More May in the Garden

This is my best columbine.  It goes well with the blue ones that self seed.  This one is in the woodland area, next to the chip trail.

 The solomen's seal is in the front garden.  I am thinking about moving part of it to the edge of the pond. 

 this is the inside of a tulip.  The tulips were the main feature of May... more to follow.  The rock plants were very good in May, also.  More of them, soon, I hope, also.

 Last week end, from Friday to Monday, inclusive, we were in the Parksville, to Port alberni area for the May Tour with the Vintage Car Club.  Pat put his 1912 Torpedo Roadster Model T Ford into the Judging.  He won best of Show.  We blew a head gasket just before arriving on the judging field.  So, we made quite an entrance to the judging field.  We were in a cloud of steam, and looked like a steam car.  Unfortunately, I did not get pictures of this special cloud.  ... more photos of it soon, also.

 Yesterday, I spent most of the day, downtown, shooting a few photos, stopping at Russell books to try to find a couple of books I want.  I found one, but in hard cover.  I prefer soft cover or paperback size.  I am reading the series on Arthur, Merlin, etc. by Bernard Cornwell.  I like this old history stuff.  It seems to me to be well researched by this author.  The Sony panoramas I did of the inner harbor did not turn out very well, so I will spare you the views of them.  This is the Native Art and totem poles on the way to the Museum.  I had to get the hydrant in one of the photos.  This hydrant will be added to my ever growing album of hydrants for my old web page.  So far I have 140 of them to tweak and add to my page. 

This is the only butterfly that is in my garden so far.  I looked it up in my new Butterfly book that I got at the Museum ($125.00 but well worth the cost)  It is an Island Marble Buttlerfly.  It feeds on arabis.  I have quite a lot of arabis in my garden, so this butterfly can survive here.  I have started a Butterflies and Dragonflies community on Megashot.  Dave Dube has been doing a Monarch and Milkweed restoration in his garden.  He is making videos that he loaded to youtube; and he has photos of the progress of his Milkweed and the hatched Monarchs.  Fantastic stuff!  It seems that the Monarchs on our side of the Rockies prefer "showy milkweed.  I want to get some of this plant established in my garden and then get some monarchs to release... and see if they stick around and breed.  It seems that the larvae eat vorarciously, so I will need to have a few of these plants growning and flowering.    Last year I planted a pot of 'butterfly' flowers on my deck.  I did not really see any butterflies around them.  I saw only one swallowtail last year, and have not seen one on my fennel for a few years.  Maybe there are too many birds.

I have the hedges trimmed, at the front.  Today I moved the grass again, this time taking down the crocus field as I think they were sufficiently hardened off.  I have cleaned out the tub garden in the woodland and refilled it.  It needs a gold fish.  My tub on the deck has the little miniature water lily showing leaves. I used the pump to empty as much water out of the pond  as I could before the pump started sucking air.  I will have to do the rest of the pond clean up with a bucket.  I have not cleaned it for a couple of years, so there is lots of leaves and mud in it.  All the fish died... they may have smothered when I had the duck weed covering the top of the pond... not sure how it happened, but I thought the covering of duckweed looked really nice, and was not running the pump.  I thought the duckweed would supply the oxygen for the fish.  The water oxygen must have been out of balance.  I should test the water but will finish cleaning it up and start over with new fish.  It is always a bother to try to catch the fish, anyway.   The daisies at the front are coming into bloom to do their show, just behind where the crocus field.