Why I Oughta...

Last Spring, I took a shot on a couple of primroses at an early-in-the-season garden show.  I was pretty unfamiliar with them - hence this post titled: " Giving Primrose A Shot " from March 2023 where I figured I was lulled into a false belief that these early-blooming flowers would work in our Zone 5b (at that time, now Zone 6a) garden. We're suckers for blue blooms and the three Primula belarina 'Blue Champion' that I bought were pretty close to blue.  I seem to have ONLY posted about the blue ones, but if you look back at the photos in this post , you can clearly see that we brought home four Primulas that day;  three blue and one white one.   They went in and seemed to manage their first growing season without much drama.  By the very early days of 2024, I posted about seeing some of their foliage - despite the harsh Winter temps in the garden.   Today - about 90 days since then, they're in bloom.  And they're quite nice.  Below i...

Most everything perennial in our backyard garden has gone to sleep for the season.  But there's some new(er) things that are seeing their first Winter season in our yard that are showing a little bit of contrast.  Below is a photo that shows an inter-planted set of Twinkle Toes Pulmonaria and Blue Champion Primrose.  The Primrose went in the beds in VERY EARLY Spring 2023 and this is the first Winter:  The foliage difference is pretty striking;  the Pulmonaria is mostly brown, wilting and dead.  The Primrose?  Green and seemingly evergreen.   A new (to me) nice little study in winter foliage. Here's a post from a little bit over a year ago showing these same Pulmonaria without the Blue Champion Primrose .   Also... note the leaf litter.  Those Northern Red Oak leaves sure don't break down easily.