Hope Grows Day: May 2011

Last month on Hope Grows Day I envisaged irises, day lilies, lavender, coral bells and azaleas blooming at Southern Meadows. With steady rains this spring and some warm days in the upper 80F balanced by more spring like days in the mid-70F everything seems to be blooming early this year.

My azaleas have already come and gone. They were very prolific this year but all too short lived.


The purple bearded irises are in a sunny corner at the edge of the woodland garden. They have only put out a few blooms so far. Hopefully there is more to come. They are a pass-a-long plant from my mother's garden.


 The yellow bearded irises are in full sun at the front of our house and have done very well in this location.


The Jack-in-the-Pulpit, which I thought I lost to the drought last year, thrilled me when it came up. These native woodland plants are tough!


Queen Anne's Lace is also beginning to flower. A plant that many consider a weed since it grows in ditches along side the road and open fields and can be invasive. But I really like this plant. Did you know that it is actually a wild carrot? The carrots we eat today were cultivated from this plant. (The large taproot is a carrot.) Most importantly, caterpillars of the black swallowtail butterfly like to eat its leaves.

 

The lavender which have struggled the past two years are producing a few blooms. I hope to add more of them to my garden this year in a newly created bed that I hope to complete this fall.


And the Daylilies are full of blooms ready to burst open.


A big surprise this month are the Carolina Jasmine. I planted two of them two years ago and they are blooming for the first time! I love their sunny blooms. And this is a native plant to the southeast which is fairly hardy.


So what can I expect next month? It will be hot, humid and dry. The spring blooms will be long gone and the summer heat will be in full force. I am looking forward to seeing Yarrow, Butterfly Bush, Salvia, and Guara kick off the summer season. I also hope to be able to show you a first harvest from the vegetable garden. See you next month! Please visit Sweet Bean Gardening to view other gardener's hopes.

Comments

  1. I like Queen Anne's Lace too. It is so delicate and really rather pretty. You Southerners really get a wonderful show of blooms just about all year round. It is hard to put something up new because it has already bloomed down south. We have a long wait for all of what you have shown, even the bees are barely buzzing.

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  2. Lovely...beautiful! You have such beautiful colors in your garden.

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  3. Really? A carrot? I did not know that! I see a lot of QA's Lace by the roadside here. We used to put them in vases with food coloring in it to make the flower turn colors.

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  4. Donna, I absolutely enjoy looking at all the Northern gardens in all their glory when my garden is looking very sorry because of the sweltering heat and lack of rain!

    Thank you Sage Butterfly!

    Hanni, my sister thinks it is funny that I plant QAL in my garden when it grows all along the side of the road. I bet that was fun to make them turn colors.

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  5. I love your irises. I agree the weather is starting to get very hot. Summer is here, and the garden looks different.

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  6. Very interesting to see what is going on in your garden versus mine. Some plants are way ahead like the azaleas and some are the same. My Carolina jessamine is in full bloom too.

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  7. Your garden looks beautiful. I love the picture of a bee in the azalea! Your irises are really pretty too. Thanks for the tour.

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  8. Such beautiful colors in your garden. Plus the bonus trivia about carrots being cultivated from Queen Anne's lace. Nice to know. -- Bom

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  9. Karin, I discovered last year that the butterflies like the carrot family after I found a caterpillar in my carrot bed. This year I purchased dill and parsley seed strictly to feed the caterpillars. I hope they find me again!

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  10. your flowers are gorgeous...jack-in-the-pulpit is one of my favs....your blooms remind me of what is to follow soon for me...I put out my early veggies under the row cover and they are doing nicely...I think I may even get a first harvest next week if we stay with warm days in the 60s...

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  11. Beautiful photos. I especially like the one of the purple bearded iris. Carolina jessamine is a lovely plant - I'm so glad yours is blooming. I have a couple in the woodland garden that I'm going to have to move because they're not getting enough sun to flower.

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  12. How sweet that your purple iris are pass along plants from your mother's garden. Those are the best types of plants - they bring so many wonderful memories and thoughts into our gardens. A bit jealous of your wet spring ;D

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  13. I wish I'd gotten the Queen Anne's lace seed outside this spring -- just couldn't find time for it! I think my ornamentals really suffered while we busted out the veggies for the urban farm tour.

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  14. I love Carolina jessamine. I love all the color in your garden right now. We're still in the "deep spring green" phase. Queen Anne's Lace is one of my favorites! :o) Plants from your mother's garden? Priceless...

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One of my favorite things about blogging is the conversation with readers. Leave a comment and let's get talking. ~Karin

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