Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day – May 2021

Welcome to May at Hayefield, friends! I still have a long way to go in making the most of spring plants here, but as seedlings started years ago are reaching flowering size, I’m gradually making progress. Let’s take a bit of a walkaround to see what’s popping.

At this time of year, the indoor action is starting to wind down, but it’s been a tremendous seed-starting season. I treated myself to a “grow tent” setup a few months ago and have been thrilled with it. It fit perfectly over my 4-shelf Origami folding shelf rack, which was an unexpected bonus.

The enhanced brightness from the reflective interior produced very stocky seedlings, and the zippered door helped to keep them very warm too. Once I had more than one light fixture turned on, I turned off the heat mats and it still got up to nearly 80°F on the top shelf. That turned out to be too warm for some seeds, actually, which I never had a problem with before. I ended up moving those pots to the middle or bottom shelf, where the temperature was more like 65° to 70°.

The tent came with a bunch of interlocking pipes meant to be assembled into a frame hold it up, but as I didn’t need them, I repurposed them into a frame for the seedlings in my unheated greenhouse. On chilly nights, I draped a blanket over the frame to give the seedlings some extra protection. I recently reconfigured the pieces into a smaller frame to drape with row cover over one of my nursery beds.

Over the last year, I’ve put a lot of work into what was formerly my vegetable garden and is currently my “seed farm.” Now that I grow and collect well over 300 kinds of seeds for sale, I’ve had to become a lot more organized to keep track of when and where everything is planted, and growing as many things as possible in one area is making that more manageable. I’m very excited about what will be happening in this area as the growing season progresses. But right now, I’m enjoying the rest of the garden.

It’s a bit early for most annuals, but there are two lovely ones flowering now.

Blue-eyed Mary (Collinsia verna), above, native to parts of eastern and central North America, is considered a “winter annual,” because it drops its seed in summer, germinates in fall, overwinters as small seedlings, and flowers in spring. Its charm is immediately evident.

Farnsworth’s jewel flower (Streptanthus farnsworthianus), above, native to a small part of California, looks pretty cool up close, but the flowers are actually very small. Its key feature is the bracts behind the blooms, which haven’t yet colored up.

Mostly, its perennials and woody plants that are showing off right now. Over the last few years, I’ve been growing spring vetchling (Lathyrus vernus) from seed, and the seedlings are starting to fill out and bloom.

Above is the typical species form; below is a softer pink, usually known as ‘Alboroseus’ or ‘Albo-roseus’.

I also have a narrow-leaved form from seed acquired as ‘Filicifolius’, though it is usually known as ‘Filifolius’ or ‘Gracilis’.

The foliage width of the seedlings is variable—sometimes almost needle-like—but usually much more slender than the leaflets of the species. The flowers start out magenta-purple and age to blue before dropping.

While we’re here, let’s enjoy the primroses too. Several years ago, a generous fellow gardener shared several packets of polyanthus seed that she imported from Barnhaven Primroses in France, and they are now coming into their full glory. Below is the full view of the plant you can see just a bit of above, from the Harvest Yellows Group.

Above is one from the Chartreuse Group; below are two from the Striped Victorians Group.

Some more pretty spring blues in the garden include…

…a self-sown blue-eyed grass (Sisyrinchium angustifolium), above; a woodland forget-me-not (Myosotis sylvatica), below…

…and dwarf comfrey (Symphytum grandiflorum), below, which was pale yellow to creamy white for many years…

…but has produced some nice blue seedlings as well.

Common camas (Camassia quamash) is always good for spring blue. And for purples…well, the violets have really outdone themselves this year.

There were so many that I had a go at making violet syrup.

I can tell you from experience that it takes around 400 violet flowers to end up with about a cup of petals, once you remove the green parts. The result was very pretty and definitely violet (once I added a few drops of lemon juice).

Anyway, back to the garden. There are lots of elegant whites now too, such as …

…doublefile viburnum (Viburnum plicatum), above; red chokeberry (Aronia arbutifolia), below…

…fragrant abelia (Abelia mosanensis), above; snowy barrenwort (Epimedium × youngianum ‘Niveum’), below…

…a white form of Arkansas bluestar (Amsonia hubrichtii), above, and cruel plant (Cynanchum [or Vincetoxicum] ascyrifolium), below, just coming into bloom.

The main daffodil (Narcissus) season has been over for several weeks, but ‘Actaea’ poeticus daffodil opened just about a week ago and is still looking fresh, thanks to the cool weather.

Pink is always a springy color, as in…

…rose verbena (Glandularia [Verbena] canadensis), which has been flowering for over three weeks already), above; ‘Espresso’ wild geranium (Geranium maculatum), below…

…the sepals of prairie smoke (Geum triflorum), above; the blooms and buds of robin’s plantain (Erigeron pulchellus), below…

…and the flowers of ‘Ray’s Golden Campion’ red campion (Silene dioica), below, which has the bonus of bright yellow leaves.

Speaking of yellows, there is…

…our native golden ragwort (Packera aurea), above, and the decidedly non-native dyer’s woad (Isatis tinctoria), below.

Above is marsh spurge (Euphorbia palustris), just one of several spurges that show off this time of year. Spring is also prime time for various corydalis, including…

…yellow corydalis (Pseudofumaria lutea), above, and Japanese fernleaf corydalis (C. heterocarpa), below.

Red isn’t a typical spring color, other than from tulips, but the fire pink (Silene virginica)—above—is really outdoing itself right now. While the species peony (Paeonia tenuifolia, possibly, but seed-grown with lost label) clumps aren’t particularly floriferous, their big, bold blooms are certainly hard to miss.

The red flowers of pawpaw (Asimina triloba) are just about finished, but after doing over a dozen cross-pollination sessions while they were open, the generous fruit set is making a harvest look probable in the fall.

The green-and-blooms of chocolate solider columbine (Aquilegia viridiflora) aren’t particularly showy, but they are worth kneeling for to get a closer look.

The garden is also filled with lots of colorful foliage right now. Just a few highlights include…

…’Gold Foil’ foxglove penstemon (Penstemon digitalis), above; ‘Golden Jubilee’ anise hyssop (Agastache foeniculum), below…

…’Golden Fleece’ cow parsely (Anthriscus sylvestris), above; ‘Little Honey’ oakleaf hydrangea (Hydrangea quercifolia), below…

…the silvery new foliage of Amur maackia (Maackia amurensis), above; the speckled glory of ‘Takeda Nishiki’ Japanese clethra (Clethra barbinervis), below…

…red-tinged Bowman’s root (Gillenia trifoliata) shoots, above, and red-veined leaves on this Cardiocrinum cordatum…

…’Chocolate Shogun’ astilbe, above; and below, one of two deliciously dark seedlings from the last batch of American filbert (Corylus americana) I started from seed a couple years ago.

To finish, a few combinations I quite like.

Above, golden ragwort (Packera aurea) coming up through Japanese painted fern (Anisocampium [Athyrium] niponicum var. pictum).

Below, red campion (Silene dioica) and ‘Espresso’ wild geranium (Geranium maculatum) in front of ‘Mostly Ghostly’ hosta (Hosta).

Above. woodland forget-me-not (Myosotis sylvatica) with golden meadowsweet (Filipendula ulmaria ‘Aurea).

And below, shredded umbrella plant (Syneilesis aconitifolia) with variegated Solomon’s seal (Polygonatum odoratum var. plurifolium ‘Variegatum’) and hybrid Lenten rose (Helleborus x hybridus).

I see that new things are already coming into flower as I write this, so there will be many more blooms to enjoy by next month’s Bloom Day. For now, I have lots of plants to get into the ground, and then lots of watering to do (ugh), and even (already) seeds to collect. I wish you all a lovely spring in your own garden, with rain if you need it or sunshine if you’re tired of clouds. See you next month!