Is it spring already?
It’s sure been looking that way.
After the dormant winter months, most gardeners revel in the first blooms of spring. The “Renaissance Season” brings with it feelings of hope, renewal and challenge.
Spring is the theme of this year’s Great Plant Picks list from the Elisabeth Carey Miller Botanical Garden in Seattle.
Annually revealed during the Northwest Flower and Garden Show, Great Plant Picks is an educational program of the Miller garden. For nearly 15 years, Great Plant Picks has recommended nearly 1,000 plants for Western Washington gardeners.
Our mild, cool climate provides for a long and colorful spring, which stretches from late February into June.
With advice from colleagues, Richie Steffen, curator of the Miller garden, and Rick Peterson, the Great Plant Picks manager, came up with the 2015 list of shrubs and perennial plants that celebrate spring and are brilliant in the months of March, April and May here in the maritime Pacific Northwest.
Of the long list, The Herald picked seven of our favorites to share, along with Peterson’s description of each.
March
1: Yellow Fawn Lily
Erythronium “Pagoda” is a great plant of its type (Erythroniums) for beginners, as it is easy and vigorous. Advanced gardeners love the yellow fawn lily for its timeless beauty. It is a spring ephemeral, meaning the foliage and flowers emerge in early spring, then fade away like some other bulbous plants so that later-emerging perennials can take over and fill the space. Plant yellow fawn lily en masse for a spectacular March show.
2: Variegated Winter Daphne
This shrub has two great attributes — fragrance and lovely variegated foliage. The dainty flowers exclude an intoxicating scent in late winter and early spring amidst the green leaves edged in golden yellow. The evergreen foliage continues to provide interest and great texture all year long.
3: Lily of the Valley Shrub
Another terrific shrub with evergreen foliage is Pieris japonica. In late winter and early spring they are covered with masses of tiny urn-shaped flowers. The selection committee went to a trial of this plant in Oregon, where it proved to be highly resistant to root rot.
April
4: Lady Tulip
There are thousands of tulip cultivars and many are planted, never to return. The lady tulip is a great exception in that it consistently appears every spring for many years. The unique red and white striped flowers are quite a sight atop the glaucous gray-green foliage. Tulipa clusiana spreads by underground roots to form charming colonies.
5: Alpine Clematis
The alpine clematis are a group of vines which have nodding, columbine-like flowers in varying shades of purple, pink, and rose. They are easy to grow, non-aggressive and smaller (shorter vines) – perfect today’s urban landscape.
May
6: Wood Anemone
White, purple or pink flowers adorn this low-growing and spreading evanescent perennial. The fern-like leaves appear first and are topped by the daisy-shaped flowers. By early summer it’s gone.
7: Vulcan hybrid rhody
Rhododendrons are symbol of the Pacific Northwest; indeed, it is the state flower of Washington. Rhododendron “Vulcan,” with its stunning red flowers, is one of the last rhododendrons to bloom in spring and is sun and heat tolerant.
More information about the program is available at www.greatplantpicks.org.
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