Next Round of Color

Here's one of my favorite early, mini daffodils. This is 'Jetfire.' It's a fairly common variety, but that's OK. Easily identified with the orange trumpets and backswept corona, it shows up nicely against the Sedum album which is the red behind it. After misidentifying this for 30 years, I now know that it is a red-leaved variety, possibly one called 'Red Ice.' The flowers are white, which is why it has the name album.

All the way down at the bottom of the rock garden (the previous picture is near the top), is a daffodil called 'Erlicheer,' with multiple flowers on each stalk. It's really too big for the rock garden, but for now it's OK in the space where it is. I haven't figured out anything to plant with it for later color, because the leaves are so large and coarse.

You can see the the blue grape hyacinths are starting to bloom. They are basically all over the rock garden. And that is fine. They bloom early and the leaves die back before other things want to have center stage. Some of the ones you see blooming are the same ones whose leaves were eaten earlier this year, so it's good to know they will still bloom despite abuse.

This is fitting since this forsythia was a birthday gift from my friend Betty many years ago.

The next one is to demonstrate how colors of the succulents can vary from season to season. This is Sedum 'Angelina' (left) and Sempervivum 'Gold Rush.' Mid season both should be quite gold. The 'Angelina' will be greenish-gold, and the 'Gold Rush' did get fairly gold colored by August last year. But at this time of year they are orange-green and maroon! Weird.

And I can't resist showing you this space again now that it's "settled in." I'm really, really liking this. It's the Lewisia and the Sempervivum 'Black' again.

Just as a reminder, I'm SO tickled at the color of 'Black.' This is the darkest it was last year. But it may lighten up as the season goes on. We shall see!

I worked on the usual today- editing, autumn olive, a few other projects.

Mini health update that I meant to post yesterday. This is concerning the post-shingles neuralgia. I am down to 1.5 ibuprofen a day. I take a half in the morning and a whole one at bedtime because it's worse at night. My body tells me when I can cut back because I find myself forgetting to take a pill. I'll get there!

See It's Beginning