Good morning, and is it over? Welcome to Saturday Morning Garden Blogging.
Denver seems to finally have moved out of the long stretch of cool — OK, cold — we've experienced this spring. The low point this week was last Saturday, when the high was a cloudy 62° and the low dipped down to 37°. Since then, it's been on an upswing.
We're still running a bit cooler than normal for late May, but we've gotten into the 70s, and lows have been trending to the upper 40s — warm enough that I've felt comfortable moving the warm weather crops out to harden off preparatory to planting. And we have had some thunderstorms, with tornado activity to the east (you know, right where they stupidly put the airport, 30 miles outside of Denver proper).
As for the week ahead... mmmmmarvelous. We'll finally get up into 80s, and lows will be getting above 50 — warm enough to put the tomatoes and peppers in the ground.
Meanwhile, I've a beautiful succession of bearded iris blooming. I bought this dwarf peach beauty off the sale rack last year.
Update [2010-5-24 13:37:48 by Frankenoid]: Here's A-H
And this ruffled black wonder (actually an extremely deep purple) hasn't bloomed in several years — so long ago that I don't even remember when or where I got it. Perhaps in a couple more years I'll have enough to divide.
I've buds on a bunch of iris in the back yard -- they're up for division this year, but I'm not sure what is where on most of them. A lot of them didn't bloom last year -- I hope those do bloom this year so I can figure out what to keep all of, and which divisions can be shared. The iris at the end of the diary is one I bought last year, too -- but I didn't get it off the sale rack. The blooms on that one are huge, at least twice the size of the Fancy Woman iris pictured in Saturday Morning Garden Blogging After Hours -- but Fancy Woman (the only iris I own that I know the name of) is a very delicate iris.
I tackled a big garden clean-up chore last Wednesday, whacking my way through two years growth of sweet autumn clematis and climbing rose over the shady corner arch. Jeez but there was a lot of stuff to clear off the arch. For whatever reason, last year the autumn clematis put out a continuation of its previous year's growth, but no new vines from the bottom. This year it put out a ton of new vines from the bottom, but no new growth on the top.
I also need to do some work on the honeysuckle on the west side of the yard — it too, after several years of growing only on the top, had a lot of winter kill on the top of the vines, but is putting out growth from the base. The Polish Princess has noticed the same pattern on her vining plants — winter kill on top, new vines from the bottom.
A happy surprise was the discovery that three tiny clematis planted a couple of years back are not dead, but also are putting out new vines. Perhaps this year they'll get big enough to actually bloom... and I can remember what it was that I planted.
Sigh. That's a perpetual problem of mine — I buy things on a whim, and then forget what it is.
There still is a lot of general "housework" type of yard work to be done — cleaning the walkways of accumulated dirt and plant debris; getting the front porch cleared of gardening supplies and plant supports.
The tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, squash and cucumbers won't be ready to go out into the full sun this weekend, but they should be properly hardened off by next Wednesday. And then there are the begonias and tuberoses to get put into planters. Oh, and gladiolus and dahlias to plant.
I moved the big brugmansia into the back yard where it will get morning, but not afternoon, sun. It was too large for the front porch, and besides — I have two new brugmansias that will be taking up that real estate. I like the lateral branching on Cherub, and Inca Sun flowers continually and at a smaller size.
So, our warm weather was delayed by a couple of weeks, but the delay has just made me ready and raring to go.
That's what's happening here? What's going on in your gardens?