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I’ll take the chance that we have readers who don’t know about the Garden Bloggers Bloom Day phenomenon, started five years ago by Carol at the May Dreams Gardens blog. Bloom Day is the 15th of the month, every month. An internet holiday, if you will.

Aside from a brilliant creation of community, Bloom Day gifted bloggers with that greatest of all boons–content. I wiped my brow in relief when I realized that my posting date this week was the 15th.

From December through March, northern tier garden bloggers have to be somewhat creative about Bloom Day–houseplants, conservatories, nurseries. I know people who follow rigorous lab practices to get their hippeastrums to bloom on the 15th of the month in mid-winter.

Bloom Day May 2012 has found me up to my eyeballs in irises, about 2 weeks earlier than usual.

What’s blooming in your garden today?

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Cultivating Beauty

I’ve always wanted to have a space in the garden dedicated to cut flowers for the table. Somehow, the vegetables always take over and demand all of my time and the cutting garden gets moved to the bottom of the to-do list. This past fall, I was a little overzealous when ordering my spring flowering bulbs and ended up with 700 tulips (I know, that’s a lot of tulips and I had a total of 2500 bulbs to plant). This was just the thing I needed to make me realize my dreams of starting a cutting garden. I have this ugly hillside in the back of the property that I’ve always neglected. It was planted with an invasive ground cover that I’ve been trying feebly to eradicate for the entire 9 years we’ve lived here. I spent a few days digging it all out, working up the soil, and planting tulips and a few other naturalizing bulbs. This hillside will be perfect for tulips because it’s dry and the soil is fairly lean.

The hillside burst into bloom this spring and it’s been a beautiful addition to the garden. I especially enjoy this little corner because only I can see it. It can’t be seen from the road, but I see it from my kitchen window and through the glass doors in the dining room. It’s like the secret garden of Chiot’s Run.


This past Sunday I cut a lovely bouquet to take to Easter dinner along with the rolls and sourdough bread that I always take. I figured it would make a beautiful addition to the table, and it did.

So often in our gardens we focus on feeding our bodies. While I truly believe vegetables can be beautiful in their own right, flowers feed us in a different way, especially when we bring them indoors. I’ve sprinkled this hillside with black peony poppy seeds and I’ll be adding seeds for a few other flowers, along with planting nasturtiums to spill over the rock wall in front. Hopefully this garden will provide beautiful blooms for my table all season long. It won’t feed by body, but it does feed my soul!

What’s your favorite flower to have on your table?

I can also be found at Chiot’s Run where I blog daily cultivating the simple life and over at Eat Outside the Bag about REAL food. You can also find me at Your Day Magazine, you can also follow me on Twitter and on Facebook.

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Sunday photos: Bloom Day

The 15th of the month is Garden Bloggers Bloom Day, started at May Dreams. Dozens of garden bloggers post their photos every month. When the weather turns bad like it did this weekend in the Midwest, it’s nice to see all these pictures of beautiful flowers! Here’s some from Xan‘s garden:

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“Here at Chiot’s Run the garden is filling with blooms. Just as the last tulips are starting to fade, the fruit trees and strawberries are bursting into bloom, promising some delicious rewards in a few weeks.

The wild violets are also blooming, I’ve been picking them for salads, for making syrup and to dry for tea. I can never get enough of these little lovelies!

This has been a wonderful year for the dogwood trees. Every couple years the weather works out perfectly and they’re spectacular – this is one of those years (for more photos see my post dedicated to the dogwood).

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Down here in the south, I’m working on Unearth A Garden, hoping to educate, learn, share, and question all things garden related. Today’s my bi-monthly check-in day which works perfectly with Bloom Day. It gives me an excuse to look at everything in my yard and to check my progress all over.

Roses are winding up, but lavender and lilies are getting ready to explode!

Yarrow is full of blossoms.

And my peas have flowers all over them thanks to the wonderfully cool, wet weather we’ve been having these last few days!

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We are so far behind everyone else in SE Michigan, it’s amazing. I read a report from the MSU extension office the other day that stated that we are two weeks behind average temperature/weather patterns, and last year we were two weeks ahead. That means that we’re four weeks behind last year! Still, it’s fun to watch other bloggers post their intensely beautiful spring photographs while we’re really just getting started here.

I’ve found myself mesmerized by the tiny, subtle blooms this spring. The gooseberries have such adorable little flowers that look almost as if they’re blushing. They’re so subtle that until this year I had never noticed them before.

The Merrybells have started their quiet, shy little blooms against the backdrop of dried maple leaves. They grow underneath an antique weeping mulberry (a strange little tree indeed!) and I have to guard them with a little metal fence to keep the dogs from destroying them each year. They’re fragile little ladies, that’s fore sure!

Another under-rated bloom is that of the blueberry bush. They seem to blush like the gooseberry blossoms. I love to check them daily because they start out as hard, green little buds and increase in pinkness as they mature. I also love to see each little berry blossom as a potential burst of flavor across my tongue on a summer afternoon. Mmm…

My last shy little bloom this week has been my woodland poppies. These grow under the mulberry tree as well and they seem to be thriving, despite the deep shade they live in. Their blossoms last only about a day, especially with the rain we’ve had lately, but they’re such a cheery color I can’t help but revel in them when I see them.

I wish I could share photos of all of the amazing spring ephemerals that are blooming on the trails at the horse farm where I work. There are spring beauties, jack in the pulpits, white trilliums, marsh maragolds, cranesbill, trout lillies, blood root and even the creepy alien staghorns of the skunk cabbage. It’s really amazing to ride the horses through the fields and woods this time of year because if you have keen eyes and a certain amount of patience you can find an amazing variety of woodland wildflowers, especially in spring. I’ll try to remember to bring my camera along with me next time I go!

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How are your blooms coming along?

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