Saturday Morning Garden Blogging Vol. 4.13

Good morning, and how about a drink?  Welcome to Saturday Morning Garden Blogging.

Well, it's been another week of cold, damp weather here in Denver.  Last Sunday was pretty good, but then the next storm front moved in.  Tuesday brought a mix of rain and snow for most of the day, and the clouds and drips stayed with us for most of the week.

But on Wednesday we had a brief respite with a few hours of weak sunshine.  A couple of Painted Lady butterflies decided to take a few nips of nectar at the Lilac Bar.

It's been an awfully slow warm-up this spring, but the forecast for the coming week shows that we may have turned the corner into warmer days.  The prediction is for some highs in the mid-80s and lows staying in the upper 40s and 50s.  Oh, yeah — with all the moisture we've had, the nice fat buds I see on the blooming plants should be busting out all over, not even waiting for June.

I'm certainly grateful that I'll be able to get out in the garden this weekend, as it's been a week from hell at work (indeed, I'm expecting a continuation of it, with spending at least a few hours at the office today or tomorrow).  And, quite frankly, I don't think there's anyplace more beautiful than Denver in mid-May.  Flowering trees and bushes are at their height and the scent is everywhere.  The new leaves on the trees make a variegated patchwork of shades of spring green: the view from an office high-rise is amazing.

The bearded iris are blooming, including this first-time bloomer.  No, I do not know what kind it is.  I don't even know for sure when I planted it: was it one of the ones I bought last fall?  Or, perhaps, from a couple-three years ago?  The first few years of a bearded iris planting can be very frustrating.  I've found it to be not unusual to go several years before actually seeing a bloom.  But, on the other end of it, after 5 years of blooming, I'll have so many of them I can start sharing them.  Well, if I can keep track of what is blooming where — always problematic for me.

There are huge buds on the oriental poppy plants; the buds on the bush peonies are, however, smaller than usual this year, although one is already showing a hint of pink around the edges.

There is a — yes, singular — bud on the tree peony in the back yard.  It spent last year getting its bearings, with little growth and no blooms, but this year it's putting out several new branches.  The bud is at the very top, and so large and heavy I had to lash the branch to a support to keep it from bowing down half-way to the ground.

And — whoo hoo! — at least one of the passion flower vines did survive.  On Wednesday I discovered the new growth pushing out of the ground.

Many of the dahlia tubers I planted out a couple of weeks back are breaking the surface, and I hope to get the rest of them into the ground today.  The tomatoes and eggplant are hardened off and ready for planting.  The potatoes are well up, and will be ready for another layer of straw in a day or two.  I didn't get corn started inside this year; instead I'll spread the seeds in a single layer on a paper towel and by Wednesday they'll have begun to sprout, and be ready to be direct seeded in the veggie patch.

Transplant shock has passed for the cauliflower and romanesco broccoli, and they are growing by leaps and bounds.  If the snap peas keep it up, I might have blossoms by the end of the month.

I've had disappointing results so far in germinating cucumber and winter squash seeds, although I have far too many zucchetta plants.  But, I have a spare pack of cucumber seed, so I'll try some of those; as to the winter squash, they are something I'm doing on a whim and, if I don't get any plants, I'll just try again next year.  Gawd knows Da Boys won't miss me growing winter squash, as they refuse to eat it.

With all the recent rains and a recent application of fertilizer, the grass is in desperate need of a mowing.  It's a lovely thing to see lush growth filling in what was a sparse patch of grass.

And then there's the datura that needs to be dug.  I've related before about the strange little mini-micro climate on the east side of our front steps, where a datura — a plant which is supposed to be hardy only to zone 9 — has had its root survive for year after year after year through sub-zero winters.  This spring as I was splitting a nearby perennial, I broke the datura root: damned, but I hadn't expected it to be growing out that far!  The piece that I broke off was a good five inches in diameter, and at least a foot long.  But, never mind — a big chunk remained next to the steps, so I was sure it would come back.  And it did.

But what also is coming back is a piece of root out in the middle of that bed, where I definitely do not want a datura growing.  A friend had asked for seed from that plant, which I dutifully collected last fall.  Instead, she'll be coming by and picking up a piece of that super-duper root.  It'll be interesting to see if it over-winters for her as it has for me.

That's what's happening here.  What's going on in your gardens?