Roses and Blossoms

Morden centennial rose bush

I am so thrilled to be able to grow roses, something I had little success at in northern Manitoba, although some gardeners up there do well with roses. My Morden Centennial rose bush has the best growth so far. No blossoms in evidence yet, but admittedly I haven't checked really closely lately either... 

I planted a new Morden rose bush yesterday (new for me, at least) called Sunrise. It gets blossoms with a single row of petals in an orangey- yellow color.  It also is supposedly very disease resistant and so it seemed to me it would be non-fussy and relatively easy to grow and particularly to over-winter.  It does have 2 long stems with a number of buds on them, so we'll see if it is the first to bloom. 

My little Winnipeg Parks rose which I moved forward about 18 inches in the flower bed in May is growing faster than it usually does! Maybe it was the shot of 'bone and blood' meal I added to the soil around it...

The Morden Blush and the Morden Ruby bushes are both growing well and I am so looking forward to seeing them bloom!

Close up of the cherry blossoms

In previous springs, the blossoming trees have staggered their blooming; usually the pear blooms first and then the plums start to blossom a week later. When they are done, the Saskatoon bushes start to bloom and about the same time, the apples and crab apple trees bloom. After they are done, the lilacs start. This year the whole schedule has sped up and although the order is about the same, many of the above mentioned shrubs bloomed at the same time. 

My lilacs just began to bloom a week ago. Sad to say, the small lilac shrubs behind the house have almost NO blossoms! I trimmed them down last year, and I followed the advice of my pruning book, so I'm not sure where I went wrong...  The big lilac bush in the front is covered with fragrant clumps  and  they are just opening now.  I always enjoy working out in the flower bed nearby and getting a whiff of the scent of the lilacs.

Also moved my little "Miss Kim" lilac  into my new triangular stack stone bed, so I don't know if I will get any flowers from it this year... here's hoping! :)

June is my second favorite month, after May because of all the blossoms!   :)

First shasta daisy blossom of 2011

I culled a huge number of shasta daisy clumps this spring. I am trying to limit them somewhat because they seed themselves almost as voraciously as dandelions. They were coming up every where! I do like their beautiful white flowers, though and they last quite a long while.

bearded irises along the house

The bearded irises next to the pond started blooming last week. They are an unusual dark purple color, but have pretty much finished blooming now.

The light purple and white irises next to the house started blooming yesterday. Irises are such a gorgeous, unusually shaped flower! Unfortunately they don't last much more than a week or so and just when you are getting used to seeing them, they are done.
This year I dug up and separated many of my crowded  iris clumps, something that a gardener has to do about every 3 years; otherwise the irises will stop blooming if they are too crowded.  Unfortunately the ones that are dug out in spring won't bloom till the following year; which is why it's a good idea to separate crowded irises in the fall.

Japanese Irises

I started out with a small clump of Japanese irises at first, but after 3 years my clump is getting to be a nice size. They just started blooming a few days ago. That's pretty unusual since the bearded irises are usually almost finished blooming when the japanese variety starts. But, like I said, this spring was so late in happening that all the normal schedules have become compressed.

Tiny blue creeping phlox flowers

I love this unassuming short little plant! It comes up early and grows well at the corners of my stack stone bed, at least the blue phlox has. My little pink phlox plant is still the same size as it was 3 years ago! (puny) (At least you can't accuse it of being invasive! :)

Low growing blue creeping phlox spreads well  along the edge on my stack stone bed.   The pink sister plant has barely grown in 3 years!