Garden bloggers' Bloom Day April 2009

Once again, it is Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day, hosted by Carol at May Dreams Gardens.

Although I'm supposedly in the same zone as Carol, spring is coming more slowly here in Toronto though unlike last month, I do have a few blooms to post today.

The Siberian squill (Scilla siberica), which the landlords' kids and I rescued from a garden down the street last year, are in their glory now.

Unfortunately, I found out long after the kids and I rescued them that Siberian squill is an invasive species in southern Ontario according to Invasive Exotic Species Ranking for Southern Ontario. I need to learn more about how the things spread; hopefully I can control them, since the landlords' eldest will be very unhappy if I rip out his squill.

Only one of my reticulated irises (Iris reticulata 'Cantab') is still in bloom. This picture came out badly but I didn't have time to take another because I had to catch a train—I'm posting this from my mom's apartment in eastern Ontario. Fortunately I got a prettier picture a couple of weeks ago.

This early stardrift, still in bud, (Puschkinia libanotica) is another rescue from the garden down the street. (Here's a photo of the gorgeous masses of early stardrift in that garden before the new owner attempted to replace it with sod. I say "attempted" because a number of puschkinia have popped up through the lawn this year despite his efforts.)

All of the flowers out today are blue, but we did have some bright yellow winter aconite (Eranthis hyemalis, see photo) which bloomed at the end of March, managing to avoid both the March and April Bloom Days. There are also hyacinths and tulips in bud, and lots of growth on the daffodills, columbines, and beebalm. Lots to look forward to!

I couldn't resist including the Easter decorations the landlords' kids put up, which add lots of gay colour even though they aren't technically blooms. I think that decorating Easter trees is a Czech tradition.

Puschkinia libanotica: flowers

Puschkinia libanotica, known in English as "snowdrift", "early stardrift", or "striped squill", and in French as scille de Liban, is a flowering bulb native to Asia and the Middle East. One of the earliest spring bloomers, it bears spikes of blue-white flowers, each petal having one blue stripe.

This gorgeous bed of snowdrift was at a neighbours. I'm glad I took a photo because soon afterward the new owner decided to rip out all of it (and all the other bulbs too) and replace it with sod. My landlords' kids and I attempted to rescue some of them, though how successful we were remains to be seen.