The Suburban Gardener

Woodland Wildflowers-Part 2

2012-01-13T03:31:00.000-08:00

My second trip to the woods was when the Erythronium albida are blooming. It's quite a sight to see them en masse. I noticed though that the plants without bloom outnumbered the blooming ones. There was even an area where they were growing so thick and not even one bloomed.

Also growing in this forest preserve are the Polygonatum also known as the Solomon's Seal.

Woodland Wildflowers-Part 1

2012-01-12T07:58:00.000-08:00

Last spring I visited two Forest Preserves here in my area. I am a transplanted Illinoisian and having read and seen them on fellow bloggers' posts prompted me to see them in their native habitat. I grow a few of these wildflowers myself and seeing them in the forest floor is breathtaking.

Trillium recurvatum

Podophyllum peltatum

A colony of P. peltatum.

Arisaema triphyllum with its two variants, the all-green form and the maroon stemmed form or maybe they are two separate species.

Polygonatum

Smilacina racemosa

Claytonia

Convallaria majalis

I do not know what these plants are. Does anybody knows the ID?

One thing that I am looking forward to in spring is to see these wildflowers again.

Wordless Wednesday

2012-01-11T06:38:00.000-08:00

Hippeastrum Dancing Queen

2012-01-03T06:55:00.000-08:00

This is the third time DQ bloomed for me since I got it two years ago. Everytime it blooms, the flowers are different in terms of being double. Last year, it has more petals. This year, it has less but more stamens are present. I think the variability is due to cultural reason.

Last year's flowers. Dancing Queen

Happy New Year

2012-01-01T07:04:00.000-08:00

Wishing you all a wonderful and blessed 2012!

Cyclamen persicum

Lilies Blooming on 06.27.11

2011-12-29T16:09:00.000-08:00

Tropical Breeze

Blackberry's Snack- named after Diana's (B and D Lilies) pet goat.

Rosella's Dream- bred by Warren Summers

Party Diamond

Regale

Tinos

Yellow Electric-NOT

Loreto-tetra

Gran Paradiso-tetra

Crimson Noble- a Hartle and Gilman lily.

Night Flyer-NOT

Pink Ray - bred by Bill Cramer

Graffity-the correct spelling according to the lily register. (Thanks Connie.)

Tiny Skyline

Tiny Nanny

Kiss Me Kate

Unknown Tango lily.

Blooming in this photo are Tiny Ghost (beside DD), Forever Susan on the upper left, behind her is Dimension, to her right are Lollipop, the short one below them is Ivory Pixie, an unknown yellow tango and Algarve.

Cherry Plum Tree

2011-12-29T11:37:00.000-08:00

While looking through some of the photos that I took during the 2011 gardening season, I ran across a few photos of my neighbor's tree. She has this tree growing in her front yard. She bought it fifteen years ago when she first moved in her house and she doesn't know its ID. I did a research and thought of sharing it with you, my dear readers.

From the information that I got from the net, Prunus cerasifera (Cherry Plum) has a few cultivars:

'Atropurpurea'aka 'Pissardii' has nearly white flowers and purple foliage.

'Thundercloud' has pink flowers and reddish-purple foliage. The most common variety in commerce.

'Newport' has pink flowers and purple foliage and is hardy to some areas in zone 4.

'Mt. St. Helens', a sport of 'Newport', has pink flowers and purple foliage.

'Krauter Vesuvius', white flowers and a rare variant mainly found in Northern California.

I think her tree is 'Thundercloud'. Please correct me if I am wrong.

My Paperwhites Are Blooming

2011-12-29T01:03:00.000-08:00

I purchased a dozen bulbs of Narcissus ziva from a garden center on an impulse. It was in late November. On the morning of December 28th, I saw the first flower opened. I took a sniff and the smell was divine.

Photo taken early this morning .

Photo taken on the morning of December 28th.

Lilies From My Friend's Garden

2011-12-28T04:55:00.000-08:00

This post is not really season appropriate but during summertime I don't have that much time to blog. Now winter is here, I have the time to go through the photos taken during the 2011 gardening season and make posts about them.

These photos are taken from my friend's garden. She is not into lilies but she grew a few gorgeous ones.

These red Asiatic lilies produced bulbils. The Tiger lily is famous for producing bulbils, the pea-size brown-black things that grow in the leaf axils.

Here is the list of Species and Asiatic lilies compiled by this author.
Lilies With Bulbils.

These bulbils were collected during my visit. I stored them in the fridge for a few months and now they are ready to be planted.

These orange beauties are growing in different locations in her garden. She gave me some bulbs a few years ago. To me, they look like they have strong L. lancifolium (Tiger Lily) genes.

An orange spotted lily.

Yellow LA lilies.

I believe these are Grand Paradiso.

Bonus pics of her Delphiniums...

and a section of her garden.

Late Fall Garden Plantings

2011-12-26T08:04:00.000-08:00

During late fall, I was so busy in the garden. This was also the time where I have scored on plants at garden centers. Thanks to the mild climate we are experiencing right now.

Take for instance this Acer palmatum 'Fireglow'. It was bought for a song. It is still small where it is perfect for container culture. Since this was bought late, I hope it will pull through the winter. On my research, I found out that burying the pot is the best for container grown trees. I also bought Acer palmatum 'Oshio Beni' and planted it where the old stump was in the front garden.

In these pots beside the Jap tree were bulbs like tulips, daffodils, chionodoxa and dwarf iris. They need mulch. I hope there are still some for sale at the garden centers.

Only 3 bags got planted. Cheerfulness, Golden Ducat and White Lion. The original plan was the yellows should be planted in the middle. There's no more space for the last 2 bags. 38 bulbs were planted here.

Through the years, I have seen daffodils multiply in my garden whereas the hybrid tulips dwindle. Adding a few varieties every year seem to be my routine. I grow the species tulips, in fact I love those little tulips. Last fall, a friend from Minnesota sent me a bag each of parrot and fringed tulips where they were potted up together in one big container. Hoping for the best in spring because this is my first time to grow bulbs in containers. Hybrid tulips are nice but they don't perennialize.

This space was previously planted with a row of daylilies. I dug and sent them to a fellow gardener in Indiana whom I did a trade a year ago. She stopped by the house to pick up her plants because she was in the area visiting some relatives. We kept in touch eversince.

Another map of my plantings. I can see myself mapping out my garden in the future.

Hippeastrum Lima

2011-12-25T10:02:00.000-08:00

Purchased as H. La Paz from John Scheepers. This is the first bulb that I have planted from the new bulbs that I have acquired this year and also my first mislabel. I found it with 6 inches growth in the basement and had to plant it right away. I potted it up on the 27th of November and saw the first blossom open on the 19th of December.

Merry Christmas to all garden bloggers from around the globe.

Break From Blogging

2011-12-10T13:28:00.000-08:00

Wishing everybody a joyous Christmas and a wonderful New Year.

Hyacinth 'Blue Jacket'

N. Erlicheer with muscaris.

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

2011-11-24T12:48:00.000-08:00

African Queen

One Day Outside The Library

2011-11-17T17:24:00.000-08:00

Donna from Garden Walk And Garden Talk suggested that I join Gardening Gone Wild's Picture This Photo Contest for the month of November. Here is my entry.

This photo was taken last spring when I took my daughter to our local library. After we checked out her books we went out to the library's garden and admired what were growing and blooming at that time of year.

Milden Red Ball Lily And A Gift From Norway

2011-11-17T10:52:00.000-08:00

Last spring I planted a bulb of Milden Red Ball purchased from Faraway Flowers. I have never seen it sent up a stem. This fall while cleaning up the garden I decided to investigate, dug the bulb up, and lo and behold of what I found. The bulb produced two bulblets slightly larger than a pea. As per advice of every lily enthusiast that when you acquire an expensive lily, scale it as an insurance for not losing it. Circumstances arise like animals digging and eating it up. So I scaled the bulb prior to planting.

Milden Red Ball, by the way, was bred by Holger Kuhne of Germany. For more info, here is a link .

MRB bulb with the two bulblets.

These are the bulblets produced from scaling.

As I don't have pics of MRB for this post, I contacted my friend Mike and he happily sent me two images of the said lily.

A couple of weeks ago, I received a package from my friend in Norway. We were dicussing about breeding lilies and he sent me some bulblets for my breeding project.

Confused?

2011-11-16T09:38:00.000-08:00

I noticed that these leaves are coming up in the raised garden bed. I can't figure out which bulbous plants they belong to. Below are photos of the area where they are growing. Could they be Scilla, Chionodoxa, Puschkinia or species tulips? Are they confused or is it their time to come up?

Mixed species tulips T. tinka and T. clusiana var. Chrysantha growing with lilies. And I forgot the names of the big red and yellow hybrid tulips.

I can't find photos of the area without my daughter in it. Apologies.

Some Neat Stuff From The Garden

2011-11-14T12:08:00.000-08:00

After working in the garden for four hours, I grabbed the camera and took some pictures. Sorry for the lack of words. I am beat from trying to finish my fall chores and boy am I glad I'm done planting my bulbs.

Porcelain Berries (Ampelopsis brevipedunculata)

Blooming wild violets.

Nice contrasting color of columbine and Epimedium rubra leaves.

Clean and crisp columbine leaves.

Senescing hosta and evergreen Dame's Rocket.

Arisaema berries.

Bulb Pictures

2011-11-09T14:07:00.000-08:00

We gardeners have been enthralled by the beauties of these bulbous plants. The kaleidoscope of colors they display in different gardens right after the snow melts until fall are amazing. But have we really paid attention to the bulbs that they grow from? Here are a few example:

Allium azureum

Hyacinthoides hispanica 'Dainty Maid'

Fritillaria assyriaca

Muscari comosum

Allium schubertii

Camassia caerulea

Fritillaria rubra

Eremurus 'Cleopatra'

Asiatic Lily Bulb And Bulblet

Bonus pictures of Lilium seedpods and seeds.
Seedpods

Seeds

Eucharis grandiflora

2011-11-08T09:22:00.000-08:00

I planted five bulbs last spring, one of them is now blooming.

Peonies And Fall Colors

2011-11-04T12:50:00.000-07:00

I went a little crazy adding peonies in my garden. Aside from an online order, I purchased tree and Itoh peonies. I have seen these peonies in our fellow bloggers gardens.

I bought two Kopper Kettles on sale at Lurvey's.

Purple flowered tree peonies bought at Berthold's.

I am keeping my fingers crossed and hope that they will make it through the winter.

Fall in my garden...

And it is official that my Amaryllis Belladonnas are not going to bloom. They sent up foliage and no flower stalks.

The Stump Is Gone

2011-11-03T04:26:00.000-07:00

There are hundreds of bulbs waiting to be planted in this spot.

Seedlings

2011-11-02T08:41:00.000-07:00

One in my fall 'to do list' is to plant all of my lily seedlings. I am so glad it is done.

Seedlings planted without disturbing the roots.

Map of the seedlings.

Happy Halloween!

2011-10-31T05:24:00.001-07:00

A three-headed hellhound carved by my husband and my daughter.

September In The Garden

2011-09-18T16:27:00.000-07:00

It's just a few days away from fall and for the last few days the weather felt like it is here already. I have been working on and off in the garden for days now. It is raining today so I did not garden and had the chance to do this post.

Some plants are winding down here like hosta Plantaginea, rudbeckia and phlox but there's still some that are blooming.

Anemone rubustissima's first blossom.

A Morning Glory volunteer.

Gladiolus 'Passos'

Tricyrtis, I don't know which variety this is.

Late blooming hosta Red October.

Sedum 'Stardust' and S. spectabile 'Brilliant'.

And a very busy bee on sedum flower.

Last Friday, my Schreiner's iris order arrived. I could have planted them today if it didn't rained.

And finally I have dug the daylilies around the stump.

How I Spent My Weekend

2011-09-05T10:39:00.000-07:00

There is a lot of work to be done in the garden before the plant and bulb orders arrive. I have already dug the two bushes that I don't want in the garden. They will be replaced by plants like maybe peonies and iris.

Last week, I dug a Forsythia bush which took me a while since it is at least half a century old. Today, I dug this Spirea bush. I did not have that much difficulty digging it because its roots are shallow.

Yesterday, I cut down the old stems of this lilac bush. Its stems are overcrowded and crisscrossing at the base so this is what I did. I wish I took a before photo so you can see the difference.

I am not really good at using a chainsaw but I got the job done the way I wanted it.

My next project is digging out the daylilies around this stump. I used them to hide the stump so it is not visible from the sidewalk. We have already contacted a contractor to grind it out this fall. Since it is in the middle of the garden, I could use the space to grow maybe a Japanese maple tree or an evergreen tree.

This is how it look like when Kwanso blooms with Silk Road. They clashed.

I love this oldie but goodie daylily. It will grace some other spot in the garden.