Gardening

I tried to be patient while waiting for my plants to emerge.  But, it's now the first week of May and finally nice enough to go ahead and fill in those gaps.  I'm so happy with how much of my garden came back from last year (I planted perennials for that reason), and how healthy it looks!

 The azaleas and rhododendron are evergreens and the hydrangea was dormant and bushy all winter, but I had cut all of the others down to the ground.  The hostas, the lilies, the bleeding heart, were all under mulch all winter.  I am amazed with how they have come back--I'm going to have to split some before there isn't any space left in the garden!

Darby supervised

 The bushy-looking plants with the slender leaves are groups of lilies.  I'm hoping that this year there will be enough blooms to cut some flowers to spruce up the house.  The azaleas have already bloomed, but the rhododendron has just started.  I had a foxglove not come back in front of the rhododendron, so we put a day lily in there this morning.  I'm always a little concerned about plants requiring full sun in my bed, because I feel that most of the spots are part sun, but I think the day lilies should do well.  And they're a perennial that I see coming back at work, so they can't require too much care.  Sadly, I dumped the cart after hitting a pothole in the parking lot so the day lily took a hit, but I think it will come back.

 I am so amazed at the bleeding heart.  I lost the other one I planted last year (I think it was too much sun in that location), but this one is thriving in this corner spot which is the shadiest part of my garden.  This was cut to the ground and came back beautifully.  It's getting a little big for its space, so I may be dividing this one as well.

 In my sunniest spot of the garden, the columbines have really taken off.  The lilies behind them are doing well too, but I'm getting impatient waiting for the blooms!  There was a hole behind the columbines and due to their height, we wanted something that would be a bit taller.  We planted a small lilac bush there this morning, and I'm hopeful it will fill the space nicely.  We went with a smaller one so we could prune it as it grows to fit in the space.  I hope it does well!

 The columbines are so thick and doing so well with virtually no care on my part--my kind of flowers!

 The rhododendron looked sad at a couple of points this winter and spring, but it finally bloomed which made me stop worrying about the silly thing.

With all the plants doing so well, I'm hoping to be able to cut flowers to spruce up the house.  The columbines are out of control and have plenty of blooms to spare, so I thought I would give them a try as cut flowers.  They look pretty good, but now I need to learn how to arrange flowers!  Also need to research how to divide these plants and find new homes for them!