardeners who call it invasive probably live in wimpishly mild climates.

Blackflies Appreciate Me

The uploads were decidedly slow today, as I presume everyone else is uploading their latest gardening photos. This Victoria Day long weekend allowed us to get outside with a cloud of blackflies hovering around our heads to mow the lawn, weed, and admire the greening-up of the yard.

Snow mold leaves large yellow patches in the lawn after the winter, but it seems to revive spontaneously with little effort on our part. The helpful U of SK gardenline website has more info:(http://gardenline.usask.ca/yards/snow.html).

Pictured are (1) Yellow foliage of spirea, purple "Negrita" Triumph Tulips and the resident lawnmower (whose shirt would have looked nicer in a pleasant shade of pink or purple!) (2) Bergenia cordifolia (3) Birdbath and blossoms of a Saskatoon berry bush.

Tulips Great and Small

(1)The white flowers are my botanical/species tulips "Turkestanica" in full bloom. I am pleased with the multiple flowers on each stem. The great feature about these is that they multiply.
(2) Tulip "Toronto": These tulips came as a bonus with an order of other bulbs. I don't know if I would have picked the bright color if I had been tulip-shopping, but these coral orange-pink blooms form the most flamboyant spot in the yard. They are my only Gregii tulips, short and stout with pointed petal tips. Few nearby flowers are in bloom anyways, so I don't need to worry about flower-clash.