Bloom Day: April 15

Spring blooms!

One of my favorite spring-flowering shrubs, Prostanthera rotundifolia, is just starting to come into bloom after teasing for months with developing buds:

 

Fairy bells Disporum longistylum 'Green Giant' just starting to open:

 

 

Purplish-black flowers of kohuhu, Pittosporum tenuifolium. Supposedly these are highly scented but I couldn't detect anything:

 



 

 

Silver new growth and orange flowers on the butterfly bush Buddleia 'Orange Sceptre':

 

 Pacific Northwest native Tellima grandiflora, fringe cups:

Rare Plants in Common Places

Yesterday I spotted a rare plant in a common place: Cardiocrinum giganteum at my local big box hardware store. This was once a plant only found by mail order or at better specialty nurseries. I guess it has arrived. Sadly I can't grow this beauty thanks to voracious slugs and snails, which love to feast on the lovely huge leaves.

Akebia Flowers

Some of my favorite plants are the hardy vines in the family Lardizabalaceae, which contains a handful of genera such as Akebia and Holboellia. The vines add a tropical feel to the temperate garden. Akebia quinata is in full bloom currently, scrambling through a tall stand of arrow bamboo (Pseudosasa japonica), covered with hundreds of intensely purple pendant flowers. They can develop interesting edible fruit which are said to resemble sausages with a blandly sweet interior. Mine have never set fruit, but the flowers and foliage are more than enough to enjoy.

Clematis Blooming One Month Early

For the last three and a half years I have kept track of the blooming period of several different plants, including a quartet of Clematis montana var. rubens 'Freda' planted along a chain link fence. I mark the bloom time from the day the first bud fully opens to the day the last petal falls from the last flower. In 2013 the plants bloomed for 40 days starting on April 21. The next year blooming also lasted for 40 days, but started almost two weeks earlier on April 9. This year the plants are in full bloom already, with the first bloom open on March 25, nearly a month early compared to the beginning of my record keeping. This winter was exceptionally warm, which might account be the cause. It will be interesting to keep tabs for years to come.