Early Spring in the Perennial Border

Spring is here. The leaves are out, the flowers are blooming, and the birds and bees are stirring in the garden. The Perennial border is finally filling in with color after the long months of bare mulch and branches.

 This time of year the plants are leaping towards the sun, putting on inches of foliage by the day, or bursting into bud overnight. Two of my favorite standouts for early spring border blooms are the 'Wine and Roses' Wigelia (left), and the 'Carolina Moonlight' Baptisia (right).

These beauties are also favorite spots for the bumblebees that have recently returned to the garden. Its great to see all the familiar faces of spring back once again!

Hail Storm

A couple nights ago, the garden got bombed by mother nature.

Luckily, the only real casualty was 1 newly bought tomato plant that lost its top... everything else will grow back quickly with the spring warmth. The storm came unexpectedly on an otherwise calm weekend night, just after midnight. We were just falling asleep when we heard the rain start and had enough sense to pull the seedlings undercover, but everything else was stuck outside with the near-marble sized hail. Hopefully this will be the last of these events this spring!

Perennial Containers

Last summer I bought a BIG 30-inch pot for a tree sapling we were growing on the mostly-shady back porch. The tree died when we went away for a week in July (Oops... it was only to be expected after that kind of neglect)... and looking for a quick bit of color I turned to evergreen perennials to fill the container and ended up with a lovely combination with year-round interest.

Perennials make a cost-efficient choice for containers that will keep season after season. Just make sure when picking your perennial container combos that you pick plants that are hardy to at least 1 zone colder than the zone you are in since roots in a pot gets colder than roots in the ground (i.e. Raleigh is zone 7 so I made sure these were hardy to at least zone 6). While I love my annuals in the sun, shade containers are a place where perennials really steal the show for interest.

This container features the Tassel Fern, Polystichum polyblepharum
 with its unique fuzzy stems, and a personal favorite for the shade, Coral Bells, Heuchera 'Palace Purple' which shoot up delicate bell-shaped blooms in the mid spring, with a punch of Periwinkle Vine, Vinca minor, for a trailing effect.

Plant Spotlight: Thalia Daffodil

The Daffodils are in bloom in North Carolina! Daffodils, or Narcissus, provide some of the most reliable late-winter / early-spring blooms in the south. There are TONS of varieties out there, and I have at least 10 different type scattered around the garden, but my favorite by far is Narcissus 'Thalia'.

 

This beautiful bulb has 2-3 almost pure white flowers per stalk that have a wonderful delicate fragrance. They naturalize well in our southern soils and do better than most at flowering even as the bulbs get crowded.  A great Narcissus to try if you are tired of the old yellow varieties!