Spring Colors
I finally finished this over the weekend. This dragon guards the entrance to the vegetable garden. It was once much bigger and it was once a fountain (long story). Now, it merely guards the water feature. (What do you call one of these overflowing pots with a reservoir under the gravel?) I’m not sure whether the colored aquarium gravel tastefully echoes the color of the dragon or is merely tacky. There a still a few bits and pieces I need to tidy up.
Cercis canadensis ‘Forest Pansy’ will fade to a fairly ordinary green by midsummer, but it is a lovely color at the moment.
The first water lily blooms in the pond, surrounded by white nymphoides. It’s a bit early this year. We don’t count on water lilies until June.
Pontaderia has burst into flower in the last week. As usual, the blue color is washed out compared withe the original. I also have a few white pickerelweeds. The bog is supposed to be full of purple irises–Siberian irises and Iris pallida. I think, however, that I. pallida doesn’t like to be as wet as that. It doesn’t look happy, so I have hauled it out of the bog and planted it as a marginal and we’ll see how it looks next year.
‘Souvenir de la Malmaison.’ This is my idea of what a REAL rose should look like. All those cabbagey overlapping petals.
I simply love this chartreuse variety of Tradescantia, which I acquired over the winter. I don’t remember the cultivar. It looks particularly good with the turquoise cinder blocks of the yaupon holly planter! This photo doesn’t do justice to the very deep purple of the flower.
I agree with you about Souvenir - that is a rose! I have that one but I really should move it. It is being crowded by a Henry Lauder’s Walking Stick that grows over it.
Comment by Phillip — April 29, 2008 @ 11:17 am
The Souvenir that inspired me is in a house museum garden in Savannah. You never see anything except the blooms peeping out from here and there because it grows up a medium-sized live oak and droops down from that. I’m aiming for the same effect, starting with a pretty small live oak, so that tree and rose can grow together.
Comment by karen — April 29, 2008 @ 11:38 am
Oh, that rose really is heavenly! What a magnificent color! Everything else looks like it’s doing very well, too.
Comment by Nancy Bond — April 29, 2008 @ 11:39 am
Hi Karen
I think I’ve said before, but I do like the water lily. Mine’s hardly got its leaves above the water.
Simon
Comment by Simon Kirby — April 29, 2008 @ 11:46 am
Nancy: Everything looks good at this time of year after a fairly cool and wet winter. Wait a few months for the heat of summer and the garden will look like an overgrown vacant lot!
Comment by karen — April 29, 2008 @ 1:09 pm
I love “Souvenir de la Malmaison”, but unfortunately this rose is a little delicate (it doesn’t like too much rain!) in my garden. Though it actually only has one stem and no blooms or buds at all, I want to keep it as it is a gift of one of my sons.
Comment by Barbara — May 4, 2008 @ 2:44 am
Ah, these gifts. They do cause trouble. My dragon was a gift from my son, so I have to keep and display it, even though it is broken. ‘Souvenir de la Malmaison’ tends to blackspot and soggy flowers for me as well, but I’m hoping as it grows up the oak tree, it will be happier.
Comment by karen — May 4, 2008 @ 8:20 am