I am still alive

And so are most of the plants in my garden, amazingly enough.

I owe everybody an apology for not posting earlier. I took on the added task of writing a novel (over 81,000 words at this point) and it overloaded my circuits. Blogging was the main victim. But I am still here, I've reactivated my email account, and I thought I'd start this year off with some of the early bloomers in my garden. I doubt if I'll be checking in daily, but I will make an effort to do better.


Dasystemon tarda is a charming botanical tulip that seems to interest squirrels less than the showier varieties. It's supposed to come back year after year and spread itself around a bit too.


My Pasque flowers have responded very happily to the better treatment they got last year by flowering profusely and prompting at least one neighbour to beg for seeds. And unlike all the spring bulbs blooming along with them, the squirrels ignore them entirely. I approve.


I planted a good number of these Daydream tulips last year, but only two survived the solicitous attention of the local squirrels. They opened a rich, buttery yellow with a black throat, making me think I'd gotten the wrong variety. They have since "faded" to a lovely apricot colour, which is what I was aiming for. Not that I disliked the yellow.

Previous post on the topic of Pasque flowers

Technorati tag: Tulips, Pasque flowers

Poor pulsatilla!

In gardening, like in real estate, the mantra is "Location! Location! Location!" It may not be everything, but you can't succeed without getting this part right.

Case in point: my Pasque flower. It was given to me last year while in full bloom. Tough little plant that it is, it survived the move nicely and provided colour and interesting seed heads in my brand new and mostly empty flower bed. But as the season went on, the neighbour's sandcherry leafed out and seeing as the house wasn't facing due west as I had thought, the mature shrub threw a lot more shade on that bed than I expected. And then the rather large annuals I had planted in that bed (datura and four o'clocks) basically grew right over it. Not exactly optimal conditions.

I'm paying for it now. Spring-flowering plants, be they bulbs or perennials, need the energy stored during the previous growing season to produce their flowers so early in the new season. Although my plucky little pulsatilla came up on schedule and revelled in the elbow room of a bed free of annuals (for now), it just didn't have the resources from last year to flower this season. I got the hint and moved it to a sunnier location.
I have solemnly promised the poor little thing that it will have its new territory all to itself. It's getting its full dose of sunshine this year.

Meanwhile, back in the old bed, its place has been taken by a Palace Purple heuchera, which will cope much better with partial shade than the sun-loving Pasque flower.