Home of the Practically Perfect Pink Phlox and other native plants for pollinators

Friday, March 23, 2012

Here Today, Gone Tomorrow At Clay and Limestone

Superbells 'Cherry Star' callibrachoa
If this blooming superbells doesn't say volume's about how warm 2012 has been in my Middle Tennessee garden I don't know what would.

May 2011
I trialed this Proven Winner cutie last year and totally fell for it!  It bloomed all summer and  remained green all winter.  Before I got around to pruning away the brown ugly bits it set bud and bloomed this past week!  
Darling, we hardly knew you! March 2012
As pretty as Cherry Star blooms are, they do not completely make up for the accelerated speed that saw an early end to most of the daffodils and species tulips in the garden. They were here and then gone much too quickly.
Narcissus 'Actaea'  from same flowering spot April 2011
 I just have to shake my head at the unusually warm weather pattern that has become our new normal, thank the universe for sending us enough rain to offset the heat and enjoy the ride! 


Phacelia bipinnatifida Michx. fernleaf phacelia
If you need me, I'll be crawling around on the garden floor admiring Wildflower Wednesday's next star!  (March 28, 2012 is the next WW in case you want to join the celebration)


xxoogail

Gail Eichelberger is a gardener and therapist in Middle Tennessee. She loves wildflowers and native plants and thoroughly enjoys writing about the ones she grows at Clay and Limestone." She reminds all that the words and images are the property of the author and cannot be used without written permission.

21 comments:

  1. Craziness here too. Daffs are dwindling. Cannas I didn't dig up to store are coming up. Whaaaat?!?!?

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  2. It is so hard to keep up! I know we are missing blooms, it is all happening so fast and we are not used to looking at certain things now in bloom, like the tree peonies. That is really a pretty daffodil!
    xoxoxo
    Frances

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    1. Frances It's a Poeticus Daffodil 'Actaea' from Division nine and was in the garden when we moved here. I am guessing it's over 30 years old! gail

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  3. Such a sweet post. I can't believe it didn't die all the way back to the ground. I do enjoy that Cherry Bells. I tried it too. Yes, the heat has been something else, but we got some cooling rain. Off to the nursery I go.~~Dee

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  4. Our weather was warm too, and dry, then suddenly we reverted to a more winter-like pattern. Our daffodil blooms seemed very short this season too, no doubt cut short by the heavy rainfall. The Callibrachoa could almost fool me into thinking it's already Summer!

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  5. I can't believe that overwintered for you!!! WOW. At the rate I'm seeing these crazy holdovers in other people's gardens, maybe I should give my brugmansia a bit of time before I decide to dig out its stump this spring?

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  6. Your 'Actaea' daffodil photo is so velvety and realistic I wanted to reach through my computer screen and touch it! That cultivar must be really tough to be so vibrant after thirty years. I read that it goes back almost a hundred years, so I guess that's why. Looking forward to seeing you in Asheville next month.

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  7. I had one of these million bells live though the winter too. I had dumped it in the back corner in a hole and the silly thing never died. It wants to live and I am going to put it in the ground. We need some of that rain here. Here is hope since they have been predicting some for several days. Have a great weekend.

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  8. The Daffs visit was most brief here as well. The whole Crocus family didn't even show up this year.

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  9. Beautiful spring flowers and I really like how you captured them. Have fun in your garden this weekend.

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  10. I can't believe all the annuals that wintered over! I've got plants coming back in a hanging basket!

    Thank goodness for rain! It's pouring here today. I've never trusted an "early spring" until this year. I've been dividing, moving, sowing seeds like there is no frost coming again. I didn't get my usual bounty of poppies and larkspur seedlings to come up because our winter wasn't cold enough! My self-sowers were prolific, but new fall 2011 sowings haven't produced much.

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  11. I love calibrachoa! They're annuals here. I find mine need a bit of afternoon shade to keep them happy. The warm weather we've had lately fried my daffs but I still have some late bloomers coming up. Happy gardening! :o)

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  12. I have lilacs budding out with flowers, hepatic a and bloodroot all a full month early...even a trillium starting...now a hard freeze warning and I am very concerned for the flora and fauna...my early bulbs are gone with the heat we have had...they barely lasted a day for some...

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  13. Yes! All this beautiful hot spring weather has made all the spring bloom beauty so fleeting! But so welcome either way.

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  14. so beautiful flower.spring is coming

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  15. I'm having the same thing happening with some petunias of mine that I had in a container. My poor daffodils, though - between the heat and the torrential rain we've been having, they haven't had a chance! All my doubled ones are face down in the dirt, and the singles are crisping. Here is spring with a vengeance!

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  16. Your title says it all, Gail; my only complaint with this spring is that my favorite blooms are fading far too quickly. I just heard on the radio this morning that this was the warmest March on record for Illinois, which only confirmed what I was thinking. Those superbells are amazing! I did have a few pansies in a pot that survived the winter which was a first for me.

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  17. The ride ended for us - fortunately before most of the daffodils had even budded on our hill.

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  18. Oh, Gail . . . I feel the same way about the early heat . . . though ours is nothing to your prolonged wave. So glad you had the rain! Our fragile spring bulb petals just cannot bear the flames of hot sun so early . . . spring can really go too fast and I, like you, hardly got to know some of my sweet blooms. I was away for a week and all the snowdrops perished by the time I returned. Even the iris reticulata expired before I got to see them. I did so enjoy the warmer days by the sea though! Oh Well! I am wishing for days of rain!! Happy Spring!! Carol

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  19. While no narcissus bloom is disappointing, this year's collective show was. I am use to at least a month and a half worth of blooms, but they came and went so fast this year. Hopefully there is some sort of silver lining coming soon.

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"Insects are the little things that run the world." Dr. E O Wilson