May 22

We have had a lot of rain lately and wind and cooler days, so I haven't been out to do much weeding.  I went out tonight to take pictures of the flowers in bloom right now. 

Hardy Geranium, Snow on the Mountain (I think), Thrift

Columbine, Purple Iris, Heliotrope (I'm not sure)



Dianthus and Silver Mound

Columbine

Perennial Bachelor Button

Coral Bells. Snowdrift

White Iris

May 10

Jim planted another two rows of sweet corn.  I spent a little time cleaning out a section of the main flower garden. The easiest part.

I love lilacs.  They are one of my favorite flowers.  I say that I am finding about a lot of things.  They are my favorite FRAGRANT flowers, how about that.  We have a row to hide the shop from the road.

Here's one with a bumble bee in it.

The King's Bathtub

If you take the petals off a violet blossom, you can see the king taking his bath.

Pictures here 

May 7

I've been busy, but the gardening is still going on, slowly.  This spring is way behind.  Our ash trees aren't leafed out yet. And it has been so windy.  Jim planted 2 rows of sweet corn May 2nd.  We had a freeze that night. We might have gotten frost the next night, too.  Our cherry tree was just starting bloom so I think it will be okay. We'll have more cherries than we will want, need or use, if all these blooms make cherries!

This little bush is one of my favorites.  It's a pink flowering almond, and like so many of my chosen plants, there is a story behind the reason I have one. 
My paternal grandfather worked in the laboratory of Mount Arbor Nurseries in Shenandoah, Iowa, and my grandmother worked in the office.  We had from them roses, and also a little bush like this one.  I used to visit and admire it when it bloomed in the spring, and I remembered what it looked like. Years later when I wanted a bush like that for my own garden, neither Mom nor Dad, remembered we even had a bush like that.  So on my journey looking for it, I found this HAS to be what I'm looking for, same leaf shape, same blossom.  However, the one my folks had was a nearly while blossom with a very faint pink.  So, either, I'm not remembering the blossom color correctly, or they don't have that kind anymore.

Blossom close-up.



I couldn't decided which of these pictures was the best of the bush itself, which is is rather sad shape, as these are taken before the half the died was cut out.  These are growing suckers underneath it, and making new little bushes under the old.

 Main Flower Garden

Creeping phlox are just gorgeous, and we used to have 6 ft solid plants along here, but they've most of them died out.

Our lavendar ones.

White, purple and a tiny bit of magenta, accented with another very popular and well known flower.

They are being taken over by this pointy leafed WEED, that started out as a beautiful plant.  It grows, insidiously underground with a network of fine, easily broken off roots.  It has a tall stalk with very pretty purple bells, but it spreads so fast and is so hard to get rid of, that it isn't worth having. We have been fighting with it for several years, and it seems like it it winning, not us.

These are my later tulips.

I had the furnace still running May 2, and now it is 90 degrees today, so the air conditioner is on for the first time.