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Cottage Gardens

Tulips and daffodils take over my front yard (pics)

13 years ago

I have been waiting for the early tulips in the front yard that are planted in front of the daffodil display to get into gear blooming. Finially got some good pictures. The daffs have put out the spring show and now with the tulips, it just has so much color.

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The left side of my front yard.

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Front view.

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Here you can see that I have daylilies planted in front.

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Another view.

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And my favorite view of the tulip section.

Comments (15)

Calamity_J
13 years ago
What a show! It looks like a field in Holland!!heh heh! Lovely!
Lilyfinch z9a Murrieta Ca
13 years ago
Wow Rita! What a display. You obviously put a lot of thought and hard work into your gardens! you should win the front yard of the spring award in your neighborhood, for sure. Cant wait to see your next round of pictures!
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I'm sure your neighbors were happy to see veggies, even bolting crops, over the weedy yard, Spaghetina. Here's a couple of suggestions I have from my time growing organically up in SF and Marin. 1) Most of those flowers of the bolted veggies are edible and tasty. While the leaf flavor has turned bitter through the winter and the taste change that comes with bolting, the blossoms often gain a very interesting taste that is great topping salads or lightly fried in certain dishes. 2) If like germinating your own crops from seed, remember which of your crops are heirloom (their seeds will usually produce true) and which are F1 or other hybrids -- it's seed is typically still viable, but may have very different characteristics than the parent. The GW seed exchange forum is a great way to get those exotic seeds you mentioned w/o having to pay catalog prices or drive all over the Bay area, but you need your own seeds to reciprocate. Some of the best plants & veggies in my yard are from trades I've made with other GW members. 3) To my way of thinking, your soil mix seems too heavily focused on decomposed organic matter and doesn't take advantage of the alkaline SF clay topsoil and it's associated soil flora. The compost/purchased soil is great for nitrogen and drainage and you can artificially pump up the P/K/Fe to grow good veggies & plants in it, but organic amendments like blood & bone meal, fish emulsion, seaweed and others need bacteria & fungi to free the nutrients for your crop's roots. That's generally not true for soluble inorganic amendments, which is why they are popular. There's definitely a risk of adding weed seeds by using your yard's topsoil in the garden beds, but that soil food web is necessary for growing good organic crops, IMO. For plants that need lots of N and like great drainage, I go 2/3 purchased soil/fully composted organic matter and 1/3 native topsoil. For tomatoes, peppers and others that suffer in N-rich soils, I use 2/3 native, 1/3 organic matter.
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Nancy- I didn't think about it until you pointed it out but the tulips really are just in time for easter. Not a big deal for me now but it brings back memories of when I was a child. My dad really loved tulips and always had some planted. My mom and I always had to stand in front of the tulip display for in our easter outfits for pictures on Easter Sunday. I have always loved tulips as long as I can remember and I am sure that it goes back to these childhood memories. Christine- The tulips are the Scheepers Early Tulip Mix. When they started blooming this spring with the purple tulips, I was surprised to see that color. I went back to their website and checked again and sure enough, it was supposed to be a mix of hot colors like red, yellow, orange and blends but no purple or pink. But I like the purple in there, I think it looks good so I don't mind. The terracing does make it easier to show off the plants plus I can squeeze lots more in than I ever could if I had a flat yard. I am really glad that front yard space is terraced as it shows off the bulb disply so well. I had to look up camassia as I have never heard of it. Thanks for the suggestion but it doesn't appeal to be at all.
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I went back to the garden center where I bought the pansies recently - they said religiously dead-heading them should keep them looking fresh, and so far it's worked, but it hasn't been super-hot yet. After all this, though, I think I'm going to dig up the tulip bulbs this fall. The foliage just browned enough to pull up the last of the leaves/stems LAST WEEK, and to me the foliage looked junky for a long time. (As well as the pansies are doing, they weren't tall enough to hide the tulips.) Thanks for the suggestions of planting perennials like peonies, but I think I'm going to replant the bulbs in a bed of goutweed that I inherited from the previous owner of my house. The blossoms should provide some much needed spring color in that area, and then the foliage won't look too out of place as the goutweed really starts to take off in early summer. Thanks for everyone's help!
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Thanks everybody! I'm glad you enjoyed the pics.. and the rocks :-) We love rocks and could easily slip over into being rock hounds. All we need is a small pick and we'll be well on our way (have been looking for that, just haven't spotted one yet). Carol, the fountain with the little children does work. I believe we bought that at lowes last summer. I just love it :-) We've done a lot at the cabin this spring. I'll have to take some pics to share. Watch for them in the 'conversations'. There's not a hosta on the place because of the deer, but we've planted lots of other stuff!
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Thyme2dig NH Zone 5
12 years ago
WOW!! That looks fabulous! You have VERY lucky neighbors.
carrlinesue
12 years ago
Rita,

do you buy new bulbs every year or do the ones planted come back?

Carrline
natalie4b
12 years ago
What an amazing display of beauty!
koszta_kid
12 years ago
That sure is pretty. I think voles ate all my tulips. Daff did fine.What do you plant there when tulips are done?
aimeekitty
12 years ago
really impressive!
newyorkrita
Original Author
12 years ago
The tuliups and daffs in the pictures are all newly planted last fall. I am planning on them coming back LOL! I plant zinnias later for summer color.
newyorkrita
Original Author
12 years ago
Here some are in the same area today.

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plantmaven
12 years ago
I am so green with envy!

Kathy
merindah
12 years ago
What kind of tulips are they? So pretty!!
newyorkrita
Original Author
12 years ago
These are 200 of an early tulip mix that I bought from Scheepers.
mary_lu_gw
12 years ago
Rita, simply beautiful! So bright and colorful. Must make you smile every time you see it.

I have been considering adding spring bulbs to some of my gardens, but I hesitate because I hate the look of the dying foliage. Do you plan to leave the foliage as recommended? Or will your daylilies cover it as they grow?
gottagarden
12 years ago
That certainly says SPRING to me! Just lovely, your neighbors are very lucky.

Only . . . where did you get the sunshine? You must be living in an alternate universe, sun hasn't shone here for a long time . . . .
newyorkrita
Original Author
12 years ago
We have have many rainey days here but lots of sunny ones also :-))

What I do is snap off the seed head part of the stalk on the daffs every few days and or cut (at the very top) off the dying spent flowers. In that mixed daff collection pictured wave after wave of flowers opens. As some finish, others start. So deadheading keeps the mixture looking good even now and they started weeks and weeks ago. In fact they started the very, very beginning of April.

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Here is how they look now with the last wave flowering and I have cut off all the spent blooms leaving the flower stalk.

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Here you can see the daylily folliage running in front of the tulips. It should make the tulip folliage much less noticable. Again, as soon as the tulips drop their flower pedals, I will snap off the very top of the stem which has the seed head.

I just leave folliage, don't much worry about it. I find it's gone on it's own soon enough and there is always something else going on in the garden to look at.

In the two belgium block mini terraces running accross which is were the daffs are, I plan to plant zinnias for summer long color. I will use seedlings and just plant them between the daffodil folliage. I am sure there will be some lang time there between when the daff flowers are all gone and I get my zinnia seedlings in. I haven't even startted the seeds yet as it has been too cold. But I have been growing zinnias in that front section for the past two years. This was before I put in the belgium block mini terraces late last summer. That then allowed me to plant the area in bulbs last fall as planned.

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