Pink Asiatic lily's turn to bloom

Yesterday, the day after the first of my yellow Asiatic lilies bloomed, I got to see the first blooms from one of the pink Asiatic lilies. To "complete" the blog representation, I went out and took more shots of that, and grabbed a few shots of broccoli crowns while I was at it.

Concluding today's post are two more images of yellow blooms and a look at one of two blueberry bushes I mentioned in Sunday's post.

The joy from gardening

Every May since I began to enjoy gardening eight years ago or so, the anticipation builds in earnest. I find myself constantly peeking out my kitchen window to observe or note any progress on the plants that will give me the earliest pleasure from my efforts to give them every opportunity to do what they do best.

By May, I've already seen the crocus and tulips (and hyacinth until I accidentally dug up the bulbs three autumns ago while trying to put fall plants into the ground) come and go, although tulips often linger into mid-May. After the tulips had withered, I usually had to wait until late May before the spectacular pastel yellow and pink Asiatic lilies would bloom. I've never seen Asiatic lilies with blooms this large and elegant, and would you believe I ordered the bulbs four summers ago from an ad I saw and clipped in USA Weekend, a magazine insert in my Sunday newspaper?

This year, a year after I planted a strawberry starter, the plant produced its first harvest, and I've been picking -- and thoroughly enjoying -- the fruits of last year's labor for the past two weeks. I was so thrilled that I went out and bought and planted a blueberry bush last month. Next year at this time, I hope to be doubly fruit-thrilled. As a bonus, I was able to cut a sprig Monday from the first bearer of the broccoli seeds planted in late February.

The first Asiatic lilies to open -- from a plant with yellow flowers -- blossomed overnight yesterday. My eyes popped this morning when I saw the blooms when doing the aforementioned surveillance from the kitchen window. I decided it was time to take some photographs -- of the lilies and the strawberries, and to document progress on the cucumbers, broccoli plants, cauliflower, tomatoes, lettuce, a new hosta plant, roses, my new Earth Box and yet another first-year vegetable (not to mention perennial!) -- asparagus. I used my Sigma 105mm f/2.8 macro lens for all of these shots, beginning with the tight shot of a strawberry leading off the post.

I also grabbed some shots of my house and garage exterior as it looked today, about halfway through a new paint job. A crew spent four days last weekend water blasting and scraping, applying a good amount of trim and managing to get a modest layer of primer down on about one-fourth of the west side.

So today's post is about that shoot. I did the shoot probably right around the time the Indianapolis 500-Mile Race was beginning at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, about 10 miles away. Many of these shots should be self-explanatory if you read through the above text; I'll add captions where appropriate. 

 

Above: One of the pink Asiatic lilies is bulging, certain to blossom in the next day or so. 

Above: The strawberry plant, which not only has borne fruit this year but grown and expanded. It's butting up against a day lily (stella d'ora) on the left. 

Above: Broccoli plants dominate the front row, which is what I call my genus garden (developed in a former grass median of an old-fashioned two-path driveway); a cauliflower plant is on the far left. In the background are cucumbers (left) and the Asiatic lilies (right).

Above: The whispy tops of the first-year asparagus plant.

Above: Closeup of the in-ground cucumbers.

Above: The Earth Box. All four seeds sprouted: Tomatoes (back right), cucumber (back left), carrots (front left) and one I can't remember.

Above: I took this thinking about how this painting project has been like turning my house upside down ... or something to that defect.

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Above: A leaf on a first-year hosta plant. 

Above: A bloom from a rose plant that is the only plant in any of my gardens that has been with me since the day I moved into the house 21+ years ago.

Above: A shot of the narrow area between my garage and the next-door neighbor's fence.

Above: I started this post with strawberries, I figured I'd end it with 'em, too. I picked and ate these immediately after taking this picture.

Getting down low in the gardens

Photographically, I'm leading with my attempt at shooting something different when I ventured out into my gardens last weekend. The shot above and the first two below were shot from ground level.

Yes, I know the ground-level vantage point isn't new, but it isn't done nearly as often as the straight-on shot, and I can't say I've seen may ground-level garden shots, so ... in my endeavors to try to capture new or different vantage points, I grabbed my macro lens -- in quest for high-quality images -- and hit the lawn when I took these. I particularly like the way the low sight line gives prominence to the asiatic lily buds, putting them on equal terms with the blooms. In the first two below, that's my lettuce and day lily in the first image, and a view of the row of asiatic lilies below it.

The second reason for this post was to herald the blooms of the aforementioned asiatic lilies -- whose yellow and pink petals are much bigger and more elegant than most asiatic lilies I've seen before. These lilies have become the jewel in my garden, something I look forward to each year when they start to bloom in early to mid-June like this. Sadly, a wicked storm can tear apart the blooms in a flinch. I managed to take these images before the big storms came through last weekend. The storms tore a few petals from the blooms, but most ... amazingly ... survived.

And the third reason for the post (read on below the lily pics) ...
















... was to chuckle about how nature snookered me. Remember the May 30, 2010, post about flowers blooming on bean seedlings? I now think that's s hooey. The image below, taken Saturday, is the same plant shown May 30 (then with a solitary bloom). Clearly this ain't no bean plant (there are a couple of bean plants, however, coming up very near to this, though). So ... I have that Internet story -- which told me bean plants show flowers early on -- to curse (and blame!).

But the more key story here is ... where did this petunia plant come from? I did not plan it, plant it or sow seed for this. As I mentioned in my previous post, I grew petunias with exactly these types of purple-and-white blooms two (2) summers ago in this very same portion of my genus garden. But petunias are annuals; they don't survive after their one-and-only season. So how could this be? Someone once told me that birds (and occasionally squirrels) will pick up seed from one place, fly it around and then drop it indiscriminately. That's the only explanation I can think of for this; and to think it dropped in the same area of my garden where it grew two years ago. A gardening miracle?

And to those who think I buried the lead of this post, well ... maybe I did. I just didn't want to lead with the embarrassment. Call me proud!

The "bean" bloom plant today

The "bean" blooms

Cucumber foliage is running rampant

Broccoli, next to the cucumbers

Pictures from the gardens ... at home

This is my first year to grow beans in my gardens, and I didn't do much research before planting that would explain my shock when I saw the image above -- where I'd planted beans!

Well, it turns out that bean seedlings sprout flowers early in the growing process. My surprise was actually more eerie, because two summers ago, in the same spot in my garden where this emerged, I had grown pentunia annuals that gave me the same multicolored blooms as you see above. So I was freaking out at first, thinking that some residual seed from the petunia annuals two years ago had come roaring back.

A quick research online caught me up to speed on this bean-growing phenomenon ... and also warned me to get something for the bean plant to twine ASAP lest it fall over and rot. So ... I'm going to be looking to do that in the days ahead.

A few other surprises in this year's garden. Some seed dropped from last year's bachelor's buttons (blue boy) -- which I also thought were annuals, though I read that they were strong plants that could return -- apparently must have helped itself to several places in my garden last summer after quite a few of the plants were toppled by a severe storm. I'd left the toppled plants alone after the storm, so the tops (blooms) were in direct contact with the soil. There were too many of them to bother to upright with poles or sticks, and not enough room to do so. I'd done the same with my zinias, which also had toppled in the storm (and which are also supposed to be annuals), and lo and behold, I believe I'm seeing seed dropped from those downed plants emerge, too. The growth of the supposed zinias are quite a ways behind the bachelor's buttons at this point, but I'm going to keep my eye on them and catch pictures as soon as something serious materializes. Speaking of dropped seed from an existing plant ... the one sedum I have in my front garden is a result of that very phenomenon from one of the older sedums in my backyard fence-line garden.

You also see here some images of the beautiful, aromatic white blooms from my Henry's Garnet bushes in the backyard fence-line garden (the plant gets its name from how its foliage turns an awesome red in the fall, something I always look forward to). I put some seedling Garnets in my front yard garden last fall; it'll be a while before those get as full as their backyard counterparts and fetch much attention, but the two seedlings did produce some white blooms this spring, which I was thrilled about.

Also pictured are the bountiful buds on my asiatic lilies -- due to burst anytime in the next week and a half; those will be yellow and pink. Last year's show from these beauties was striking and inspiring.

You also see romaine lettuce, broccoli and cumumber plants making their appearance, as well as yellow day lilies, which bloomed only in the past week, and the spots for my two tomato plants -- one cherry, the other a beefeater. In my circular garden in the backyard, my red bud tree -- nurtured from seed dropped from a mature red bud in a neighbor's yard three summers ago -- took off in a big way this spring. Sprinkled around the spring remnant tulips foliage is marigold seed planted a week and half ago. I'm already seeing seedlings sprouting from that.

Above: A broccoli plant.

Above: Cucumber plant foliage.

Above: A hosta on the left, roses on the right. The roses are the only plants on my property that have been with me from the day I moved in 19 years ago. The roses are worth a separate post at a future date.

Above: The front garden that includes (front to back) not sure, one of two Henry's Garnet seedlings, spring tulip foliage, a day lily, a variagated hosta, spring daffodil foliage, another Henry's Garnet seedling and a sedum plant, spawn of one of the backyard sedums.

Above: The fence-line garden in the back, including two Henry's Garnet bushes (with the showy white blooms), a sedum (closest to you), and spring tulip foliage (middle). Not visible are my allium plants (in the middle back row), which are obscured by the foreground Henry's Garnet bush. I also put some marigold seed in the front row here.


Above: The circular garden, featuring a baby red bud and remnant spring tulip foliage. Tiny marigold seedlings are just starting to sprout.


Above: On the left, the genus garden (named for my son's first car, which sat here idled for three years before I developed the grass underneath it into a garden. My son had called his car "the genus"). The genus garden features day lilies, beans, romaine lettuce, my beefeater tomato plant and remnant foliage from spring bulbs. On the right are the asiatic lilies. Behind them are the broccoli, cucumber and a bachelor's buttons plant; in front of them (out of view), a cherry tomato plant.

Above: Closeup of one of the romaine lettuce plants.

Above: Closeup of one of the day lily blooms and a bloom-to-be. These emerged this past week.

Above: A bloom from the return of the Bachelor's Buttons (blue boy).

Above: Closeup of some of the asiatic lily buds.

Above: Blooms from a plant I can't identify; I believe it's from seed I planted last summer, thinking they were supposed to be annuals, but they never emerged. I can't find the package now to identify them. But ... here there are now, a year later?

Above: Closeup of a bloom from the above plant.