As a member of the bloom team at the Boerner Botanical Gardens, one of my duties is to log in plants that are just beginning to bud. I also note when they are in full bloom and when they are finished flowering. The idea is to track when things actually do bloom in our area. […]
Archive for the ‘Bulb, Corms and Tubers’ Category
Snowdrops, Harbinger of Spring
This has been a particularly long, cold winter in Milwaukee. It is nearly the end of March and the temperature is barely above freezing. We still have a lot of snow and spring seems a long way off. However amid all the wintry weather, my snowdrops (Galanthus) are blooming without a care in the world. […]
Turk’s Cap, Spectacular Native
When visiting my sister Milly in northern Wisconsin, I always tour her garden because she has a shiny green thumb and everything grows for her. She has a lot of plants that I am not really familiar with and she makes growing them look easy. I usually come home with a few new plants and […]
Yellow Flag Iris
A few years ago, after admiring the Yellow Flag Iris (Iris Pseudacorus) in my sister’s garden, she gave me a couple of small plants to try in our yard. Her Pseudacorus had sword-like clumps that were 5-6 feet tall, looked very dramatic and bloomed with showy yellow flowers each summer. I wanted to try them […]
Spring Crocus or Squirrel Snacks?
As one of the most popular late-winter/early spring bulbs, crocus are widely available and easy to grow. They are one the first flowers of spring and come in a wide range of colors. The cup-shaped blossoms of the crocus are upward-facing and their flowers appear from late winter to early spring, depending on the variety […]
Those Blooming Daffodils!
This has been a crazy weather year in Wisconsin. We had a mild winter and a very early spring. So early in fact that the daffodils are already blooming in the middle of March. This is at least a month early for our part of the country. I keep waiting for winter to come back […]