Peak Season
Today marked the peak of daylily season in my garden. The daylily bloom that is my favorite part of the garden year began with a bang three weeks ago, when three different varieties opened their first flowers. During the following week, the display slowly grew, with nine more varieties beginning to flower. Then, as happens every year, the daylily bloom accelerated, with an average of three varieties a day beginning to flower during the next week. This past week brought an explosion of daylilies, with 5-10 new varieties opening their first flowers each day, so that, by today, more than sixty were blooming.
The daylilies are flowering prolifically this year, perhaps the result of a very rainy May, which may have provided needed moisture at a critical point in flower formation. (I’ll try to remember this next year if I’m feeling grumpy about seemingly endless days of rain in spring.) One plant I’ve been particularly happy to see loaded with flowers is ‘Margaret Seawright,’ which seemed to be barely hanging on in recent years. 
With its 4” flowers, this is not the most showy daylily in my garden; but its story makes it special: When daylily breeder Bob Seawright’s mother was dying, he asked her if she would like to choose one of the new seedlings from his breeding program to be named after her, and this is the one she chose.
I love the variations in my daylilies. They range in size from the diminutive 3” ‘Cinnamon Dew’ to the showy 9” ‘Outrageous Ramona.’ And then there are the colors. All the daylilies in the Blue and Yellow Border have yellow blooms. Those along the walkway to the patio are all in shades of pink, from pale to strong.
On the Front Slope, I’ve indulged a love of hot colors with oranges, reds and purples.
Many of my daylilies, especially the yellow ones, are fragrant. This big yellow one that just began blooming by the steps up from the driveway fills the air with a heady vanilla scent.
Although each daylily flower blooms for only a day, a given plant can open flowers continuously for several weeks. And, because different varieties have different bloom periods, the earliest bloomers in my garden begin flowering in June, while the latest ones don’t finish until October.
There are still more than two dozen daylily varieties in my garden that have not yet begun to flower. But, today, three of the early bloomers (‘Orange Prelude,’ ‘Olallie Maggie Bromell’ and ‘Happy Returns’) opened their last flowers. Several others are nearing the end of their bloom period. We have reached that bittersweet tipping point in the daylily season when, even as some varieties open their first flowers each day, others will open their last.
Winter Into Spring
I think of March in Maine as a winter month, but one that holds the promise of spring. The longer days and higher sun angle of March have brought many days with temperatures above freezing. Most of February’s snow has melted from the garden, and, along the dirt road leading to my house, the ground has thawed and the mud has drained. Looking out my study window, I can see buds on the forsythia shrubs. This season is perhaps best described by the phrase that the pianist George Winston used for the title of one of his record albums, “Winter Into Spring.”
Winter-into-spring is a fickle, two-steps-forward-one-step-back time of year. Two days ago, I was outside in sunshine and mild spring air, pruning spireas. Yesterday was sunny and cold, with blustery March winds. Today it is snowing. Nevertheless, I have resumed my habit of going out once a day and walking through the garden to see what is happening.
| I can see new green foliage on wild strawberries (Fragaria virginiana) and Heuchera x ‘Raspberry Regal.’ |  |
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I see tiny pleated leaves of Alchemilla mollis (Lady’s mantle) peeking out from under garden debris. |
And, beside the foundation on the south side of the house, a single crocus (Crocus vernus ‘Pickwick’), is blooming, the first flower of spring in my garden.
Soft Colors, Sweet Mood: GBBD, June 2024
June, when the early summer display features soft colors of pink, blue and violet that create a sweet mood, is one of my favorite times in the garden. The flowers currently in bloom include some that are white (like Tradescantia virginiana ‘Danielle,’ Iris sibirica ‘White Swirl’ and several varieties of peonies). Others are almost white, but are touched with a hint of color, like the barely blue flowers of Amsonia tabernaemontana, the blossoms of Kalmia latifolia (mountain laurel) ‘Hoffman’s Pink,’ and the barely pink blooms of Geranium x cantabrigiense ‘Biokovo.’
Other blooms are more definitively colored, like the lavender balls of Allium x ‘Globemaster,’ the pink spires of Heuchera x ‘Raspberry Regal,’ pink peonies like ‘Monsieur Jules Elie,’ the chartreuse flowers of Lady’s mantle (Alchemilla mollis), and all the blue flowers of Siberian irises, Tradescantia virginiana, Baptisia australis, and Geranium x ‘Brookside’.
A few flowers here and there, like Geranium sanguineum and rose ‘Hansa’ are blooming in hot magenta hues.
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For me, one of the delights of the early summer garden is all the varieties of Geranium (also known as cranesbill) in bloom. Several of my flower beds are currently edged with the frothy flowers of the groundcover Geranium x cantabrigiense. I have this in both the pink-tinged ‘Biokovo’ and a much more strongly colored cultivar, ‘Karmina’ These flowers put on a big show in early summer and are then done for the year (although their foliage remains attractive throughout the garden season). Geranium sanguineum also blooms in early summer only.
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Other geraniums that begin to bloom in June are long-blooming perennials that will continue to flower through the summer. These include Geranium x oxonianum, a fertile hybrid that happily seeds itself around in the garden, and the blue cultivars Geranium x ‘Brookside’ and Geranium x ‘Rozanne.’ These all grow long floriferous arms that drape themselves over other plants in a charming mingling of flowers.
With so many flowers in bloom, the garden is also alive with pollinators. These include several species of butterflies, a hummingbird who visits daily to feed from the spikes of Heuchera x ‘Raspberry Regal,’ and several species of bees. The bumblebees visiting the flowers of geranium ‘Biokovo’ are so enormous that the flowers bend down to the ground under their weight.
The blooms of early summer arrived especially early this year. The peonies began to open during the first week of June, the earliest I ever remember them doing so. In mid-June, Siberian irises are already well past their peak, although a few are still in flower. But even as the flowers of early summer bloom and fade, I am seeing more and more buds each day on the daylilies (Hemerocallis) which are the iconic flowers of high summer in my garden.
Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day is a monthly celebration of flowers hosted by Carol Michel at May Dreams Gardens. Visit her website to see the glories of June in many gardens.
The Late Spring Speed-Up
Winter is long in Maine, and it is always a delight to see spring coming around again. This year, after a false start in March, spring was delayed by more than a foot of heavy, wet snow in early April. 
As the snow melted, though, crocus flowers slowly appeared from under the snow, followed by a cheerful display of daffodils on the front slope. In the second half of April, I was finally able to work on spring clean-up in the garden, as native spring wildflowers like bluets (Houstonia caerulea), wild strawberries (Fragaria virginiana) and violets bloomed.
By mid-May, I was experiencing something that happens every year but that always catches me by surprise – the late spring speed-up. Suddenly, after being bare for more than six months, deciduous trees went in days from the lacy look of flowers and new foliage to being fully leafed out. I scrambled to finish my spring clean-up as new growth shot up; and each morning’s walk through the garden revealed new flowers beginning to bloom.
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First came moss phlox (Phlox subulata), then the first of the perennial geraniums (Geranium maculatum). The fothergilla bloomed, followed by beach plum (Prunus maritima) and lilacs (Syringa vulgaris).
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The native sundial lupine (Lupinus perennis) joined the late spring display, as did Allium x ‘Globemaster.’
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As May has turned into June, late spring is morphing into early summer in the garden. Blue star flower (Amsonia tabernaemontana) is in full bloom, as are the spikes of Heuchera ‘Raspberry Regal.’
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Only a week after they began to flower, Siberian irises are bursting into bloom.
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Many plants characteristic of the early summer garden display, like dianthus, spiderwort (Tradescantia virginiana), Baptisia australis, lady’s mantle (Alchemilla mollis), roses, and several species of geraniums, have begun to bloom. Others, like peonies, astilbes, and spirea have rapidly developing buds that will begin to open in the days to come.
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In April, it can sometimes seem that the new garden season will never quite develop. But by the end of May, the late spring speed-up has changed all that so dramatically that it can leave me feeling a bit breathless.
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