New blooms, both current and to come

Weird weather patterns aside, spring is officially here.

But even in the past couple of weeks, as winter kept on hitting us with new and unusual surprises, things have been blooming, and I wanted to do a quick highlight some newcomers to the garden.

This is a corydalis. I first saw them on a gardening show and fell head over heels in love with them. Lucky for me my local garden center was carrying it and I snagged one. It is extraordinarily pretty, and does well in a pot. Blooms twice a year, often nearly all year round in our climate. Hopefully it will feed some local pollinators but honestly who cares I love it. We all strive to be more responsible in our plantings, but just because a plant doesn’t feed you or a bee, doesn’t mean it’s bad or worthless. Beauty is worth something too.

I’ve started the process of interplanting a lot of my vegetables with flowers. I’m hoping this will help me use less sprays to protect my veggies, and to give something to the bugs they can eat that I can’t. This process is in it’s infancy because I’m starting so many things from seed this year in my new greenhouse. But I wanted some instant color so I’ve been picking up 6-packs of pansies and violas to sprinkle throughout the garden. They’re edible of course, but they’re also a riot of color at a time when very little is blooming. Another upside to their edibility is that the spent blooms can go right to the worm bin, and the dead heading encourages new blooms! The worms are happy, and so am I.

Also those pots are adorable, they were a gift from my boyfriend and I love that I can put a pansy in the big one and a viola in the little one.

Now onto the blooms to come. Dwarf irises! Katherine Hodgkin’s to be exact.

I’m somewhat of a newbie to the bulb life but so far I’m a fan. I wasn’t sure if these little guys were growing so great, and one day I accidentally knocked the whole pot off the table. I was devastated- all that work ruined! Only the roots of the bulbs were so strong that they were spiraling around the pot and the whole mess slid out in one rooted piece and I was able to pop them right back in the pot no problem, and they seem to have suffered no ill effects!

Tough little buddies I hope that means they’ll be the exact riot of color I need. It will be a while before my sunflowers are blooming after all. But I have faith.