A warm winter and hot March brought too many things into leaf and into bloom way too soon this season.
🚰 I had to have the irrigation turned on already, on April 24 -- three weeks earlier than normal.
It's still April! Orange geums have been flowering for weeks, the Biokovo geraniums have started to open, the Jupiter's Beard too, and even the tiny armeria -- sea thrift -- is blooming.
The Atlas daisy is too. And the linum flax plants have tiny blue flowers.
But everything looks so sparse and stunted. While March was hot and woke my garden up too soon, April has been cool and windy. Nights are still in the high 30s and low 40s. The plants woke up, but they aren't happy now.
The Virginia creeper vine normally leafs out on May 1, like clockwork. This year it came out too soon and the one night we had a freeze earlier it really zapped the vine. It will recover of course, but right now it is also sparse looking.
I was happy to see my transplanted serviceberry made it. It is opening its leaves slowly. It did not flower, but in future years when it has settled into its new spot, it will.
The transplanted Jackmanii clematis, which I moved next to the rain barrel, did not make it, but I will buy another later in the year when I can get out to plant.
And the Chocolate Chip ajugas absolutely have to go. I will take them all out when I can get out there.
They are once again a flat brown mass -- they recovered a bit last year after looking so bad, but not much.
They had looked great for the first years, flowering well and greening up nicely from 2019 to 2023, but then not so much. The past two years they've looked awful.
Something low-care has to go in this empty spot and there is irrigation. Maybe a sedum ground cover, like 'Angelina'. That should spread out and cover the ground with bright color.
The dark red blob is a small gaura and dark leaved penstemons to the right will contrast nicely with Angelina sedum.
I can't really get out into the back yard or in front to check on things or take photos, but here's one more look at the newly opened up walkway with the rosemary removed.
I like how cohesive it looks leading to the door, and it's now easy to round the corner on the flagstone path.
Such a strange season, with things out too early in March, but now cool and windy and dry in April, and me unable to do anything outside for weeks yet.