Early May Flowers Blooming at My Farm
Mother’s Day is this weekend, and if you're still looking for gift ideas, there's still time to buy my latest book, “Martha’s Flowers: A Practical Guide to Growing, Gathering, and Enjoying” - it’s a wonderful gift for all the moms on your list.
Every year, on the second Sunday in May, people across the United States celebrate moms. The first attempts to establish Mother's Day date back to the 19th century, but the first national celebration was on May 11th, 1913 when members of the U.S. House of Representatives wore white carnations in honor of American mothers. Today, more than a century later, Mother’s Day is still celebrated with flowers - and not only with carnations, but with all kinds of beautiful, and colorful, spring blooms.
In recognition of mothers, motherhood and all maternal bonds, here are just a few photos of some of the flowers currently blooming in my gardens - enjoy.
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- Yesterday was a beautiful spring day. The gardens around the farm are looking so gorgeous.
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- Here are some of the many tulips growing behind my main greenhouse. We planted these three years ago and they still emerge with such wonderful colors. I ordered bulbs from Brent and Becky’s Bulbs, Van Engelen, McClure and Zimmerman and Old House Gardens Heirloom Bulbs.
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- Hellebores are members of the Eurasian genus Helleborus – about 20 species of evergreen perennial flowering plants in the family Ranunculaceae. They blossom during late winter and early spring for up to three months.
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- Hellebores are widely grown for decorative purposes because of their love for shady locations and resistance to frost. It is common to plant them on slopes or in raised beds in order to see their flowers, which tend to nod. After the first year, when the plant is well-established, hellebores are very resistant and require little upkeep.
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- Mertensia virginica is a perennial that is native to North America. Its buds are actually pink, but the flowers are blue. They can grow in any garden and bloom in early to mid spring and continue blooming through early to mid summer.
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- Mertensia virginica, or Virginia Bluebells, will grow to a height of 18 to 24 inches tall, so they’re great naturalization plants for use behind other, smaller ones. They do best in peaty, sandy soil, but once planted, they require very little maintenance.
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- This is Fritillaria meleagris, also known by its common names: chess flower, checkered lily, drooping tulip, or in northern Europe, simply fritillary.
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- The name Fritillaria actually comes from the Latin work fritillus meaning dice-box, likely referring to the checkered pattern on some of the flowers.
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- Muscari is a genus of perennial bulbous plants native to Eurasia. Most may know it by its common name grape hyacinth. Muscari appears as spikes of dense urn-shaped flowers resembling bunches of grapes in shades of blue.
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- These beautiful flowers are planted as bulbs and tend to naturalize quickly in good soil. They prefer well-drained sandy soil that is acid to neutral.
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- Hyacinths are often found planted in lawns, borders, rock gardens, and in containers. All varieties of Muscari are also fragrant. I have a lot of Muscari planted under my clematis pergola. In full bloom, they look like carpets of blue.
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- Also planted at the pergola is Fritillaria imperialis. Fritillaria imperialis is a species of flowering plant in the lily family, native to a wide stretch from Kurdistan across the plateau of Turkey, Iraq and Iran to Afghanistan, Pakistan and the Himalayan foothills.
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- Also known as crown imperealis, Fritillaria imperialis Fritillaria imperialis produces whorls of large bell-shaped orange, red or yellow flowers, set beneath a crown of leafy bracts on stems up to four-feet tall.
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- In my shade garden outside the Tenant House, I have lots of beautiful ferns. Every day it seems more and more are growing. A fern is a member of a group of roughly 12-thousand species of vascular plants that reproduce via spores. These are ostrich ferns.
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- Here are more ostrich ferns surrounding an astilboides with its huge, bright green leaves.
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- Solomon’s Seal is a hardy perennial native to the eastern United States and southern Canada. These plants produce dangling white flowers, which turn to dark blue berries later in the summer.
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- Known botanically as Podophyllum peltatum, this plant goes by various common names. “Mayapple” is used most often, but among its other nicknames are “duck’s foot” and “American mandrake.”
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- Dicentra spectabilis, or bleeding heart, is a genus of eight species of herbaceous plants with oddly shaped flowers that look very similar to hearts. These flowers are native to eastern Asia and North America. The flowers have two tiny sepals and four petals. They are also bisymmetric, meaning the two outer petals are pouched at the base and curved outwards at the tip. They are shade loving woodland plants that bloom in the cool of spring and stay in bloom for several weeks.
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- Bloodroot plants are early spring bloomers and may be found growing wild in dappled sun in wooded areas, producing beautiful white flowers. Bloodroot plants, Sanguinaria canadensis, get their name from the dark red sap found in the stems and roots.
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- Dodecatheon is a genus of herbaceous flowering plants in the family Primulaceae. The species have basal clumps of leaves and nodding flowers that are produced at the top of tall stems rising from where the leaves join the crown. These delicate blooms are also known as shooting star, American cowslip, mosquito bills, and sailor caps.
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- Fothergilla is a slow-growing, deciduous ornamental shrub that is native to moist lowland coastal plain bogs and savannahs in the southeastern U.S. from North Carolina to the Florida panhandle and Alabama. It grows two to three feet tall and as wide. The whimsical flowers are bottlebrush-like spikes that bloom in spring.
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- This viburnum is growing in my white garden outside my Winter House. There are more than 150 species of Viburnum; many are native to North America, growing in USDA Hardiness Zones 2 to 9.
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- Most viburnums flower in spring. The sometimes-fragrant flowers range from white and cream to pink-flushed or wholly pink.
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- Here is another viburnum with its pretty spherical blooms. Most viburnums grow in any moderately fertile, moist but well-drained soil in full sun to partial shade.
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- Here are two of the four Sargent Crabapples, Malus sargentii, that flank the carriage road between my Tenant House and blog studio. This compact landscape tree shows off abundant clusters of fragrant white flowers in May. Its dense, spreading crown and zigzagging branches often make the tree wider than it is tall.
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- And here are two of my Camperdown elms. Camperdown is a weeping elm tree with gorgeous twisted branches and dense foliage. Its crown is domed and dense, and the twisted, root-like branches, thick with green foliage, droop to the ground.
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- In spring, Campberdown weeping elm trees are covered with blossoms. Although the flowers are small and, individually, insignificant, many of them appear at the same time. When the entire dome is covered, the plant turns from dark green to light, silvery green – it’s so beautiful to see outside my Winter House kitchen.
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- And here is the cover of my book, “Martha’s Flowers”. I am so proud of this book. It includes so many of the indispensable lessons I learned as a child, gardening at home with my father, as well as those I have picked up from master gardeners over the years. It makes an excellent gift any time of year.
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