Blooming in the basement - Bletilla and Queen's Tears

Favorite outside early blooming perennial - wild blue phlox and ajuga.

Gotta run downstairs and see if my Queen's Tears is blooming.

Violas, phlox, and daffs are my favorite early bloomers.

Gosh - "early" is such a relative term.....

critter - so true.

My Bletilla striata's bloom time varies a lot depending on where it is planted - the purple one in fuller sun has been blooming for weeks, and this white one in mostly shade just started blooming.



Bulbine frutescens has become a mainstay in my garden. It stays green year round so it provides color throughout the winter.

I have the orange blooms and the yellow ones. They multiply nicely and the clumps can double in size in 3 years.

Another perennial that provides wonderful color this time of the year is the Geums.

Here is Geum chiloense "Blazing Sunset" and



Lady Stratheden

And yes, those are tomato cages that I am too lazy to remove. I will reuse them again, but I put a dried flower stem on it so that it looks like I left the cages there for a reason.

Overview of the Blazing Sunset area -

California poppy lower left, orange bulbine middle, white azalea upper right, silene diocia right corner

crittergarden said:Gosh - "early" is such a relative term.....

Yes, relative. I can only relate it to my zone here and to where we lived out West.

I moved from zone 9, where I had too many deer to do much gardening, to zone 5. It's a SHORTER season here, but a good one nonetheless.

soilsandup said:Another perennial that provides wonderful color this time of the year is the Geums.

Here is Geum chiloense "Blazing Sunset" and



Lady Stratheden

And yes, those are tomato cages that I am too lazy to remove. I will reuse them again, but I put a dried flower stem on it so that it looks like I left the cages there for a reason.

Overview of the Blazing Sunset area -

California poppy lower left, orange bulbine middle, white azalea upper right, silene diocia right corner

They are so beautiful!! I cannot wait to see my Bletilla striata's blooming, it does have buds and is happy. LOL. I use tomato cages too!

Bletilla striata.

I just got a little geum last year - haven't seen it bloom yet, but I checked on it a few times over the winter and its little leaves stayed green, which made me happy. The orange flowers will also make me happy when they make a showing!

They are very cute flowers, I added them to my want list. 'Dianne's Seeds' has several different kinds. I like that they are evergreen.

http://www.dianeseeds.com/geum...

did I get mine from you?
Or maybe it was valleylynn?

Not me. I took some pictures of some flowers in my neighbors yard and they come up year after year and I do not know what they are. I wanted to ask for a few because they multiply....slowly but surely.

Those are ipheion --good stuff you should get some

Thank you very much!

Centaurea Montana, I must get picture, will post tomorrow. Funny thing is it looks so beautiful but then gets a kind of mold and dies back just at its height of bloom. Doesn't affect any other plants and it come back healthy and bigger every spring. I sprayed with a copper spray Saturday a day before the rain and will spray again this weekend after rain to see if I can break the cycle this year. I've never used spray but the copper isn't too toxic, is it?

Is it powdery mildew?

SCButtercup said:Centaurea Montana, I must get picture, will post tomorrow. Funny thing is it looks so beautiful but then gets a kind of mold and dies back just at its height of bloom. Doesn't affect any other plants and it come back healthy and bigger every spring. I sprayed with a copper spray Saturday a day before the rain and will spray again this weekend after rain to see if I can break the cycle this year. I've never used spray but the copper isn't too toxic, is it?

Not as toxic as some of the other sprays but rotation is usually recommended.

In a lot of situations Milk Spray works better and is non toxic and cheap.

IF it's powdery mildew - did we figure that out yet?