What’s Blooming!

A really for real What’s Blooming post!  I can’t tell you how happy I am to see the blooms and the green lawns and the tiny, tiny buds on the trees.  The temps have just gotten to a level where now things are really starting to take off.

Tulips on parade!

tulips

I have hyacinths, which look strange this year. This patch of the garden had ice on it for longer than the rest and maybe that stunted them.

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I was trying to figure out what looked so funny about the picture to me and I realized the Jim Shore kitty is turned around. That must have happened sometime over the winter underneath the snow.

Pink impression:

pink impression

Golden parade:

Golden parade

Apricot Dreams. These are the longest lasting of my tulips. These are at least 5 years old.

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They have an unsual purple tint underneath the apricot which only shows up on cloudy days:

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You can see the butterfly bush in the background there. I thought for sure it was dead. It wakes late, but usually I see signs of life by this time of year. Yesterday I saw the tiniest of buds at the bottom, so maybe all is not lost. It doesn’t look great, but I really don’t want to have to replace that big bush. It’s too big a part of the garden to leave a hole, so I will just hope it grows strong enough.

My shade garden is finally starting to grow. I even cleaned it up!

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All 9 Astilbes made it – yay!  I think I only lost a couple plants from this horrid winter, so I count myself lucky.

And on orchid watch:

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Squeee!!  This thing is taking forever LOL!  I am so excited to see what color it is.

16 thoughts on “What’s Blooming!

  1. Sandy

    Woohoo! That orchid looks very healthy and happy. Congratulations. I love your garden posts about snow and blooming. It is all a mystery to me and I love learning new things. My biggest problems in the garden are snakes, paralysis ticks and things getting fried by the heat. Tulips and the like don’t grow well here due to the heat so we really only see them in prepared bunches of flowers. I’m sure there are tulips in gardens in colder spots than mine but they are really not common. Thank you for sharing.

    1. Lori Post author

      I think you could do tulips for a single season, but you would have to buy the bulbs and chill them in the fridge for 6 weeks before spring and then plant them outdoors. That’s what people in warmer climates will do.

  2. debby

    Totally awesome awesomeness!!! Your tulips are so beautiful. And the hyacinths–my opinion is that sometimes they sell bulbs that are a little immature. I’ve had a lot of hyacinths that look like that.

    And the orchid? You have a golden thumb! Because I’ve known a lot of people who have bought orchids and they have never bloomed. That will be so fun to see what kind of orchid it is.

    1. Lori Post author

      I didn’t plant any new bulbs last year, so it was nice to see all these come in. Not as nice as last year’s display, but I am happy!

      The orchid has me ridiculously excited. I am always on the lookout in the bargain bin now for orchids since it seems possible to get them to rebloom 😀

  3. Tami@nutmegnotebook

    Lots of Spring time beauty going on! My orchid bloomed this year bit it only has two flowers and it usually has had lots more. Hubby repotted it so maybe it didn’t like that.

    1. deb

      Hi Tami!

      Orchids like to be root bound. Never go larger than 2″ when increasing pot size. I’ll bet your orchid
      will grow into the new pot this year and give you beautiful blooms again next year. 🙂 Hugs! deb

  4. deb

    At least the orchid blooms last a looong time once they DO bloom. The butterfly bush…. maybe with the harsh winter it died all the way back to the ground… Have you scratched any limbs to see if they are green under the bark? Your garden is beautiful Lori. Love the way those hyacinths smell…heavenly… Have you fertilized them lately. What about adding bonemeal? Hugs!deb

    1. Lori Post author

      In our area, butterfly bushes always die back to the ground in the winter, so the canes in this picture are all dead – I don’t cut back until spring for winter interest. I was cutting these back, but the stems are too thick for my nippers LOL!

      I use a bulb fertilizer in the fall, maybe I will try a little more.

  5. Cheryl

    Beautiful photos. Have you ever seen hyacinths change color from one season to the next? I planted all purple hyacinths 4 years ago and this year some of them that came up were white! Never planted any white. A mystery.

  6. Fran

    So great to see that Spring has finally arrived and that the tulips and hyacints are blooming. Look forward to more “What’s blooming” posts.

  7. Helen

    We left for vacation in 40 degree weather and everything was brown.

    When we got home, everything had bloomed! I can’t tell you how excited I was to see leaves on the trees and my tulips blooming, even though they were almost done. Gives me hope that spring is really here.

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