Port Potager

Despite the cold, slow start to our spring, flowers are blooming all around us. Many of the flowers I've planted this year were selected for their scent in addition to how they look, and now it's clear that this was a great decision: Catching the scent of flowers on the breeze is one of the best parts of being outside in the springtime. Here's what's blooming now: Irises , which smell like violets. Actual violets (which, unsurprisingly, smell like violets). Chamomile , which smells like apples. Stock , which smells like cloves and baby powder (which is to say, they smell wonderful enough to make me break my rule against fuchsia flowers). A close-up of the white stock shows how nice they look, too. The lilac is a bit past its prime in the looks department, but still smells great. Sweet woodruff , which smells like vanilla and fresh-cut hay. Heliotrope , which smells sort of like grapes or fruit punch. ...

All those giant piles of snow from the historically blizzard-prone Winter of 2015 left behind a lot of damage. Though the snow was initially very light and fluffy, it compacted into a heavy block of ice as the season wore on, and all those piles pinned down the branches of shrubs and garden plants. Not all the branches were able to withstand the weight of the melting snow, as I discovered this week when I was finally able to take a proper tour of the garden without snow boots. Starting in the perennial border, our tree peony took a big hit. Many branches were broken, and I'm not sure that it will be worth saving. It will depend on what it looks like when it blooms this spring, but I feel like it might be so lopsided that it will need to be replaced. This section of the border took a big hit, as it took on snow blown from the driveway and  snow shoveled off the music room roof. Here you can get a better idea of how lopsided the tree peony is (it's the plant on ...

Here are the bouquets of the past week. We still have lots of bulbs and lilacs here, but I think peonies are on the way for next week! Orange tulip, Fortissimo daffodil, and a white tulip (barely visible). Red ranunculus, red-striped tulips, and double white daffodil. The opposite side of the same arrangement. Yellow tulip. Lilac. 

Now that the cutting garden is up and running, we have lots of flowers throughout the house. I cut them when something outside looks nice (or when a vase inside is looking ratty enough to need replacing), but I'll collect a week's worth of bouquet photos to share on Fridays. Here's what I had this week: Mixed tulips. Lilac. Mini bouquet of Fortissimo daffodil, red and orange ranunculus, white tulip, and white Jacob's ladder. The opposite side of the above bouquet, where you can also see the golden yellow coreopsis. Salmon tulips (with a carved mask and limestone/coral from Mexico ).

Happy May Day! Here's what's blooming in celebration of spring: Our new sweet woodruff plants have opened up nicely. Both the tiny flowers and the leaves smell fantastic — a combination of vanilla and fresh-cut hay. May Day is the traditional time to cut and dry sprigs for sachets and May Wine, which I plan to get to tomorrow when the sun comes out. Also in full bloom are the lilacs along the driveway. These also smell wonderful. Usually these are just starting to open on May Day, but this year they are in full bloom — almost past their prime, actually. We can blame and/or thank the freakishly warm winter for that. The last blossoms we have are the tiny, bluish ones of Jacob's Ladder. These are on the opposite side of the driveway from the lilac, so there's a nice echo of the color from one side of the drive to the other.