Long time gone

Yep, its been months and months since I blogged last, not that anyone really noticed... probably. Its not that I haven't had a few musings rolling around in my head; deep contemplations and such. The trouble is coming to a conclusion on any of them. Having not acheived that I decided to just blog about what's going on in the garden. It is, afterall, one of the finest (perhaps THE finest) spring that we had here at Molehill Gardens.

May is the month of Irises. Several years ago we began collecting Irises and are close to matching our number of varieties daylilies. Most of them are bearded irises with which most people are familiar. In fact it is the state flower of Tennessee. Well, the beardeds are almost finished blooming, but the show goes on thanks to the host of other types of irises that are not nearly as well know, but which, nonetheless, deserve a prominent place in the garden. The flower pictured right is a Louisiana iris called 'Voodoo Music' and the picture doesn't do it justice. It is much darker than the blue that is represented. A vigorous grower, it has come back very well after we divided the heck out of it to give a bunch away to the Master Gardeners class last fall. Louisiana irises can tolerate a wide range of soil conditions including completely saturated (even in standing water) and we grow them in everything from a potted pond setting to a sandy sloping part of our display garden.

Also perfoming well right now it the Louisiana iris called Feliciana Hills, a new acquisition for us this spring. It is a big, big bloom and a nice new shade for our other-than-bearded iris selection. We haven't even found a place for it in the garden yet!! I hope that it proves to be as vigorous as our other Louisianas!


I guess the "kodak moments" are too many to just keep going on and on about; best to keep them for another blog perhaps. But I have to include this little gem as we are always excited to see it come into bloom every year. It is a calla lilly called 'White Giant' and it is a real shiner! It can grow to a height of nearly four feet, but hasn't in our garden yet. Still, at nearly three feet and a huge bloom it is a show stopper to those who visit and see it in bloom. It is on its second bloom now, pictured left. Very few callas are hardy where we garden and we always cringe when we hear forecasts for single digits or lower. This year was a good test for them as we had eleven straight days with temps below freezing and a couple of single digtits. I did have a nice mound of hay over the growing area but it was not placed until the temps were a couple of days into that cold run. Seems to have worked!

Well, maybe since this is such a great year (and we have decided not to have an Open Garden... more on that later) I can get more posts up about the goings-on at Molehill... or maybe you'll just have to come and see!