RDG Spring 2021 Summary

April AND May showers brought a ton of June flowers!!!

Posted on July 18, 2021 by Carolyn Donovan and Wan Chi Lau in RainyDayGarden // 0 Comments

It surprised us to realize that is has been a few years since we updated readers on the status of the RainyDayGarden.

While the interns have been moving things about, experimenting with new plantings, and generally tending to the garden…inhabitants, on an as-needed basis, the guiding principle of RainyDayGarden has and always will be: “if you want to stay in the RDG, you better know how to fight for your spot.”

Jan/Feb/March

The first rule about staying in the RDG is that we WILL NOT dig up plants in the Fall for storage/replanting in the Spring. We tried that for a few years with the dahlias and the cannas, but we had limited success in keeping the tubers alive and rot free. So, no more of that.

Indoor/outdoor

If a plant cannot survive a Zone 5 Winter, we wish them the best in a warmer clime. While New England winters are not as cold as they used to be, the temperature still gets close to single digits in January and February.

“If I can make it there/I’ll make it any where…” as long as it’s in the same zone.

By February, with snow still on the ground, signs of Spring were beginning to emerge in the office. The first leaf on the fig tree in the large container is always such a happy sight for us!

It’s that time of year when it seems like anything can happen, weather-wise.

The flowers of the Thanksgiving Cacti had long since dried up, but the jade plants’ blooms from mid-December were still going strong and got us through the long January days. Amazingly, most lasted until late February, and some even into early March!

Most people never get to see a jade plant in bloom. You’re welcome.

This season we also had indoor action which hadn’t happened in years past:

new leaves from the banana plant,
a flower stalk from the aloe vera,
buds on the two orchids which had been quiet for years, AND
some random purple shamrock flowers that found their way to the rubber tree pot

Green things, white things, purple things, RainyDayGardenIndoors has them all.

Crocuses

Of course, the universal sign of Spring is the first sighting of crocuses in the RainyDayGarden. In 2021, we spotted these on March 24th.

Crocuses – just going about their bloomin’ business (to kind of quote Eliza Doolittle)

April

On April 6th the RDG weather sensors logged a 65º day. That jolt of warmth gave all the Spring blooms in the RainyDayGarden a running start.

Ready, set, go!

Grow, you tulip, grow!

Of course, a few days of mid-60ºs doesn’t mean a sudden snow storm won’t dump a few inches overnight, which is exactly what happened on April 16th.

Oh crap…this happens all the time in New England.

The mid-April storm left snow on the ground and ice on the back deck, but then all of a sudden, the RainyDayGarden “appeared”!!!

A sight for sore Winter eyes indeed.

May

The orchids put on a show during March and April. Amazingly though, it wasn’t until the beginning of May before they achieved “full bloom.”

Sa-low, but so worth the wait.

While the orchid was holding court inside, the first iris of the season opened up outside. The other irises were a few months behind, but the pale blue variety is always at the head of the class.

You’d think the pale ones would be wusses, but they’re the first out of the block, bursting-out-of-the-earth-wise.

The garden post-rain is always lovely, but it was especially so one May morning. We went out at just the right time and caught sight of thousands of sparkling raindrops on the bamboo! Couldn’t really capture it properly because all we had was the iPhone, but it was pretty magical.

Shake the bamboo, get your own out-door shower.

Purple iris…after the rain. No, not Prince related. Not wanting the purple iris to get all the attention, the Yellow Irises decided, while a little early, it was time to take center stage.

Also, one of the best parts about May is that there are plenty of tulips for cutting. Always great to be able to bring a bit of Spring inside!!!

Garden’s gettin’ bizzy now!

We have a new addition to the RainyDayGarden: Blue Eye Grass. Even though “grass” is in the name, it is actually in the iris family. We got it because it is a perennial, drought tolerant, and can handle temps down to -20ºF. We put it in the ground with a good mixture of compost, the rest is up to it now…

Lilacs

The weekend’s heat gave the final push the lilac bush needed…and gave us “peak lilac” season.

AND they smell terrific!

June

Peonies

White peonies are particularly lovely, and they have a delicate scent which is difficult to detect when outside but very noticeable when brought inside. Each flower is about 6-7″ across…way too heavy for the stem to hold them up right. The mostly-white peonies (there is a hint of pink when the light is just so) are a little waterlogged after four days of rain and seriously top-heavy, but at full bloom!

A bloom that beguiles everyone who sees it.

Color-shifting peonies….will have to set up a time lapse capture to see the change one of these years!!!

NOT time lapse, just three separate shots taken during bloomage.

The magnificent six – didn’t the make a movie about them?

So many HUGE peony blooms this year. Four days of heat kicked the pink peonies into overdrive. We typically like to leave the blooms outside if we can, but some of the peonies got so big that they practically drooped to the ground.

So heavy…cannot…keep upright

There were still plenty left outside, though, even after we brought some inside.

Like a lovely, scented, completely silent, floral fireworks display.

Mason Bees

The peonies, while very showy, don’t really attract pollinators. The spiderworts, on the other hand, are a big favorite with the mason bees. Mason bees are awesome as they are about ten times as “busy” as honey bees! They also have a 95% pollination rate, where honeybees have a 5% pollination rate. So we are always excited when they come to visit the RainyDayGarden.

Gettin’ bzzz-y.

Daylilies

They have a way of taking over the RainyDayGarden this time of the year. We don’t mind 😉

Just a buncha beautiful flowers.

RainyDayLilies are a hybrid between the common orange trench/ditch lilies and the large bright yellow ones. This hybrid happened spontaneously, but we may try crossing some other varieties on purpose to see what we get!

Orange? Yellow? Orangey-Yellow?

The hybrids have an orange ring from one, yellow-ish petals from the other, and are smaller than either parent. They have been coming back for a few years and I have been able to split and propagate them to other parts of the garden, so clearly they are stable.

Bloom, you gorgeous things, bloom!

From the weather station in the RainyDayGarden, the high for the day on the last day of June was apparently 104º.

We thought the temperature gauge was busted, but then we read this little tidbit from the Boston news:

“…The city reached 100 degrees on Wednesday 6/30, something that has only happened 25 times in Boston history. It sets the record for hottest temperature ever recorded on June 30, breaking the record of 95 degrees set in 1945…”