Tuesday, April 2, 2013

Sprung

The season of chocolate bunnies and enthusiastic flowering shrubs is on us and mrpeenee is reveling in  and suffering through it in about equal parts.

Reveling because this is the time of year when all the hard work I've put in to my yard over the years pays off.

Here my favorite flowering plant ever, a California native called ceanothus, or California Lilac.  Photos never do justice to its electric, sapphire blue.  It blooms with flowers so dense you can't see the leaves.  The bees dig it, too.

Also, further up in a sort of inaccessible spot, two charming imports from Australia, Leptospermum, or tea tree (but not the tea tree that they get oil from.   Botany is so darn confusing) hold down the fort.  The bigger one is a fabulous rose red and the smaller one has flowers that look white from the distance, but up closer reveal their pale, pale pink throats.


You can see in this picture the patch in the back of the garden I rescued from the invading blackberry vines and acacia.  Considering how it took me weeks to hack them back and resulted in several various ouchies in the process. seeing how teensy the new open space is pretty discouraging, but I'll take what I can get.  I've planted it out in wildflower seeds; I hope July wil see a blaze of poppies and cornflowers and whatnot up there.

Suffering comes in because as much as I love this time of year, my sinuses hate it.  I have been slowly drowning for two weeks in my own mucus and all I ask for is a burial at sea where, hopefully, the fucking pollen will not be able to find me.



20 comments:

  1. I wish Spring would hurry up and arrive here in the UK! Never seen leptospermum (to my knowledge, although it probably does grow in Kew Gardens), but I love ceanothus. We rarely see it before May, however. Before then we have cherries, magnolias and forsythia in our parks to look forward to. If it ever warms up, that is. Jx

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    1. We're just finishing up with the flowering cherries and asian magnolias, which seem to come around earlier than they used to. Global warming. I don't know why we never see forsythia here. it's one of my favorites.

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  2. Your Cali Lilac looks a lot like a thing sold down here called "Blue Pacific" vivid blue dense folowers...Small clusters of waxy dark green leaves. And yes, the bees love 'em...
    Love the tea trees... Funnily enough... as much as i love them I cant get them to grow here... We live on the tailings of an old goldmine so much of the yard is ground quartz and shale...

    Have to bring in lots of soil, compost and mulch before I try growing them again...

    your garden is looking divine as opposed to my current desert... I hope to see pics from your newly sewn meadow
    when it flowers...

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    Replies
    1. I ignore the tea trees and they seem ok with it. Benign neglect is my secret.

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  3. if kabuki ever get hitched it will be in that magical backyard. hope you will be able to attend -

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  4. Oh, how really lovely. Would you like to come to Baltimore and do something creative with the weed pit that is out yard?

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    Replies
    1. There's a shrub much in evidence around R Man's family home in Annapolis called burning bush, Euonymus alatus, that I love and can'r find here. Stuff that weed pit with them and look out.

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    2. I have a burning bush.

      I'm seeing a doctor in the morning.

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  5. sooooooooooo pretty!
    All we got is azaleas around here.

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    Replies
    1. My azaleas are doing NOTHING this year. What's with that?

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  6. I realize this is a time of year I've never seen your garden. This must be remedied in a coming spring.

    Also, happy prebirthday.

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  7. You are welcome to come to the UK. We aren't doing spring this year.
    Happy Birthday!
    Sx

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  8. Bitch, when you sober up, er, WAKE up, there's birthday cake chez moi.

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  9. happy birthday you beautiful man-doll. kabuki adores you muchly

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  10. Happy Birthday Mr Peenee! Beautiful garden. My daffs have come up blind this year!

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  11. The garden looks great. And happy birthday, ya big ol' freak!! XOXOXOX

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  12. It's been azaleas, azaleas, azaleas, with a little wisteria here and there and red lilies. That's all. No Easter lilies nothing.

    Spring has turned into winter and the winter was more like spring.

    The plants are afraid. Very afraid...

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