Lupin Love

Our 30 some lupins around the yard are starting to flower. This is the first time that most of them have flowered. I started one packet of blue seeds and one of rainbow colors about 1.5 years ago. For those of you with a black thumb, this is the perennial flower to grow from seed! Despite my best efforts to kill these plants with epic droughts, they have all survived.


We originally purchased these seeds with the intention of using the plants as a green manure. They fix nitrogen in the soil and they also increase the availability of phosphate because of their acidifying effect on soil. We have very basic soil, so those are all good things for us.


I ended up getting a bit attached to these plants and couldn't bring myself to till them under. After a bit more research, we decided that lupin could also be used successfully as a companion plant around my other flowers. It doesn't need any watering, comes up early, tolerates Montana winters, improves soil fertility and looks gorgeous. What more could you ask for in a flower?


Another low maintenance flower - the viola aka johnny jump up. The variety above is supposedly an annual. This little guy in particular withstood -12 and 2 feet of snow on top of it for months. I wish my apple trees, and ferns had been as hardy!


One day it wasn't here, and practically the next day my bleeding heart was flowering. This was one of my favorite flowers as a kid. The lacy fern-like leaves - the dainty, curvy flowers - this plant should have starred in Alice in Wonderland.


Still waiting on the dianthus to bloom. This plant is getting much bigger than I thought it would! I think I'll be moving around quite a few flowers this year so that the flower bed makes a bit more sense.

Click here to go to Bloomin' Tuesday to see what's coming up around the world.