Peachy

This week, the hyacinths and daffodils dried out and faded, while the sparaxis, freesia and iris are starting to form their flowers. I was a little worried that my irises weren’t going to bloom for me this year, since it seems like everyone else’s are already in full bloom. Yesterday, though, I noticed that my purple bearded irises are definitely starting to form flowers.

The stars of the moment at my house are my two peach trees. They’re both new, but doing well. The peppermint peach, planted in 2006, has several large, carnation-like, white blooms with pink stripes. The dwarf bonfire peach, which is in a whiskey barrel in the back yard, is also blooming.

A couple of weeks ago, I was rummaging around in my “beer fridge” (Yes- I have one of those) and found some white hyacinth bulbs that I never got around to planting. That reminded me that I also had a bunch of yellow iris bulbs, along with some paperwhites, in a utility closet. So, after some (but not much) thought, I decided to plant them. I’m not sure if planting them so late is going to kill them, or if they just won’t perform for me this year. The bulbs were “awake” when I put them in the ground- they already had shoots coming out. Now, several of them are starting to peek out of the soil- only one hyacinth so far, but several irises and paperwhites. I also sprinkled some swiss chard seeds, which are starting to grow now, and some purple coneflower. Lots of little things are starting to pop up in the flowerbed, which I’m hoping are coneflower seedlings and not weeds.