turning colors in the gardens

I'm not doing very well on getting caught up in Blogland - but soon - promise!! We've had some gorgeous days, and I've been taking advantage of them. Soon enough I'll be spending more time inside, so I'm feeling the need to be outside enjoying the beautiful weather. Yesterday I went to lunch with my French classmate, Susan. Our teacher, Nadine, is in France visiting family, and she sent us an email. We checked our translations of her email with each other and then tried to come up with one to send to her. She'll get a good giggle out of our sentence construction, I'm sure!

I mowed the yard when I got back home yesterday. Today I washed windows and the porch screens. The dogs haven't been inside long enough to even re-slobber them yet - nice! We have a very small house - but it has 27 double-hung windows, 4 fixed windows (leaded glass by fireplace and two small ones in our bedroom), 6 basement windows, and 5 doors with windows. That is a ton of window washing!

I realized today that I have more iron pieces to share with you - what a surprise! :) I completely forgot about them when I was taking photos before. I also found several things still blooming in the gardens. And, finally, some of the plant leaves are turning pretty autumn colors.

The top photo is of geranium leaves - that bright red one is stunning. The second photo is my miscanthus ornamental grass. And coral bells in the bottom photo.

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.

some of today's blooms

I'm going to do three posts this morning, I think. When I went out about 10:30, I thought I probably wouldn't get any photos - bright sun - drat, waited too long. But I actually came up with some fairly good ones. The tulips down by the lake are fabulous and deserve a post of their own! And even though the dogs spend a lot of time in my gardens, they aren't really part of the gardens, so they get their own post today too.My columbine just started blooming. My neighbor has had tons of these blooming for years, and I kept waiting for them to jump over the retaining wall into my garden. Finally, she just gave me a couple - and they're doing great! I have another one down by the lake that the birds must have brought to me. It's in full hot sun and is gorgeous. It hasn't started blooming yet, but probably soon.

My neighbor's bleeding heart is in more sun than mine, and has been blooming away for a couple weeks now - it's gorgeous. Mine is finally stepping up to the plate. I love these old-fashioned blooms. (this photo is clearer than it looks! The second row of hearts kind of makes my eyes go bleary tho)Wild geraniums are so gorgeous when the clumps are covered with tiny blooms - but it's really hard to get a photo that does it justice. So here's my attempt. (Please note the color coordination: dark purple dwarf iris on one side and red-purple tulips on the other. LOL. It's actually very pretty)

This is a new tulip I ordered at the Keukenhof last spring. It's called "Couleur Cardinal." It shows a lot of orange in this photo - but in person it's quite a dark red. I chose it because it reminded me of the bridesmaids' dresses Sara chose for her and Ryan's wedding. I ordered 20 extra and sent them out to Ryan and Sara last fall - along with some white daffs. They decided to put their house up for sale this last winter and so didn't plant them, thinking they would be gone before they bloomed. Now I wish I had them here in my garden! (Family: they sold their house, close on June 7 - AND over the weekend they found a house they love and close on it June 1 - serendipity!)

Here's another pretty red tulip - "Burgundy Lace" - as it ages it becomes darker (which the Couleur Cardinal will probably do too). Very pretty.

And this is a little species tulip that just opened - it's a very pale purple-pink with yellow center. It's sweet. I also have a yellow species that is starting - but I'm saving it for another post because, unlike this one, it will actually have several blooms and will be a prettier photo when they're all open I think.

More May blooms

Isn't this gorgeous? I can't wait until it opens all the way - IF we ever get a sunny day maybe that will happen. This is one of my new ones "Carnival de Nice" from the Keukenhof orders. I have groups of 4 different late blooming tulips down by the lake - and 3 of the tulips are opening - a fringed pink "Fancy Frills", a pure white ("Tacoma" I think), and this one. The 4th one is also pink if I remember right.

Here are two views of some white tulips in the river birch garden. It's disappointing that so many tulips aren't blooming - because of rabbits and the late cold snap - but the ones that did produce are very pretty.

I need to dig out my crib sheets and figure out what the names are for all of these - can't believe how lazy I am this spring!

I was having trouble getting photos of my small spring bloomers - so Mark hauled out the big guns this afternoon and took these three for me. The first two are of Jacob's Ladder - one of my favorite spring bloomers.

And this is a wild geranium that I have all over my garden - it blooms anywhere. When they're in full bloom, they're a mound of purple-y pink blooms - I just love them!

When you step out the door on the street side, you are greeted with the sweet smell of blooming lilacs - wonderful! Both of our neighbors have the old fashioned lilac bushes on our fence line. One is by the street, and one down by the lake - so we get to enjoy wherever we are in the yard! I remember the lilac bushes we had on the farm - one on either side of the path that went out to the mailbox. They are a happy childhood memory.