One of the many pleasures of gardening I believe is watching the life cycle of the plants in my garden. Spring seems to bring the greatest rewards. Maybe it is because there is the sense that the garden is just awakening from its winter sleep. Moreover, each species has its own personality.
Watching the yellow, pink, white and crimson blooms unfurl from the fuzzy buds of the Iceland poppies is a delight. Each morning for the last two weeks or so, I have the watched the buds of the hardy amaryllis get larger and larger. I keep thinking every morning I will see a bloom, but they keep me hanging in suspense as it takes longer that I had thought. These are the slow-bloomers.
Others bloom without much warning, but are such treasures. The hardy orchids (Bletilla striata) given to me by a dear friend very suddenly started blooming last week. So did the Solomon’s seal (Polygonatum biflorum), one of my favorite plants. They may not bloom for long; I could not imagine my garden without them.
Spring is definitely here!
May 2nd, 2009 at 4:39 pm
For unfurling flower interest it’s hard to beat the moon vine (ipomea alba), which opens huge white blossoms at sunset that unfurl so rapidly you can actually see the petals moving! And the fragrance is heavenly, evolved I should think to attract the night-flying moths that pollinate it. Very easy to grow from the big morning-glory-type seeds. A good flower for children to plant, under supervision. (Be careful in crop-growing areas, as this can become an invasive plant in fields.) Interestingly, the ancient native Americans are reported to have used sulfur compounds from this plant to vulcanize natural rubber for making rubber game balls many centuries before the modern rubber vulcanizing process was developed.