tomato blossoms

"Carefree Beauty"

Today flew by: French class this morning. I was going to quit for the summer, but when we figured out how few weeks we would actually all be in town, decided to keep going. Nadine is going to France to visit her family for 3 months in September - lucky, lucky!!

Single, Anemone, Japanese peony

After class, I started digging out grass: in front of the fairy and around the rust urn by the dock. The urn space is going to need lots more work, but I dug up and divided a bunch of variegated hosta and planted them in front of the fairy. I think it looks good - and if not, I'll just put something else there next year. I have caladium to plant between the hosta since they won't be very full this year.

J.F.Quadra climbing rose

Now Mark is throwing dinner on the grill - and we'll have to hope it cooks fast because we have thunder and very black skies out there! Even though we've had pretty good rains, we can always use more. And then maybe it will be nice tomorrow and I can get more done outside.

Tall bearded iris

So I plan to spend the evening with a good book. Oh, oh - it just started raining, and I'm pretty sure the burgers aren't done yet. Guess that's why they put lids on grills! And why husbands are water-proof!

Tomato blossoms!!

And this is my favorite photo today - tomato blossoms!!!! Yippee!

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY, EVERETT & MARLENE

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, KAYLEE

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY GLENN & BABE

Roses in May - imagine that!

When I did my garden walk-around this morning, I could hardly believe my eyes - 2 roses open today. I always think of roses and peonies as June bloomers - maybe Memorial Day if we're very, very lucky. May 20th - wow. This is "Nearly Wild" - I love the single blooms and that it blooms pretty much non-stop all summer and fall.

The other rose that was open was my species rose - 2 blooms, but I couldn't get a good photo of either, so I'll save it for another post. It should bloom off and on all summer long too.

This is a new clematis that I planted last year. It's at the base of my lady trellis, and is doing really well this year. It's called "Lemon Chiffon" - not a true white, but certainly not much yellow either. The blooms are pretty good sized, and there are a lot of buds, so may be a good choice.

The purple tall bearded iris opened today. The scent of these beauties is wonderful - kind of a cross between SweeTarts (which is definitely what the white iris smell like) and grape Kool-Aid. Sounds weird, I know, but I could just sit in the garden smelling these for hours.

A spiderwort is open. I have purple, white, and magenta. This one is actually more magenta colored than it looks in the photo. I love how long these one-day bloomers keep producing new blooms.

And this is my Johnson Blue geranium - in plant form!! I love the geraniums.

Happy Birthday to Cole and Kevin - belatedly, but love you both!

sun lovers

The tall bearded iris are blooming. This white one is one of my favorites - it has the sweetest scent.

I think the yellow ones are very pretty also. The purples aren't far behind.

Wild geranium again.

Another geranium - Johnson Blue. These get a little more leggy than the pinky wild geranium (which just seem to form big clumps), but I love the color.

A close up of mountain bluet - centaurea. These are the coolest blooms!

Chives are blooming nicely. My French teacher told me she takes the flowers and sprinkles them on salads - they have a wonderful oniony flavor. I had never done that before, but she's right - they're yummy!

False indigo - I love this bushy plant.

And this is probably the last shot of my tulips for this year - they are fading fast! This is "Sorbet" again - I really like the coloring of this one.