flowers: May 9, 2010

This is my last set of photos from May 9, tomato planting day. Not the best photos, because I was in a bit of a rush, but you get some idea what flowers are blooming.

The irises are blooming one color at a time. Purple are just past their peak and yellow are beginning. I keep buying different types of purple irises because there is one kind I really like, but I don't know what it is called and keep hoping to get lucky. So far, no luck, and I have 3 different shades of purple irises.

This flower bed is just starting to get going. The bachelor buttons at the rear right are just starting to bloom. The silver duster at the back is practically a shrub despite brutal pruning. The Campanula are almost ready to bloom, and the balloon flowers will be close behind. In the front are pansies, a rather sad New Guinea Impatient, an osteopermum, a few anenome (most didn't come up again this year), and a few petunias in case all else fails. Also I planted a few turkish balloon flowers again because I do love them, even though they don't love me.

My husband made a new slightly terraced area at the bottom of the embankment for the blueberries. I planted extra pansies and other misc flowers here.

Also a new yellow osteospermum. It is really pretty, but I realized I will have to move it, because this whole area will be taken over by pumpkin vines by late summer.

My father-in-law gave us a few of this pretty pink flowers, which we planted behind the pumpkins at the base of my husband's baby tree patch.The yamaboshi (Japanese dogwood) started flowering. It seems very healthy, but hasn't grown at all in the 2 years since we planted it. We wonder if perhaps its sun exposure is too good, so it doesn't feel any need to grow taller.
The yellow magnolia by my classroom door is blooming.
And I have started planting flowers along the border of the empty lot next door to our driveway.
And I'm also putting flowers in the holes in the ugly cement fence by the driveway. I love this white flower, it continues to bloom every May. I think this is its third year.
My more expensive petunias from last year proved to be worth the extra money as they have come back in force again this year.

March 8 flowers

I took way too many photos on March 8. Lots of flowers, and then we had the big seed planting in the afternoon, too!

A look around the neighborhood flowers during Jackie's morning walk. This first photo is to show that I take these while holding the dog, so it is very difficult to get a good shot. She is a very sweet dog, but was abused and abandoned before we took her in and has serious emotional issues, including fear of almost everything (except children) which causes her to try to run away. Usually, while I am trying to get a photo.

Anyway, this is a nanohana. We meant to sow these along our embankment this year, but forgot. Next year!

These are from the garden plot to our east. That's our house in the background. Actually the lot next door has 4 plots. The people who use the plot closest to our house are wonderful and them giving us a big bag of snap peas when we came to look at the house pretty much made up my mind to buy it. The man with the middle plot lets it all go to towering weeds and only shows up on really beautiful days to ruin them for everyone else by spraying horrible smelly chemicals on his fruit trees. The people with the far side plots are also very nice.
And, in one of the far side plots, pink bachelor buttons are blooming!

And then I saw blue ones blooming, too, a bit further down the embankment.

For some reason our garden and embankment is always weeks behind the rest of our neighborhood. Here is one of our bachelor buttons...

Not even close! But, our efforts to get them to grow on our embankment have been paying off. For two years I have been pilfering seeds from the neighbors embankments and sowing them along ours while walking the dog, and my husband has been weedwacking away the past two years. This spring several plants are growing. Maybe in a few more weeks.

A cherry tree along the embankment in front of the weird guy's house is starting to bud. It really is spring!

Of course, the one flower of ours that is in sync with the rest of the neighborhood is the dandelion.

Back at home...
crocuses
The new anenomes I bought this spring are about to bloom.
Mini tulip
surrounded by crocuses. I planted a bunch of mini tulips in here, but only one seems to have come up. These are at the base of the dead frog tree.
Grape hyacinths from my husband's friend (thank you, Lさん) are doing great.
More daffodils and narcissus are blooming.
Osteospermum
My pansies I planted from seed are finally starting bloom, though the plants are still tiny. I mean, you can't even see any leaves here.
These weren't my favorite flower, but I made a pot of a yellow one, an orange one and daisies for the front of my classroom and they look so cheerful, I am really starting to like them.

Purple rain, purple rain

Spring arrived in Gifu at the end of February, and, keeping with tradition, there has been a lot of rain. Nice, ground soaking, helping plants (including weeds, unfortunately) grow type rain.

This is our little Japanese dogwood (yamaboshi). It is just outside the back door and is very happy there, but never grows. We wonder if it needs a bit of competition to encourage it to reach for the sun.

Warning Warning! Graphic photo follows! Those who are recuperating from operations may wish for their fuzzy vision back...

We have these birds, I have no idea what they are called in English, but in the summer they hunt frogs and birds and store them for safe keeping on various tree branches throughout the yard. But they are busy taking care of baby birds and get a bit forgetful (we know how that is). As a result, we have slowly mummifying frogs impaled on various tree branches around the yard. Lovely!

We used to keep our umbrella stand outside the front door. Well, one rainy day, running late as usual, I grabbed our umbrellas, wrangled the girls into the car and pulled into the parking lot of their preschool, which was full of other harried, slightly damp mothers and children. I whipped out my umbrella and popped it open. SCREEEECH! Impaled on my umbrella spoke, right in front of my eyes was...

Well, almost exactly the same. Of course, no one else saw the nasty dead frog, they just saw (and heard) the crazy foreign mom having a fit in the parking lot shaking her umbrella like a madwoman. Oh well, I have gotten used to standing out.

So now we keep our umbrella stand INSIDE. The trees, however, remain ghoulishly decorated.

Back to the rain...

One of our two camellia trees, tucked into the gaps between buildings where they can hardly be seen. Some day, maybe 20 years from now, they will look lovely from the road when they get tall enough to be seen.

Bits and pieces

My store bought pansies are doing fairly well this year despite the unusually cold winter.
But once again, the pansies I started from seed are doing a whole lot of nothing. They got a few leaves and then just stopped. I don't know if they will start growing again when the sun comes back or what.
The stalk is the only other flower (other than camelia) that is in bloom right now.
The mums were finished, I pulled them and the girls made lots of flower soup in thier sandbox kitchen.
My husband gave the mallow trees a good trim.
The lettuce is coming along well, hoping for salad days soon.
The broccoli is particularly sweet this year. I think it is the same type as last year, so I wonder if the cold makes it sweeter.
Spinach spinach spinach. I have told my husband he is NOT allowed to sow spinach anymore unless HE is in charge of the thinning/picking. He believes that he must sow every seed in the pack no matter how little space is available. I love spinach, but the amount of time I spend each day picking cleaning and preparing spinach is really absurd. We have spinach sauce spaghetti, spinach bread, spinach with mashed tofu, spinach salad, tuna spinach, spinach omelettes, you name it, we do it with spinach. Ah well, much better than daikon!
These are the birds (storks? herons? cranes? I really don't know my birds) by the river behind our house. We also have lots of cormorant (this IS Gifu, home of cormorant fishing). Not really relevant to the garden, though they do make a small contribution towards natural fertilizer on occasion (mostly on the cars, unfortunately). Despite the mess, they are amazing, I love watching them soar above as we garden. The government is concreting over the banks of most rivers in our area, so there aren't many places left for them to go. I hope they keep their bulldozers away from our river.
Not the greatest photos, but trying to photograph birds while walking a sweet, but emotionally disturbed dog, is really tricky.

flowers

pansies and ????

March 30 2009 mostly flowers

Anenomes, pansies, and serveral others I don't know the names in English. The Japanese red maple leaves are starting to come out.















Daffodils, pansies, and soon...irises. The crocuses finished last week.














Daffodils, narcissus, rose of sharon that were just twigs last year
















Pink and blue flowers















Herb garden. The rosemary is out of control. The basil is still just starting, so some failed kohlrabi are currently taking up space on the right.