It's time to plant your flowering lawn

This is Pipit, another of my favorite small narcissus. (3-30-08) Yes, I could have shown this photo in the spring when it was taken, but I'm showing it now as a reminder that it's time to plant your flowering lawns. As early as the bulbs are available, while the weather is still nice enough to sit out on the lawn. Maybe after the first rain. (We might get one this weekend.)

Sit on a bit of not-too-bad lawn with a bag or two of small bulbs: dwarf narcissus, grape hyacinths, small Scillas, crocus, especially the smaller species crocus, Chionodoxa, lots of others.(See Gardening list of posts in the sidebar.) Dig out a weed and stick in a bulb; that will give you a nice natural distribution. Transplant in some old-fashioned fragrant violets to cover the holes. Water. If the fall rains don't arrive, continue to water.

Come Spring, enjoy months of fragrance and color. For decades. Have fun.

Jack Snipe miniature narcissus

This picture is from 3-27-06, and is of the Jack Snipe on the South side, with the shingles behind it. This year that South side bunch was done flowering a week or two before that date.

I think of these and Tête à Tête as early-middle blooming dwarf narcissus. They start after Narcissus minimus and Little Gem, and about the same time as Jenny.

My flowering lawn, which includes these and other miniature narcissus, plus Chionodoxa, Scilla, Tritelia uniflora, grape hyacinths, and other miniature bulbs, is the best bit of garden I ever did. (It no longer has crocuses, because one year there was a gopher.)

It is on the East side of the house, where there was a bluegrass lawn in pretty good shape. So for several years, when I was first here, as early in the fall as bulbs were available, while it was still nice to sit out on the lawn, I'd dig out a weed and stick in a bulb. No need to "gently toss the bulbs to achieve a natural-looking distribution". And for 20 years since then, it's bloomed for more than 4 months every spring.

My more ambitious gardening attempts are long gone, eaten by deer, fat jackrabbits, or blackberries and weeds, but the flowering lawn still blooms every year.

The flowering plums were lonely this year

These beautiful flowering plums usually bloom in March. The paperwhite narcissus under them usually start in late January and bloom into March so the two overlap. The violets start earlier, but also usually are in bloom with the trees. This year the paperwhites started much earlier, and were done before the trees started flowering, and the violets were just finishing too. These pictures are from last year in early March, when they were blooming together.

The paperwhite narcissus are the kind usually used for forcing to bloom early, since they do not require chilling like most bulbs. If they're forced in good potting soil with fertilizer, and planted out soon after with bulb food and rock phosphate, they will successfully naturalise here (zone 7, south slope, 2500 ft).

They regularly bloom for 2 months in the middle of winter, cheering up the view. They usually get snowed on or frozen, and survive it just fine. This year we had early rains (September, I think), which started a lot of bulbs growing early. The winter iris and violets started early too. Then we had extra cold in Jan & Feb, so the plums are maybe late.

So the flowering plums were lonely this year.

They finished this last week. The pears are starting to bloom this week.

My favorite miniature narcissus is blooming

This is Little Gem miniature daffodil. It usually blooms for several weeks in February, surviving snow, rain, and sometimes hot weather too. It, with the old fashioned violets which start in late December or January and bloom for a couple of months, start the season for my flowering lawn.

Little Gem has a beautiful shape and poise to the flower. Even the dried, dead flower is an elegant shape. It is small, only about 10 inches tall.

The ones on the South side started approximately mid-Feb this year, while the East side ones started as those were finishing. Now, Mar21st, the first day of spring, they are almost done, only a last few flowers.

Jenny, another early narcissus on the East side, is getting nearly finished. The Jack Snipes on the South Side are blooming now (Mar 21), and the East side flowering lawn ones are starting.

If it's Spring, can the Roses be far behind?

It's that time of year when the annual "hope springs eternal" hits the gardener. All thoughts of past failures, deer, fat jackrabbits, gophers, coyotes eating the tomatoes, April snowstorms, drought, diseases and bugs have faded overwinter while we were dreaming over the garden catalogs. And in my case, if the last daffodils are blooming, species jonquils and poet's narcissus and Thalia daffs, and the absolutely exquisite Cantatrice white trumpet daffodil, and the apple trees are starting — well then I start thinking of roses. Fragrant roses, old-fashioned roses, climbing roses to climb above the deer, and mini roses. My order of mini roses just arrived on Friday, and the tiniest of them in a 2 inch pot, Saint Mary, had this beautiful flower half open. Isn't she just about the cutest thing you ever saw?

I took this picture on Sunday, and the flower was still perfect. She went into this pot only for her photograph; even a rose this tiny wouldn't last in there. Next weekend they'll all get potted up. Saint Mary is new to me, one of the wonderful minis from Ralph Moore. She's a new favorite. A lovely light scent too.

The picture is as close to the visible color as I could get it. The photographs came out much lighter and brighter than the real deep rich red-violet. Not a bright magenta. Not as deep as Intrigue, but deeper than most other mauves I've seen. So I got to do a lot of playing in Photoshop to get the picture to look like what I see.

Naturally tonight it's hailing on the daffodils. Good thing I took some pictures this morning; too bad I didn't have a chance to cut a few.