2014 is the Year of the Alstroalmeria

Gardeners know that every year is a crapshoot. Some plants will prosper, others will do nothing. You never know why. This year is for alstroalmerias. 

We've been planting, digging up and moving around these Peruvian corms for years now. The purple ones are maybe 15 years old, each of the others somewhat younger. The yellow ones are a bayou variety that Dana Girl brought us up from Louisiana.

They are said to be invasive, but we've never found them to be so. You just dig up a clump and move them if you don't like them, but why wouldn't you? 

Add the California poppies that just appear wherever they like every year, and the purple columbines, and the white arugula flowers and you end up with a very pretty perennial garden, but only in the spring and early summer. So we enjoy them now.