Sunday, May 20, 2007

Roses in May - imagine that!

When I did my garden walk-around this morning, I could hardly believe my eyes - 2 roses open today. I always think of roses and peonies as June bloomers - maybe Memorial Day if we're very, very lucky. May 20th - wow. This is "Nearly Wild" - I love the single blooms and that it blooms pretty much non-stop all summer and fall.

The other rose that was open was my species rose - 2 blooms, but I couldn't get a good photo of either, so I'll save it for another post. It should bloom off and on all summer long too.
This is a new clematis that I planted last year. It's at the base of my lady trellis, and is doing really well this year. It's called "Lemon Chiffon" - not a true white, but certainly not much yellow either. The blooms are pretty good sized, and there are a lot of buds, so may be a good choice.

The purple tall bearded iris opened today. The scent of these beauties is wonderful - kind of a cross between SweeTarts (which is definitely what the white iris smell like) and grape Kool-Aid. Sounds weird, I know, but I could just sit in the garden smelling these for hours.

A spiderwort is open. I have purple, white, and magenta. This one is actually more magenta colored than it looks in the photo. I love how long these one-day bloomers keep producing new blooms.

And this is my Johnson Blue geranium - in plant form!! I love the geraniums.
Happy Birthday to Cole and Kevin - belatedly, but love you both!

8 comments:

Diana LaMarre said...

Wow, Kris, I can't believe all the different blooms you have already.

I have a wild rose that looks quite similar to yours.

I have two of the three spiderworts you have (no white). Of course, they are not yet blooming. Primroses and tulips are about all I have right now.

Laurie and Chris said...

My spiderwort isn't blooming yet. It is getting really tall but no flowers so far. I don't see any flowers on my iris yet either:( We had rain most of the day today so the flowers will be happy!

kris said...

Your gardens are simply beautiful! I can't wait to see the rest of the season there. We are exceptionally early on some things, I think. Lots of hot weather so far - now I'm just hoping June isn't cold and wet for us! The white spiderwort was a surprise - and even more so because it is half of a plant - the other half blooms purple. It looked like just one small plant when I put it in - very fun.

kris said...

Hi Laurie - you must have been commenting just as I was answering Zoey - you popped up when I hit "publish"! It's amazing what a little rain will do to pop those blooms - and now that you have your trees harvested :), I bet things will really start up.

Peter Hoh said...

Kris, your spiderworts are ahead of mine, too. About that magenta one showing up as blue in the photo: I've noticed that there are several flower colors that digital photography (at least my simple version) can't capture.

kris said...

Peter - you're right about some colors not showing true. My husband is a photography nut and said the problem is partially digital vs film, partially camera sophistication. He says there are ways to correct the color when it's critical - but I'm thinking for the blog, this is fine!!! Thanks for visiting my blog!

Kitt said...

Lovely, lovely. That clem is spectacular.

kris said...

Thanks Kitt - I have several clematis - on fences, trellises, and the gazebo. They are cool.