Garden Landscaping & Design - commerciallandscaping.info

You might think after a 26F freeze there would be nothing left blooming in the garden, but you would be wrong. The colchicums continue to shoot up new blossoms. Pictured above is Colchicum autumnale ‘Album’.

A vigorous but nondescript colchicum lines the shrubbery and looks fine from the house.

Early on in my colchicum acquisitions, I discovered three different varieties that, to my eye, were indistinguishable. It turns out a mongrel colchicum has infiltrated the ranks, and no one knows exactly what it is, but less discerning bulb houses send it out without question. The color is a bit washed out, but it is tall and vigorous.

These are the mongrel colchicums. They grow well in grass and make a good show from a distance.

I find that I enjoy these as an anonymous mass planting, though they had annoyed me greatly when I thought of them as incorrectly named cultivars–impostors.

Colchicum speciosum ‘Album’ peeks out from hosta leaves.

In general the white forms of normally pink species seem to bloom later.

‘Lilac Wonder’ colchicum blooms in a mass of catmint leaves.

‘Lilac Wonder’ is a reliable bloomer. Since it tends to flop, I plant it where the catmint foliage can give it some support.

Colchicum autumnale ‘Alboplenum’ looks like a carpet of stars.

Those are the colchicums that are more or less at their peak. Many other varieties have one or two blossoms lingering.

My one and only chrysanthemum, an unnamed passalong.

The chrysanthemum’s shaggy appearance fits right in with the last of the flowering tobacco and a few stray catmint blooms.

Mysterious Blue Flower Hanging Out with the Vegetables

Mysterious blue flower showed up in the vegetable garden. (Click to enlarge)

Can anyone tell me what this blue flower is? My two best guesses are bottle gentian and blue lobelia. Not sure how it wound up in the vegetable garden.

The Johnny-jump-ups are thriving in the cooler weather. The tall border phlox, especially the white one that came with the house, has just enough bloom that I hesitate to cut it down. The frost ruined the opened blooms of black-eyed Susans, dianthus, and flowering tobacco, but new blossoms have opened since then. I appreciate the stubborn hangers-on, the ones who are willing to give it one last shot. But I know the party’s over. Time to clean up.

Inspired by the words of Elizabeth Lawrence, “We can have flowers nearly every month of the year,” Carol of May Dreams Gardens started Garden Bloggers Bloom Day. On the 15th of every month, garden bloggers from all over the world publish what is currently blooming in their gardens, and leave a link in Mr. Linky and the comments of May Dreams Gardens.