Soggy labyrinth

Last fall, I reported about a project carried out by students in Bill Miller’s herbaceous perennials class at Cornell planting a bulb labyrinth at our Bluegrass Lane research center. Here’s what it looked like just before the bulbs went in.

With temps up in the 60s today and another photo opp at the facility, I wandered out to see if anything was poking up. I got nothin’ but what you’d expect during mud season:

muddy labyrinth

Bill says that since the bulbs are newly planted, they’re flowering will likely be a little late this first season. But we’re planning to open the facility so the public can view and walk the labyrinth on Mothers Day and perhaps the Sundays before and after.

Stay tuned for more images as the labyrinth grows over the next few weeks.

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More Iris histrioides ‘Katharine Hodgkin’

I was hoping to do a series of my favorite early spring bloom, starting with this spear, then moving to this partially opened flower from early last week (apologies for the lousy focus) …

Iris histrioides ‘Katharine Hodgkin’

But then Friday, we got this …

snowy ridge

The heavy wet snow bent Katharine over and she’s now a soggy mess. Oh well. But it looks like there might be a second bloom coming.

Some ephemerals on campus stood up a little better:

snowy snowdrops

snowy crocus

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Easter up close

When you don’t have much going on in the garden, you can always move in close and make the most of what you’ve got.

I was hoping that Iris histrioides ‘Katharine Hodgkin’ would make an appearance today. Close, but not quite. Here’s the same plant in flower last year.

Iris

Eranthis is coming on strong.

Iris

Tulips emerging.

Iris

Something emerging. Not sure what.

Iris

‘Floral frost’ on the coldframe this morning.

Iris

Forced daffs inside.

Iris

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Cyclamen flowers, ‘drowning’ Eranthis

cyclamen flowers

The buds that have been on this cyclamen since November finally opened yesterday. Lots more buds to come. I also bought a couple new cyclamens from John Lonsdale, Edgewood Gardens (west of Philadelphia) at his rock garden society presentation last weekend.

Below are some more eranthis I discovered yesterday. I raked too many leaves on top of the bed, and I noticed that they were heaving in spots. I cleared them away and found the chlorotic eranthis. I wonder if they are buried under too much mulch if they have a feeling like we do when we’re underwater and running out of breath.

drowning eranthis

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Bloom day scans: Mugshots and Dragon Day

dragonLack of time and not much happening in the garden leaves me with just a few sloppy scans I squeezed in this morning. A forced narcissus from inside and an eranthis about to bloom outside — about the only thing outside that I can count as a bloom.

I have to remind myself that it’s only Dragon Day. Actually, Friday was Dragon Day, the last day of classes before spring break at Cornell. Spring break is a euphemism around here. Officially, spring is still a week or so off. And it’s at least a month until we start getting consistently spring-like weather in these parts.

Basically, the annual Dragon Day ritual at Cornell has the first year architecture students crafting a large dragon that they parade across campus. They are met by a phoenix built by the engineering students. Everyone ends up back on the Arts Quad where they burn the dragon. (This video from 2007 shows how crazy and creative this event really is.) Then everyone goes home for a week. Actually, judging from the tans of returning students, many go someplace much sunnier.

We still have the annual Skunk Cabbage Run and Tax Day (which brought us a Nor’easter last year) to punctuate spring before we really get cranked up for gardening season.

View dragons from the last 10 years, and see more coverage of this year’s Dragon Day in the Cornell Chronicle and Ithaca Journal.

narcissus and eranthis

narcissus

narcissus

eranthis

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