May Tizzy

 

'Snow Goose', David Austin's take on Noisette climbers,  is having a fine spring.  Clusters of 2" flowers open a delicate peach and fade to white.

'Snow Goose' will repeat pretty well, given dead-heading followed by a soaking and a dose of fertilizer. 

It hides the arch it scrambles over:

One of last fall's flower clusters, turned to hips:

Roses, yes, roses again.  A first-rate spring for roses here.  Enjoying every minute, in case summer is dreadful.  

 'Valencia':

'Easy Spirit'.   Note the spiral of petals emanating from a pin-hole center: 

'Earth Angel'.  Roses with the globe form are difficult--in damp or wet weather, the outer petals stick together, ruining the beauty, and in hot dry weather, the outer petals toast and stick together, ruining the beauty.   I relish the rose when neither occurs: 

'Princesse Charlene de Monaco':

'Firefighter':

Appropriate for today, ruffled 'Cinco de Mayo' (with Salvia 'Wendy's Wish':

Garden activity:  chopped back the gully Callistemon that was a mass of flowers.  The chopping is best done as the flowers fade, because new growth from the tips of the flowers begins quickly.  This next is not a picture of that.

 

 Here is the view towards the house I got while chopping at the Callistemon: a view of other Callistemon, two of the Acer palmatums, Lagerstroemia 'Cherry Mocha', and 'Bishops Castle' rose...

Not a view I've seen before--I was up on a ladder behind the Pergola to discover it. 

 

 Below all of the above is 'Cinco de Mayo' again, with 'Rilona' Hippeastrum and 'Wendys Wish' Salvia.  We've had gloomy, drizzly weather, so flower colors are  deliciously saturated:

Besides chopping, mulching, there is planting.  Agapanthus 'Martha Stewart' planted in the ground. 'Martha' was the plant souvenir from last year's delightful Tacoma Fling.  Someone mentioned Dan Hinkley's Martha Stewart Visit story.  She called him a few minutes before the appointed time to ask "where the pilot should land".  Mr. Hinkley was momentarily confused by the question.  Visitors arrived by car, generally.   

 

"Uh.  Huh?  Pilot?  Land?  You are at the airport?"   

 

Martha replied "Of course not!  The helicopter.  Where should the helicopter land?  We'll be there in two minutes."

 

Not your ordinary garden visit. 

 

Martha not much to look at, yet:

Martha approved of this cultivar's shorter foliage, which exposes the tallish, cobalt blue flowers to better effect.   I saw the documentary about Stewart that she didn't like, but thought it showed she was an extraordinary person, undefeated by a harsh childhood and then a philandering husband, and brave enough to be a perfectionist in a world that doesn't think women have the right to be so. 

 

Let us note how perfectly sweet peas grow upon a 'Sticks on Fire' Euphorbia.  Didn't have to help a bit:

The all-white sweet pea idea didn't please--when the purple flowers appeared, relief!      

Another round of hybrid Trichocereus flowers from the recently purchased plants.  (Or, Echinopsis flowers?  See also here.) April-May is their flowering time.

Found in those links better info on Trichocereus vs. Echinopsis recently--Trichos tend to be the tall ones, Echinopsis the short, squatty, clustering ones, but DNA analysis and research shows most of them (not all) belong in the same genus (well, maybe).  I'm not cactus stuck enough to have an opinion--am just entranced by the flowers.  They ping my brain, like a bite of something intensely tangy. 

And another thing:  I'm proud of my carrot crop:  

This is all of it.  Something ate all the rest when they were newly germinated seedlings: 

I hope to try carrots from seed again this autumn, better protected from seedling eating marauders.  The carrot tasted good, and it wasn't forked or crooked or generally weird looking--that is just what the picture on the seed packet looked like.  I left the dirt on to prove I actually grew that. 

Still fussing and phiddling and obsessing with the area under Acer 'Oshio Bene'.  The operation to clear out and dig out the Philodendron 'Golden Xanadu' area produced evicted Bromeliads to relocate, plus three pieces of Philodendron to re-root.  I stuck them here and there under the Acer, and re-potted one of the Cordylines into a larger, taller pot.  The Alstroemerias die back in summer just as silver Dichondra argentea wakes up to fill the Alstroemeria's places.  

This evolved entirely by accident over the years:

Also fussing and phiddling withe the camera and lighting.  In full bright light Hunnemannia petals are a flat featureless plane of yellow.  Switching to aperture mode I get the folds and shadows of the petals and can black out the background:

 Same for the Itoh Peony:

Ditto for white roses which are always blown into featureless white by auto mode.  Still working on getting them right. 

 White Hellebores are not as tricky as white roses. 

Other flowers are so much easier to photograph (and to grow than roses ).  I continue to marvel at 'Indian Summer' Alstroemeria, which is miraculously easy:  when the flowering stem is finished, you just pull the whole stem out.  A new stem grows to flower in its place.  

Some struggle with lighting in showing another new plant, a small Hypoestes phyllostachya, impulse buy when purchasing mulch.  The bright white speckles on the leaves were just right to brighten an empty spot under rose 'Darcey Bussell'.  

 

There were two plants in the little pot.  I separated out the pink leafed one and potted it to grow bigger:

Empty place circled.  Half the area in shade, half in blaring bright sun.  Not a great photo.

Empty space now with Hypoestes:

I will end this chaotic jumble of a post with an ode to purple.  May is starting out hectic, hectic, hectic.  I'm scrambling, and scrambled.  Purple is soothing.

Ahhh....this is soothing!

Garden club will visit my garden next week.  This should explain the tizzy I'm in at the moment.