The Beautiful Season

Recently I was miserably sick for a week, then gone to the beach for another week; two weeks out of the garden in the middle of spring - yikes! I am far behind in some essential chores, but I can only be optimistic in springtime. I will eventually get the pruning done, and late transplants will be pampered to hopefully enable their survival through the summer. I will be planting my summer veggies a couple of weeks later than usual, but surely they will do ok. Best of all, great washes of color have spread across my garden this past month without much help from me, and the garden is looking good. 

Azaleas have been blooming along the path in the front garden:

Here are some views in and around the arbor garden:

Ferns are emerging throughout the garden:

Fresh green growth covers the woodland garden, and the moss paths are lush:

After a dreary winter, I am always excited to see colorful foliage and blooms return each year:1st row: Honeysuckle 'Major Wheeler'; Azalea 'George L. Tabor'; Common Ajuga. 2nd row: Spirea 'Candy Corn'; Pieris 'Cavatine'; Hybrid Columbine. 3rd row: Autumn Fern; Orange Karume Azalea; Korean Spice Viburnum.Here is a close-up of a colorful euphorbia:

This is the beautiful season. The nights are cool, the days are pleasantly warm, and I love being in the garden. Finally getting those garden chores done will be no chore at all!

Best of the Rest: 2018 Garden Images

Every year I like to go back through all the year's garden pictures and choose unused photos from each month. I select only shots I made of my own garden. These are images that never made it into a blog post, for various reasons, but perhaps deserve a look. At the least, they provide a review of the year. So to celebrate the passing of 2018, and to look forward to a new garden year, here are the best of the rest: 2018. 

January:I tucked sprays of Arizona cypress around ornamental kale in a pot to make an attractive winter arrangement.

February:The small yellow blooms in the photo on the left are forsythia, and the white flowers on the right are from the Serviceberry tree (Amelanchier, also called Juneberry. Its edible berries ripen in June and taste a bit like blueberries. But the birds love them, so I let them have them.

March: A fern's newly emerging fiddlehead; ferns have an important presence throughout my garden.

Here is a March view of the walk in front of our house.

April:Left: Trillium in front of autumn fern. Right: Enkianthus blooms.

May:Left: Turkey tail fungus with resurrection fern. Right: Virginia sweetspire.

June:A large gardenia shrub on the edge of the woodland garden fills the area with sweet fragrance each June.

July:A beautiful heucherella and its bloom.

August: Bugs love the hot, stressed-out conditions of August!

September:Garlic chives, on the left, and spider lilies, on the right, both flourish in September.

In spring 2018, we had to remove the beautiful Japanese maple that grew in front of the house, as ambrosia beetles had killed it. In September we replaced it with 'Rising Sun' redbud, seen here on the left.

October:A female American robin enjoyed this birdbath. Her mate was nearby in the grass.

November:The tree in the background with the heart-shaped golden fall foliage is a native redbud.

December:Once upon a time this Cryptomeria japonica was a living Christmas tree. After the holidays, we planted it in the front yard. Look at it now!

Did you have a favorite month? Happy gardening in 2019!