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It has become Cooper's garden April 28, 2008
Cooper is a 2 month old Boykin spaniel. You need to know that it is worth clicking on these thumbnails because he is sort of awesomely cute. And my son is kinda cute too. But since the canine has come to live with us, gardening is done a. little b. in a hurry c. without reflection However, he is currently napping, so let me just muse about...
Dicentra spectabilis, which is an awesome thing to behold this time of year, is it not? It shoots up a couple of inches a day for me in April. The day you first notice it could very well be 37 degrees and threatening snow. Then it begins to really flower on a t-shirt and shorts day, only a few short weeks later. My original plant is coffee table sized now, and is in deep enough shade that it sticks around looking okay until early July. I've read a lot that it should naturalize, but that hasn't happened for me. That's ok; it's easy enough to dig out a hunk anytime. My "Alba", on the other hand, produces a dozen seedling every year. This year they won't be wasted, as Missy Marchese, Green Fingers stalwart, has encouraged me to start a plant exchange! This should be fun--a horticultural FreeBay, if you will. But back to the White bleeding heart. Is it just one of those color wheels/contrast type things, or is its foliage just that shade lighter and brighter that its pink brother? It looks pretty awesome next to a hot pink azalea that blooms at the same time, and when it fades, the Anemone hupehensis "Japanese Anemone" kicks in to cover the hole.
From left to right we have a very sexy single "locket". I mean, c'mon, if you didn't know better, would you believe a flower could be shaped like that? The Anemone windflower is next, then, d. Alba, which I've read is called "white pantaloons"-- does sort of look like laundry hanging out, no? Last d. "King of Hearts", which is a mix of a eximia, a formosa, and a peregrina. I guess I could wax poetic about those types another day. Cooper really hasn't taken over the garden. In truth, he quickly learned that mom becomes a screaming lunatic if he so much as sticks his nose in the herb and vegetable plot right out the back door. He has lots of grass, and a lovely patch of ivy and pachysandra which serves as his loo. In time he will learn, as all of our other dogs did, to help me and watch me from his lawn, and we will work together like that for many years. At least that is the plan.
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