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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Hyper-Spring (lotsa pix)

scilla siberica

The last week we’ve had temps 10 to 20 degrees above normal — the best April weather I’ve seen for a long time if you’re one of the sun-starved students on campus or a sunbather.

But for gardeners, it’s turned the season into hyper-spring. Everything is flowering all at once. Where we usually drift outside in the cold April rain to watch the slow progress of bulbs and the swelling buds on flowering trees and shurbs, suddenly everything racing past us in one big blur.

Unfortunately, I’ve had very little time to spend outside gardening due to work and home commitments. I have snuck in a few quick walks through the garden with the camera in hand trying in vain to slow things down so I could savor them a little more.

Here’s some of what’s been whizzing by.

scilla i think

tradescantia emerging

trout lily

daffodil

epimedium

primula

corydallis

species tulip

fantail willow

fantail willow

fantail willow

trout lily

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Weekend weather

There was a lot of it.

An interesting couple of days here with freezing rain, heavy rain, high winds, power outtage overnight, a little snow and then some sun with everything still iced over. Page on down and you’ll actually see my first flowers of the year, too.

Frozen bittersweet berries. (Click images for larger view.)

frozen bittersweet
Get up close and personal with the 2200-pixel version.

Heavy rains Saturday pushed our little stream over it’s banks.

flooded stream

I was worried about how the beaver dam would hold up during snow melt. I should have more confidence in their construction skills.

water over the dam

Fog over the ridge provided some drama.

foggy ridge

Frozen aconite flower bud ready to pop.

Frozen aconite

Cyclamen in bud, but they’ve been in bud for about three months now.

Frozen cyclamen

Some sun on Sunday morning.

bench in sun

Gratuitous doggie pix, Fred:

Fred and bottle tree

And Jade:

Frozen cyclamen

Close up of the willow in the background above to give you an idea of how much ice is coating things.

Frozen cyclamen

Snow-capped monarda and some more bittersweet.

Snow-capped monardafrozen bittersweet

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