Up Front

I tend to focus on my back garden as that's the sunny side and the side I look out at most often from inside the house. However, the street side is looking much more filled in this year too. My lavender hedge has flourished and is right against the sidewalk now, full of buds that will open in the next couple of weeks. Behind it, the red peonies I moved from the back garden have settled in nicely.

The house makes a good backdrop for a tree hydrangea just coming into bud and, on the far right, the lovely grey foliage and small pink flowers of Rosa glauca.

Because it's so shady, most of this corner relies on foliage for effect, so even small flowers have a significant impact.

On the other side of the front steps, also in considerable shade, the leaves of Heuchera 'Marmalade' outshine its small cream flowers. Their red stems complement the flowers of Dicentra 'Valentine' in the background.

Everything in the Garden's Lovely

Everyone I've spoken to agrees: this spring has seen just the right combination of sunshine and rain to encourage plants to do their best. Gardens are brimming with enthusiastic
flowers and foliage.
Peonies have been magnificent, and 'Festiva Maxima' has filled my garden with the fragrance of its big white blooms splashed with crimson.

My unknown reds have been spectacular too,

while the pinks, having waited respectfully for the others to finish, are now producing a succession of ruffled flowers.

More pink and red shows up in 'Rosa Mundi', one of my favourite Old Garden Roses.

 

Another rose, 'Ghislaine de Féligonde' is weighed down by so many trusses of flowers that it's bursting through the back fence and trailing into the lower garden.




































 Back in May it was already promising this profusion with a huge number of buds in each spray.

Even the shadiest corners of the garden are flickering with more subtle colour.

 I love the contrasting black stems and grass-green leaves of Hydrangea nigra in the foreground,

and farther back the starry white flowers of Gillenia trifoliata against the chocolate foliage of Actaea 'Hillside Black Beauty'.

Just peeking in to the left side of the main photo are the yellow flowers of Aquilegia longissimum, which look to me like small yellow squid navigating through their ocean of air.

Since it's a species, I'm hoping to collect some seeds to share with my gardening friends.

Another shady specimen that is pleasing me is a dwarf rhododendron. I've always delighted in being somewhat anti-rhododendron in this rhododendron-mad part of the world, but 'Little Vixen', a gift from my friend Dana, has such wonderful foliage, I can't help but love it. From above, it appears to have quite ordinary crisp green leaves, but the indumentum (that fuzzy stuff on the undersides) is a striking velvety plum colour. The only way to appreciate it is to have it as close to eye-level as possible so I've plunked it in the middle of a birdbath (which wasn't very attractive anyway and is now the perfect pedestal.)

I can't help noticing how many birds and bees have been attracted to the garden this year with so much bounty to offer in nectar and pollen. Both a visiting hummingbird and all the bees are particularly attracted to Nectaroscordum siculum, an onion relative with pale striped flowers.

The bees are also keen on a very pretty crimson and silver clover I've acquired.

Scrambling through oakleaf hydrangea 'Sikes' Dwarf', Clematis 'Durandii' uses the bright foliage of the hydrangea as a backdrop for its intensely blue flowers. 'Durandii' is one of the non-clinging types of clematis, needing some kind of twiggy partner for its stems to flop onto. It will be gone before the hydrangea's own white flowers open.

What all of this means is that the first part of the garden that I tackled is now looking pretty filled in. Such gaps as there are tend to be along the edges and I plan to seek out more low-growing but well-behaved little plants to fill these in. Overall, however, I'm pleased at how the garden is maturing.

April Flowers

We have just returned from four weeks in England and the change in the garden during that month has been amazing.
Before we left, in the last week of April, I was photographing the spring bloomers like my favourite tulip 'Spring Green'.

I like it so much not only for its crisp green and cream stripes, but also for its longevity. Other tulips I've planted last two to three years at most, but 'Spring Green' just keeps coming back as strong as ever every spring.

Muscari latifolium is another bi-coloured bulb that was blooming in April.

Like all the grape hyacinths, this one will seed itself around as long as I leave the seed pods alone. I'm hoping for a swathe of these under our old plum tree in a few years.
The same is my plan for a little wood anemone, Anemone nemorosa 'Allenii'. Of course I bought it for its name, but it's a pretty little ground cover for a shady spot.

Hostas were breaking ground by April and 'American Halo' was lighting up another dark corner.

Slugs are less attracted to its thick blue and cream leaves than to some of the other, more fragile hostas. Unfortunately since I took this photo, it's been hidden behind perennials that were scarcely visible a month ago. When it's dormant this winter, I'll move it further forward in the bed.

Finally, the day before we left,  Paeonia obovata 'Alba' opened two lovely flowers among its milk-chocolate-coloured leaves.

When I fell in love with this plant, it was quite expensive to purchase one ready to flower. I had to be content with a very young specimen that came with a warning it would take three years to reach blooming size. Part of the pleasure of gardening for me is anticipation, so I was prepared to wait. It's been worth it!

Next up: the garden at the end of May

Chickadee Nest

A few weeks ago, I decided to make a chickadee nesting tube from instructions I found on the web at http://web2.uwindsor.ca/courses/biology/dmennill/nestbox.html

I followed the instructions with one exception: instead of using metal strapping to attach the tube to the tree, I used heavy-duty Velcro for outdoor use. The Velcro is more flexible, easier to adjust, and it can be attached so tightly that it doesn't need to be nailed on. Here's my finished project, painted in the only exterior latex that I had on hand, and stuffed full of wood shavings:

I'd hardly put it up on our old pear tree before it was already being checked out by a prospective tenant. Now the pair are busy excavating the tube to their liking.These little birds move so fast that I resorted to making a movie after taking at least half a dozen photos that completely missed the birds. It's not a very good movie,so I'll try again and hope to have one good enough to post.

Equinox enthusiasm

It's astonishing how promptly some plants respond to the coming of the equinox. Daily I see more green growth, and daily more flowers open tentative petals.
The spring bouquet under the Corylopsis is vivid with colour now.

Among the blooms are double pink Hellebore 'Amethyst Gem', blue Anemone blanda and a creamy yellow species tulip, T. turkestanica. At the back are the pale green bells of Helleborus foetidus 'Wester Flisk'

Along the side of the house the primula-like flowers of Cardamine trifoliata shine crisply white in the shade.

At least I think that's what it is. The leaves are not three-lobed so it might be a different species.

Nearby is Ranunculus 'Brazen Hussy', with suitably bold yellow daisies above its dark, polished leaves.

It would probably flower better in more sun, but I'm wary of the spreading tendencies of its family. Here, with a concrete pathway on one side and a fence on the other, I've got it safely confined, I hope.

The flowers on Salix 'Melanostachys', which I mentioned a week ago, are fading already from black to silvery-grey with red tips, but  are just as pretty. It will be a lovely spring bloomer when it puts out a few more stems.

Colour Comes Back to the Garden

As the temperature settles into double digits, early flowers take it as the sign to bloom. Hellebores are always among the first, the buds shouldering their way up even through a late blast of snow.

It was after this episode that we had milder weather, and suddenly all the hellebores were in bloom. The clumps grow bigger every year, and so does my collection.

These are the stars of the spring garden, but other plants are also noteworthy. The tiny black tufts on Salix gracilistyla 'Melanostachys', the black willow, were so subtle that I had to photograph it against the snow to get a decent image.

This is such a pretty plant in bloom, with its contrasting red stems, but it's not very exciting the rest of the year. I keep it in a pot for that reason and because it has a tendency to spread rather too enthusiastically for a small garden. Not that mine has yet: growing from a cutting, it still has just this one stem.

Corylopsis pauciflora, a witch hazel relative started out slowly,

...but is now in full bloom and attracting early bees whenever the sun deigns to shine.

 

Although the snow crocus in full sun are over already, some in shadier locations are going strong.

And Iris reticulata 'Clairette', which I bought last year, is also blooming later than its relatives. It's a pretty colour combination, but not elegant in its proportions: big flower on short stem. I hope that's just because it's not established yet.

'Rijnfeld's Early Sensation' daffodils are living up to their name, flowering well ahead of my other narcissus. I need to plant a ground cover around them to prevent them being splashed with dirt whenever it rains. Fortunately, from a distance you can't see the dirt, and they add a cheerful sparkle to an area that doesn't have much in it yet. That will change once I start visiting my favourite nurseries.

At Last, a Few Signs of Spring

A little sunshine and a slightly warmer temperature is bringing all the early bulbs into flower. Snowdrops, all gifts from friends, are coming up through last year's fallen leaves,

The first slightly battered blooms have opened on a clump of the little netted iris (Iris reticulata),

and on winter aconites. Both have suffered from wind and rain, but splatters of dirt don't diminish their charm.

Snow crocus are all showing colour, and some are even opening when the sun hits them, which isn't as often as I'd like. At least with 'Gipsy Girl', you get the added bonus of the stripes on the underside of the petals when the flower is closed. When it's open, you get the solid gold interior - bright and cheerful but not quite as interesting.

 

The early spring hellebores are beginning to flower, too. They aren't making much of a display yet, especially the dark-coloured ones that blend into the bare earth beneath,

 but if I get down on hands and knees and shove the camera under the drooping blooms, I get a good view of how pretty they are.