The Garden Worm blog Digging up the best dirt on gardening!

We are moving into a period of brilliant white flowering here in the gardens. The doublefile viburnum is exceptionally floriferous this year and shines like a beacon at the end of berm above the pool.

Viburnum plicatum f. tomentosum 'Mariesii'

The cranberry viburnum is also blooming and its white blooms shine against the red-tinged new leaves. The birds will love the fall berries.

Viburnum trilobum 'Compactum'

The Vanhoutte spirea is looking lovely in her cascading dress! Her arching branches are the ones you probably remember from your grandmother’s yard. Note: this is one shrub that absolutely looks best in a natural state. Pruning to a ball or a cylinder or topping it off is a definite no-no in my opinion!

Spirea vanhouttei

And what a show the deutzia is putting on this year! Incredible!

Deutzia gracilis

And just so you don’t think everything is white in my garden, look at this pretty Jacob’s ladder. This is the first year for this variety ‘Stairway to Heaven’ and it definitely is a keeper, replacing the now-deceased ‘Brise d’Anjou’. This variety is hardier and I think has even prettier flowers and foliage. Gorgeous, isn’t it?

Polemonium reptans 'Stairway to Heaven'

What is shining in your garden now?

After a beautiful weekend of almost 90 degree temperatures a week ago, the flowers on our fully loaded ‘Red Jade’ crabapple all came tumbling down after a huge rainstorm. In one day it went from this

'Red Jade' Crabapple

to all green with a few remaining white flowers. Good thing I took a picture beforehand!

This next picture shows a closer view of one of my favorite Spring plants, Euphorbia polychroma. This huge plant and its neighboring offshoots originally came from a plant my sister-in-law brought from Canada. We still call it the “Toronto” plant. Its very neatly-shaped, chartreuse-colored foliage gives the Spring garden such a jolt of color contrasting with the purples, blues, and pinks of the usual flowers. You can just see the airy blue flowers of the Brunnera ‘Jack Frost’ behind, and a lone red tulip planted by Harvey the Chipmunk makes everything zing.

Euphorbia polychroma

In one of the shade gardens, the blue-green of the Solomon’s seal (Polygonatum) and green ferns contrast with the red-tinged Viburnum trilobum (American Cranberrybush Viburnum or High Bush Cranberry). The starry flowers of the underlying sweet woodruff (Galium odoratum) light up this scene.

Shade garden

Even the clematis wanted to get in on the action – isn’t she pretty? Now she has about 25 blooms – crazy Spring!

Clematis viticella 'Venosa Violaceae' maybe