So Many Sundrops

So many sundrops this year, blooming for nearly a month. Their brilliant yellow faces are so welcome in late May each year, blooming one, then two, then five, then so many I can’t even count them.

The spring after I moved in this house a water company utility worker came to check my water meter and noticed my garden—I’d moved many plants from the house I rented and they were already blooming. We talked flowers for a while and he mentioned one he had plenty of and he’d drop some off sometime. And he did, and these are those plants. I had planted them at the edge of my woodland garden until it got to be a little too shady a few years ago and they stopped blooming. I moved them to their current sunnier spot and it took a few years for them to catch on again. Now there are so many in this spot I had to move a few out into a new flower bed this year. That’s 35 years after the first ones.

They are in the evening primrose family, native to eastern North America. The plants stay green after the flowers bloom, then from the rosette at the bottom to the top leaves they slowly turn red over the summer and add an extra splash in autumn. The best plants come from friends.

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