This Flying Duck Orchid is a tropical fantasy, but isn’t it great?

And you know I have a weakness for ducks…

Ours are exceedingly hungry these days…as are the geese, seagulls and as always – the swans…as a matter of fact, the swans are more demanding than ever.  We do have the most adorable signs on our lane -- ‘Slow Down for Ducks’ they say, but somehow that doesn’t quite prepare you for a swan commandeering the street.

Now they hang out in the street like a carnival barker saying
“Come on in, hon”….”Give us some food.”

And of course, me and my Nature Trail Committee Girls – we always comply.

Excerpted from the latest issue of DiRTIER.

No April Fool This Year

It is the Real Thing.  Yes, we had a real winter  freezing cold, ice and sleet, and lots of velvety blankety snow (which the garden loves) and ergo… now we are having a Real Spring and it is divine.  Those heartwarming and tempting sprigs and sprouts are not 3 or 5 weeks early, they are deliberate and insistently pushing their way up in their normal cycle..so each arrival is more anticipated and therefore…much more special.  This Easter weekend is the perfect ushering in of the real thing…

 

BLOOMING  BONANZA

This issue of Dirtier was meant to arrive in your in-boxes before Easter, but such were the Wonder Full busy days of recent weeks…in and out of Church, oohing and aahing over the precious images of early spring…that I hope you will have a moment to savor them on this very first April day…

First anemone appeared on March 3^rd, but the rest of them are taking their time, as they should.  Right now there is still only this one…which is odd but endearing.

Right now that same persistent one is looking a little worse for wear 

but still hanging on.

 

Snowdrops are especially loveable when there is a patch of snow and so fulfilling to watch the patches flourish… my one $18 ‘S. Arnott’ planted 2 years ago is now 4…I couldn’t be happier…

The cyclamen now has several flowers.

This crocus is called C. vernus ‘Flower Record’  it is big and blowsy
and early to bloom

More refined is Cricus tommasinianus  ‘Ruby Giant’, though it is neither gem-red or very big… 

Well, here is a comparison…

The smaller sweetheart is Crocus chrysanthus ‘Ladykiller’… which is quite
a poignant name with which to have caressed this tender little beauty.

Most all my bulbs are from Brent and Becky's Bulbs, John Scheepers/van Engelen
and the wonderful Odyssey…

 

The Iris reticulata have already been around for a few weeks.

This one blooms a little later and is noticeably larger and it is a gorgeous shade of really heady rich red wine…not to be confused with the purples and blues at all, though they all look great together. This one ‘J.S. Dijt’ –

Whoever he was he had very good taste…

Popping up unexpectedly from within the heather is especially divine.

 But perhaps, everyone’s favorite remains the sweet Iris histrioidies
‘Katherine Hodjkin’.  She must have been a pretty girl.

Read this entire issue of DiRTIER Here!