Some plants were whupped by last winter: the 6-foot burning bush (Euonymus alatus 'Rudy Haag'), now down to a handful of new growth from a nub of whatever-didn't-get-felled by the -27ºF polar vortex; the Rose of Sharon (Hibiscus syriacus 'Bluebird'), same; and the more-than-a-decade old climbing hydrangea (Hydrangea anomala subsp. petiolaris) now wending up the chimney with only sparse foliage surrounded by dead twigs.
But others liked it cold, apparently: the peonies bloomed by the hundreds; all the daylilies are punching above their weight and setting multiple buds upon multiplied stalks; and I have never seen the Queen-of-the-Prairie (Filipendula rubra) hold court like this. The blooms are the purest deep pink, just this side of classy without taking that short walk to brassy magenta. Up close, you see the sewingpin-head-sized pink pearls of the fluffy foam blooms to come. From afar, the grove of the Queen's blooms outshines everything else around it.
As with every season, timing is everything. The pollen-heavy blooms of the Queen are irresistible to insects, especially (or most disgustingly visibly) the Japanese beetle. This year, the Queen bloomed early, and the Japanese beetles are late, though they'll have their way with the Queen soon enough.
The Queen moved herself toward the front of the bed, now in a sightline of other reds: scarlet beebalm (Monarda didyma), and a dun-reddish daylily on her side of the bed; and, across a strip of lawn to another bed, Monarda 'Raspberry Wine,' the color of a sophisticated lipstick, and too-red-to-be-orange and too-orange-to-be-red Maltese Cross (Lychnis chalcedonia). All these reds don't go together in the most wonderful way, like the so-wrong-it's-right chords in a Monk tune:
"Ugly Beauty," indeed.
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