Friday, May 22, 2009

Pink Gardeny Goodness

Two of my favorite flowers are blooming together in my garden right now.


Pink Lily of the Valley

When we first moved into the house, I'd go to local plant sales sponsored by various garden clubs. I still remember bringing home two little lily of the valley plants in a small cup.

My experience has been that if I can find a plant I want at a garden club sale, it is more likely to grow and thrive than a plant from a commercial nursery. I don't know if that's because garden clubs tend to sell whatever is prolific in their gardens, or if the plants are more acclimated to local conditions.

But I love these little pink flowers lining our walkway.


Daphne & Lily of the Valley

We have 3 Daphne shrubs. They smell wonderful. Even on the other side of the house on the porch, we catch a faint whiff of their flowery scent.

Local nurseries have stopped selling Daphne lately because we're right on the edge of climate where they survive, and nurseries were replacing too many plants to live up to their guarantees.

Luckily for us, our Daphnes seem to be happy - although every year they do get crushed by deep snow along our walkway. They were absolutely buried for months last winter.

But they've forgotten all about that, and are blooming happily and fragrantly!

4 comments:

Lynnette said...

You must be blasted away with the lovely fragrance. We had a Daphne in our front garden for several years until a particularly hard winter.....I fondly remember sitting outside and just indulging myself in deep, deep breaths! Wonderful!

Theresa said...

Oh lovely Lily of the Valley. We don't have it out west, at least not here, too dry. It's one of my favorite flower fragrances, next to Lilacs and lavender. I've never seen it in pink. How pretty. I wonder if Daphne would survive here, we really don't get the cold that the east does. I'll have to investigate.
Hope you all have a wonderful Memorial weekend. You have lots of food right? ;-) Maybe a BBQ planned?

Deanna said...

Aaah, the loveliness! Reminds me of a song we sang in girl scouts... White silver bells upon a slender stalk, lilies of the valley grace my garden walk.....

Life Looms Large said...

Fingers crossed that our Daphne continues to survive on the edge of its hardiness zone!!

I always wonder if its the cold or the lack of humidity in winter that kills plants around here. Daphne have thin leaves, but they are waxy and tend to stay on the plant through the winter.

I hadn't thought of that Girl Scout song until you mentioned that Deanna. And I think I didn't get it when I was little. I'm not sure we had lily of the valley in our garden growing up!

Sue