We came from here: http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/1125899/ "Are there any other kilobulb planters out there?" thread. Please post your beatiful blooms for 2013.
Here is Narcissus Ice King, with some Ice Follies mixed in. These were the first daffodils to bloom for me in 2013.
Annette
Annette, What a nice stand to begin a new bulbilious year. Here are my first Iris reticulata Gorden today in the new snow. They bloomed a couple of days ago while it was mild and sunny. Patti
'Rjenveld's Early Sensation' started blooming Jan 31 for me again this year! This is last year's photo, but they looked very similar this year, only instead of a single bloom I saw a clump of a dozen open or half-open blooms, covered in snow.
Oh so nice to have the daffodils blooming already. I will have to go outside and look at mine to see what is happening.
I did go outside and check. Sure is cold outside today even though the sun was shinning. I saw one bloom open but laying down flat on the ground because of the snow we had last weekend. But still, it is my first flower of 2013. So I officially record Feb 18 as my first daffodil bloom of the year.
Hey Patti, critt, and Rita, I'm glad y'all are starting to see some blooms already. I have to say this is the earliest that I've recorded dafffodils blooming. Previously they started in mid to late February, and Ice King started blooming at the end January this year. It's amazing how your bulbs are blooming through the snow, it shows how resilient they are.
This morning as I left the neighborhood for work, I noticed that one of the neighbor's Golden Trumpet daffodils were all bent over, with the blooms touching the ground. We had heavy frost last night, which I'm sure contributed to this.
We've got more rain on the way starting tonight and tomorrow. It seems like we're having a lot more rain this winter than in years past, which may be contributing to the earlier blooms. Annette
Annette, I will have to check on my first bloom date for I.reticulata, but that information is on my old computer which has recently failed. I am awaiting a new computer that is being shipped today. Once all my old information is downloaded on the new one, I will post those dates. We had no snow last year to speak of here on Nantucket or at our Vt house, but this year we have had plenty of snow in both places as well as what seems like more rain too. And I do remember that my garden bloomed earlier last year than the year before. We shall see what this year brings in the way of bloom dates. I shoot tons of photo's and those shots are all dated, so comparing the dates of bloom of particular plants is easy, when my computer is working. Patti
Happy Birthday Jill, I hope you had an amazing day. May you be Blessed with many happy gardening years.
Patti, thanks for checking on those bloom dates. It seems that even though we have a colder winter this year, I have earlier blooms.
Do anyone know if rabbits eat crocus blooms? My blooms keep disappearing from my back garden bed, and I found rabbit feces nearby.
Annette.
We (finally) got snow this week! Here's a couple pix to show how much we got - the snow is about 15" deep. The tulip pic is from a couple years ago, the snow scene is today's view. This year the tulips are a mix of red and white varieties called 'Red Passion'. We're about 6-8 weeks from bloom time.
Beautiful pictures LG, the snow is just lovely. I'm looking forward to seeing your tulips bloom this year, they are a delight to see.
Here are a few blooms for this week. Giant yellow trumpets, Narcissus Cassata, Tete-a-Tete, muscari, and Narcissus Cum Laude. The rest of the bulbs continue to make a slow appearnce.
Iris reticulata Gordon, Hyacinth City of Haarlem, crocus bloom and Hyacinth L' Innocence. City of Haarlem is planted in two of my garden beds, have been blooming for several weeks, and it is so fragrant.
Annette, your shots bring hope. Now we have a lovely falling snow coming down up here in Vt. Pretty, but no spring bulbs up here yet. Rabbits and deer have both eaten crocus at my house but not always. I am planting more of them inside the fenced part of our property where we try to keep out the deer and rabbits. I saw some Iris damage recently and fear we have had a rabbit breach so when we get back from Vt, we will have to inspect the rabbit wire around the bottom and see where there is damage. My 2 boarder collies are failing me.
I will be happy to see Red Passion, as I don't know that one or is that what the mix is called? Patti
Gorgeous clump shots!
Love that N. Cassata. I've had a "thing" lately for those butterfly daffs. Jim's favorite is still "a regular daffodil," yellow large trumpet types like 'King Alfred'.
Thanks Patti and Jill, the warm weather will be up north before you know it, then I'll get to enjoy seeing your blooms. I love all kinds and colors of Narcissus, and over the years I've added more to the garden.
Patti, where did you get your rabbit wire? They're having a field day with my crocus blooms, and then the lily torture will start. I've got to do something to keep them out of my garden in the backyard
We had beautiful weather here today, we got to 62 degrees. I spent 9 hours in the garden cleaning up and fertilizing the bulbs and plants that I didn't get a chance to do in the fall. I noticed some pale leaves coming out of one area of the tulips under our cherry tree, so I went to investigate, and found that it was an eager beaver Tulip Blushing Lady blooming at may be 3 in. tall, the nerve of this tulip trying to bloom already, LOL. I had to look at the center of the bloom to make sure I wasn't crazy. We have had so much rain this winter, so everything is popping out of the ground early, and we've got more rain coming tomorrow that will last for another 2 days.
I also found 1 Galanthus blooming, the rest are still just clusters of leaves coming out of the ground. The last picture is the mixed hyacinths that are a part of what used to be my blue and white garden. Annette
DH and I put a deer fence up around about 1/2 an acre of our garden beds, but the rabbits just ate through the bottom of the deer fence and continued to devastate the garden. The next year we went to a fencing company and bought large rolls of plastic coated galvanized 3' high rabbit wire and attached it around the bottom 2 foot of the deer fence with wire ties. We folded the bottom one foot to extend out at a right angle to deter them from digging under the fence as digging a trench to bury all that rabbit fence in such a large area would be difficult. It seems to work. We did this about 9 years ago. Find a good agricultural supply place for buying the rabbit wire, as the price will be much better as will be the quality than at any box store. We occasionally have had a baby bunny get in under one of the gates, like Peter Rabbit, who we have had to chase out and we have found a couple of breaches in the fence that we just repair, but have not have any devastation of our spring bulbs or summer lilies like we use to have constantly. Love seeing your tulip. Patti
Patti, thanks for the info about the rabbit fencing. I'll have to do some research to see where I can get some.
This message was edited Feb 26, 2013 7:13 PM
More snow overnight - All day Sunday and Monday the weather gurus were talking doom and gloom - 12-15" of new snow, blizzard conditions, etc. It didn't really start snowing until about 11:00 pm last night, but by this morning, we had about 6" of new snow. The good news is, it's VERY wet (we really need the moisture) - the bad news is, it's VERY wet and the bushes and trees are bent over from the weight. If it warms up enough today, it will melt off the branches and things will snap back - if not, there could be lots of damage. For now, it's pretty and the moisture will be great for the bulbs, which are just starting to emerge!
Speaking of bulbs just starting to emerge -- I think it's also time to get a bag of 10-10-10 and throw it around, something I often neglect to do. Bert (our "Bleek," who owns Touch of Nature) advises feeding 3 times a year, at fall planting, at spring emergence, and just after flowering.
Pretty, pretty snow!
I never manage to get out the fertilizer this early. But it is a good idea.
Lots of pretty blooms in the pictures posted.
LG, your snow looks sooooooo pretty. Hopefully it won't cause any damage.
Jill and Rita, I fertilized everything this weekend. I went through 6 bags of Bulb Food, and a box of EB Stones Bulb Fertilizer. I guess that's what happens when you've planted over 10,000 bulbs over the years. I had to buy more Bulb Food yesterday to use after everything is done blooming. We got more rain starting last night and today to water everything in.
Rita, thanks for the compliment. The bloom season is just starting, so I hope we all get beautiful blooms this spring. Annette
That is a lot of fertilizer! Usually I just buy a 50 pound bag and sprinkle the bulb fertilizer arould were my bulbs are planted. But this fall I added so many more bulbs that one bag would probably not be enough.
DH went back to Nantucket and found we have Crocus susianus Cloth of Gold in bloom, Cell phone shot so not so clear. But aside from a mess more reticulated Iris Gorden blooming it is all we have so far. Patti
I took a walk around the garden. Daffodils up all over the place. These are ones I had in my garden, the ones just planted last fall are not showing yet. I find that the bulbs planted the fall prior always break ground later than the bulbs already in the garden from past years. There are even some more with flower buds showing but no more blooms. Only that one crazy very early bloomer. And it is still there, still looking the same.
It has been mostly cold since that first bloom. So I figgure that is why not much has been happening. We need some warmer weather.
Here are the kids today. Patti
Great shot of that "spread" of galanthus! I seem to be pretty good at getting photos of single blooms, but I sure need to work at taking better photos of the clumps & drifts that I love out there.
Patti, your crocus and galanthus are beautiful. As Jill stated, I wish I could get more pictures of drifts like yours. How long has your galanthus been planted? Annette
Thanks, that patch was planted in 1983, but has be disturbed many time over the years. It is on the west side of our house by the front door and goes through a lot of changes during the year but I always love the first blooming of the Galanthus each year. Patti
The walkabout the garden today showed more daff blooms trying to open. Today is the day to take a look as we are going to get a winter storm starting this evening until Friday afternoon. Expecting at least 9 inches of snow. But the poor daffs are not doing that great, they are laying on the ground and not quite open all the way. Kind of stuck at that stage. We need this winter weather to end and spring to come so that more blooms can arrive.
Patti, your garden is just gorgeous!!!! Keep posting those beautiful pictures.
Rita, I hope you get some warm weather with sunshine soon. It's cold, dark and dank here, and windy with snow flurries, but nothing that's going to stay. We're stll in the 30's right now at this time of the day, which is crazy for GA. We're supposed to warm up by the end of the week. Annette
These with blooms are the very early type daffs I have. And they are in the sun in the front yard. Other daffs of all types have broken ground and are up all over the garden. Some even have bloom buds. But unless we get nicer weather nothing is going to happen very soon around here. And you all know I can't wait for spring and my flower bulbs to bloom.
Here are some blooms from yesterday, when it was 64 degrees here, today, freeeezing, windy and cold.
Hyacinth Woodstock, and muscari.
The 1st picture is by the walk way to my back deck. It shows Ice King, Cum Laude, and Hyacinth Jan Bos. the 2nd Jan Bos, and Ice King in the back bed, 3rd Ice King in a pot on the back deck, 4th Ice Follies in the back bed.
Cassata is opening more blooms, Tete-a-Tete is doing really well, and Hyacinth City of Haarlem continues to bloom, Tete-a-Tete with iris reticulata Gordon, crocus Pickwick.
So many beautiful blooms!
My back bed is shaped like a large U, the first picture is straight back, the 2nd picture the left side of the bed, taken from the top, and the 3rd the right side of the bed taken from the bottom. The 4th picture is of the left bed in my front garden, where it is edged with muscari, and behind planted with Narcissus Tahiti, and tulips Sancere, La Courtine, and Gudoschnick. I didn't add any tulips to this bed this year, I wanted to see what is going to come back, this area is saturated with bulbs planted that have been planted starting in 2009.
Thanks Rita, you'll have blooms soon. Consider the snow coming a Blessing for the garden, watering the plants. Be sure to post pictures of your garden, snow and all.
Here are my Helebores that have been blooming for the past several weeks, and Camellia Taylor's Perfection. These pictures were taken yesterday.
I received a surprise today - a friend, whose brother is a landscaper, called to ask if she could stop by with a 'gift'. I never turn down gifts, so I invited her for coffee. She brought me a box of tulips her brother had left over from his landscape jobs last fall! There are five different varieties, all nice big bulbs (maybe 200 in all), but I don't know what to do with them!
For starters, It's MARCH 8TH! These bulbs should have been in the ground for 8-10 weeks by now, cooling their heels and sprouting roots! Also, we have several inches of snow on the ground at the moment, plus, almost every square inch of my garden is already planted with bulbs and perennials - if I could find a spot to plant them, when the snow melts, the ground would be totally mud (not my favorite planting conditions)!
My friend assured me her brother had stored these bulbs on an unheated porch since last fall, so maybe they qualify as 'chilled bulbs', but I still need to figure out where to plant them. I think I'm going to buy some bags of potting soil and plant them in large pots to sit around on the patio, as an experiment. I figure if they fail, I haven't lost anything.
Here's how they look today.
Those bulbs do look in great shape. Your plan of planting in pots sounds like a good one.
I agree with Rita, those bulbs look really healthy. It's a great idea to put them in pots to see if they'll bloom for you this year. Last year, I was planting bulbs as late as January 7th with my muscari Ammericanum and crocus Blue light, and on February 5th, my Allium Moly, and Hyacinthoides, that were kept in the unheated garage before planting, and they've come back fine this year. We started warming up last year at the end of February, unlike this year where we still had night in the 20's this week.
Even if your tulips don't bloom, the leaf growth should nourish the bulbs, and once they die down, store them to plant at the right time this fall. I'm also looking forward to your tulip blooms this year.
Annette
