So guess what. Judy and I are going to New York City for a few days and I have to get ready, so this will be a short post.

Our Martagon Lilies are finally blooming! I planted them fall before last, but last year they just sent up stems with no flowers. Apparently that is par for the course with this type of Lily. This year, though, there are bountiful orange flowers with maroon markings. and brick-red anthers. This variety is called ‘Sunny Morning’.

So when we put in the new driveway it was widened a bit, which made the narrow strip of lawn between the driveway and the Crabapple Bed even narrower and more pointless-looking. So last year I said to myself, why not take up that last bit of lawn and plant bulbs? Alliums, specifically, which were …

Last fall I added another three Bowman’s Root (Porteranthus trifoliatus) to the raised bed in the shady Back Garden and I really like how they are filling in and flowering more profusely.

Maybe you’re tired of me talking about my Alliums every spring and summer. But I have something new to say about ‘Purple Sensation’ that you can’t say about every Allium.

Tulip season has passed its peak around here, a peak that came early for some reason during this cold, dry spring. While several of my favorite Species Tulips have already come and gone, there are several still gracing us with their cheerful presence.

Maybe the title is a little misleading. It’s not that we don’t have a bunch of beautiful tulips. It’s just that we don’t have as many as I feel we ought to have.

Sure there are lots of red tulips to choose from, but here are four reasons you may want to plant the species Tulip, Tulipa praestans.

Spring is progressing rapidly, I sometimes feel a bit too fast. Still, it can be downright exhilarating. While many of the Daffodils in the Back Garden have already gone to seed, we are now enjoying a second round of Daffodil blooms, concentrated in the Front Garden.

The Tulip From Turkestan

After Tulipa kaufmanniana ‘Early Harvest’, the first Tulip to bloom in our garden is T. turkestanica. T. turkestanica is a wild or Species Tulip, whose native range covers rocky hillsides and river valleys extending from Iran through Central Asia and into China’s Uighur region – the origin land of many Tulips. T. kaufmanniana also started …