2008 Year in review (Part 1)

The obligatory (and hopefully entertaining) look back …

January

Not much happening in the garden, so it was a good time to think about ordering seeds and plants (unfortunately, they’re more than 5 cents a pack these days, unlike these old packs) and sharing stories about the great bowling ball accident of 2003.

castor bean seed packet

While there were no blooms (or scans), there was surprisingly much to photograph on a very warm January garden bloogers bloom day.

The ridge in January

February

February is for forcing
.

forced bulbs

And time to fiddle around with PhotoShopping that month’s bloom day scans and chase away the merry blues with Manu Chao.

bloom day scan feb

Had a sunset picture grace a CD cover.

Read and reviewed Tulipomania. Added my two cents (and a ton of pictures) to the Garden Bloggers’ Design Workshop – Color in the Garden edition.

March

I love March, if only for its excitement. There are the forced bulbs in flower

forced bulbs

The first of the spring ephemerals

crocuses

Then back to winter, hell and high water.

Fred and bottle tree

By Easter, plenty of signs that spring is on it’s way …

Iris

Then more snow. There’s a reason they’re called snowdrops, you know.
snowy snowdrops

April

Speaking of snowdrops, April brought the open house at snowdrop collector Hitch Lyman’s garden.

snowdrop

And the spring ephemeral peak at my place. Crocus …

ephemerals

Puschkinia.

scilla i think

Hyper-spring also brings scilla …

scilla siberica

… and erythronium.

trout lily

And by the end of the month, a bazillion daffodils, these at Nina Bassuk and Peter Trowbridge’s annual open house.

daffs

May

Spring continues full bore. Purple primrose …

mertensia

Thalia daffs

angelic daffs

Sakuraso primrose

Sakuraso primrose

…an iris from Marcia’s garden

marcia's garden

… and many more in this bloom day scan.

may scan with hard light effect

In the world of art, Quilter Lisa Ellis used one of my canna images for this work of art …

canna quilt

… Cornell students built this Turfwork! project

Turfwork! from the air. Photo by Peter Cadieux

… and Durand Van Doran built this fabulous floral gate — roots and all — in Minns Garden outside the building where I work.

Minn's garden gate

And we are reminded that there’s nothing new under the sun.

June

Some theme posts in June, because there’s so much to cover you’ve got to do some lumping. One on openings

openings

,,, another on chartreusey stuff …

chartreusey

… too many blooms on bloom day to fit onto one scan …

june scan

… actual bloom day pictures to go with the scans …

goatsbeard (Aruncus)

East Digitalistan

not digitalistan

… and decent images of aruncus (finally!) …

aruncus

summer songs


Mussolini was a-shavin’ whistlin’ tarantella,
Stalin was keeping eye on barbeque.
When their fish line bell started to jingle,
Mussolini caught a-nothin’, Stalin caught two.

On the art front, Cornell graduation turf art

cals sod sculpture

I tried to push back on the bland reporting on leaf casts in the garden media, and reported on the infamous Memorial Day jello contest.

As we head into the second half of the year, these alliums in Minns Garden outside the building where I work are all ready for 4th of July fireworks.

painted alliums

Part 2 starts here …

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Holiday decorations: Origami flower bulbs

Cross-posted at The Bulb Project.

You meant to start forcing some bulbs so that they’d be in flower for the holidays, but never got around to it. You could still visit the florist and buy a pot of bulbs in bud. But if you are the do-it-yourself type, you still have another option: Flower bulb origami.

And there’s only one place to go for that: Joost Langeveld’s Origami Page.

As you may have guessed by the name, Joost is from the Netherlands, and most of his origami subjects are flower bulb flowers. Browse his gallery. It’s amazing, but also somewhat intimidating. (Here’s a video introduction to his work.)

Fortunately, Joost has a page to help beginners get started, and the first subject is tulip flowers (see video below).

You’ll also find step-by-step instructions for many flowers and other subjects, including leaves, steps, vases and boxes, and even tips for making origami floral arrangements.

See also Joost’s collection of how-to videos on YouTube.

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Fall-planted bulbs

scilla siberica

When I started this blog, I figured I’d use it as a glorified garden diary tool. I’m so lousy at writing down names and dates and locations. I thought about setting up a spreadsheet to record of what I did. But this looked like a way-more-fun way to keep track of what’s going on around here.

That never really happened because:

  • Photography turned from a chore to a hobby for me.
  • Garden blogging took off, and trying to keep up with what’s going on in the community beats the heck out of keeping records.

Cleaning up this morning, I ran across the packing list from this fall’s bulb order. Instead of filing it away, I indulged that little spark of compulsion that I usually keep tamped down and recorded the list below with links to catalog pictures. Now when stuff starts popping up next spring, I’ll have to be really lazy not to come back to this post and get some positive IDs and accurate botanical names when I post pictures.

You know, if a bulb or perennial company set up a feature where I could log in and they’d show me pictures of what I bought from them every year (and maybe even allow me to record a comment or two about where I planted it and how it did), I would quickly develop a loyalty to that company. (Or at least it would give them an edge.)

2008 fall bulb planting list:

Iris histrioides ‘Katharine Hodgkin’

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20 best spring bulbs

If this pictorial by Elspeth Thompson in the UK Telegraph doesn’t put you in the mood for ordering and planting bulbs this fall, nothing will. Of course, here in the U.S., our mileage may vary for a few of these. (I don’t expect any daffodil to flower from Christmas to March.) But most all of these would brighten my spring or be a great indoor plant this winter.

I’ve already got half a dozen of these picks myself, including the Thalia daffodil (below), Cyclamen coum and Iris ‘Katharine Hodgkin’.

angelic daffs

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