Mother’s Day garden musings
Just in time for Mother’s Day, the garden is dressed in pretty shades of pink, wine, violet and butter yellow, there’s even a splash of soft blue (a rare colour for flowers) from little clumps of forget-menots.
Early flowering star magnolia and serviceberry are in full bloom, with lilyflowered magnolia, crabapple and redbud trees ready to burst into flower when the temperature is just right. It’s such a pretty time of the year, with waves of flowers and pretty foliage painting the garden and refreshing our spirits.
Join me for a virtual stroll around the home garden, we’ll take a look at a couple of combinations that are both handsome and easy care.
In the front garden, wine-red Negrita tulips and creamy Shirley tulips marry well together, they bloom at the same time every year and make a pretty pairing. Catmint (Nepeta ‘Dropmore Hybrid’) makes a neatly pleated skirt below the tulips while they are in bloom, and as the season progresses, the catmint will help to screen the fading leaves of the tulips. In the background, wood spurge
(Euphorbia amygdaloids ‘Ruby Glow’) subtly picks up the wine theme.
The tulips have bloomed together for the past 10 years in my west-facing raised border, with very little attention from me. I treat them to an annual topdressing with compost or well-aged manure, and trim back the flowers as they start to fade; the foliage is left in place until it dies back and turns the colour of a paper bag, usually in June. Perennial echinacea behind the tulips have broken ground, they will fill the spot left by the tulips and come in to flower by early July. Tulips, catmint and echinacea are an easy-care combination that offers several months of colour in a sunny border.
One of the best things about container gardening is their diversity — it is so easy to fill them up with different plant and colour combinations — they never have to be boring.
A pair of oak half-barrels, lined with black plastic nursery containers and filled with good-quality potting soil, anchor our side patio. They started the season dressed in yellow: early daffodils and short tulips labelled yellow, with very tight buds. For added height, I scoured the garden for suitable stems that would pick up the colours, yellow twig dogwood, burning bush (with green wood) and pussy willow (just because I like them).
Little rosettes of forget-me-nots were far from blooming, but they were tucked in around the edges of tulips in the hopes they would settle in and bloom later in the month. April’s cool weather guaranteed a long season of cheerful yellow blooms, the tulips opened by the third week of April and continue to look good as we approach Mother’s Day.
To freshen up the barrels and extend their spring display, the daffodils were transplanted to the garden (where they will flower again next year) and a pot of deep purple hyacinths (a bargain at $5 for a pot of three bulbs) took their spot in the planter.
As the hyacinths went into the planter, the forget-me-nots started to bloom along with tiny rosette-like green buds on the dogwood twigs.
The tulips still look great and seem to have a new lease on life after pairing them with the violet hyacinths. Pairing light and dark colours together really gives each of the colours a boost.
Typically, I would also include pansies in this combination, but I’ve had to be more flexible given the limited shopping options in April. To this end, I was able to harvest little clumps of chives, golden creeping Jenny, and bugleweed to use as fillers in this year’s containers — it’s very satisfying to use your imagination and try something different.
When the tulips and hyacinths fade, I will move them to a quiet spot in the garden (to gather strength for next year) and fill the planter with a mixture of red and green leaf lettuce, parsley and either tomato or pepper plants, adding a decorative wire cage to support the taller plants.
As the lettuce winds down (usually by early July) globe basil and oregano will keep company with the tomatoes.