More April in the Garden

 This is one of the thrifts on the front little rockery.  A very good plant, but I should replace them when they get older and start to fall apart.  There are quite a few more choice alpines in this area.  This is the season for them.  Hope to get out and weed the area, soon.

 The white hellebores are spreading into a large clump under the deck.  They are easy to keep in check, though.  Here you see some of the moss garden.. it too, needs to be cleaned up.  The moss is spreading quite nicely.

 This combination of the corsican hellebore and the fern leafed peony is excellent.  It sits in front of the west coast planter.  Both plants bloom at the same time.  The surrounding alpines are thriving under this deciduous tree that leafs out late... all in clay with leaves falling on them in the Autumn.. everything alpines do not like.  :-))

 This is not a great photo of the dark hellebore by the back steps.  The primulas are in front of it and the rhodos.  The ferns and things under the rhodos need to be weeded and thinned out too.

 This is one of the photos of the heavy traffic on the Yangtze.  They seem to grow canola in every available bit of ground.  There was actually a lot of smog and the sky was not quite this blue.  It hurts my eyes just to look at the real smog in the photos, so I gave them a bit more blue sky using exposure adjustment in photoshop. 

This is one of a few more photos I managed to get processed from our trip to Carlsbad Caverns in 2007.  Amazing place. 

I was out to the garden for a few minutes.  I got a bit of weeding done.  I was so pleased, yesterday, to find that one of my trilliums in the woodland area has come up.  The leaves look a bit ragged.  I wait for the other one.  One of these trilliums had 2 huge blooms last year, and now I have this pitiful showing, this year.  The little one at the front is almost finished.  It is turned red.  It has 2 flowers this year. 

We had a salad with a few leaves of the swiss chard, some dandilion leaves, chives, lemon balm, sage, and then the pecan halves, strawberries and feta cheese with balsamic vinegrette.  Was surprisingly good.  I made a rhubarb and strawberry pie.  The rhubarb has nice big leaves this year, but the stems are still pathetic.  I did manage to get a cup and a quarter of rhubarb for the pie; which is really very good.

I am slowly getting over this cold, but seem to be sleeping a lot. 
The last report I had from my site meter reader says I had an average last week, of 99 hits a day!  Many google bot views..presumably in response to searches.
Looking for the place to add tags... guess they are now called labels.. ok, fine, that works, I think.

the front garden

the stone path forms an S curve.  I never noticed this before.  At the moment this path is clear of weeds and is easy to walk upon.  I might add a bit more pea gravel.

this is the cement vase in the front garden, and now next to the driveway, and starting to bloom, aubretia.

the fern leaved peonia, that always gives a fine, but fleeting show.  I mucked about with this photo in HD

this is the little rockery at the front showing the west coast planter, and other small rockery plants.

This is a pleione, in the small rockery in the front garden.  We had frost over night, and since I took this photo the pleione is looking rather sad and drooping.  But, there are more shoots coming up from beneath this plant.  The Plieione is a ground orchid and really a lovely plant in bloom, for  its fleeting momentsl

This hyacith is next to the entry and lends its fragrance to the entrance.

A shot of the thrift on the front garden rockery.  These are excellent plants.
The photos are from Sunday  To day is Wednesday.  We had a bit of frost over night.  The pleione is dropping a bit,
I managed to get the butterfly and hummingbird planter set up today and watered in  I added top dressing to the front and have almost finished the top green path.  I need photos of the butterfly/hummingbird planter.

Mill Hill Regional Park

On Sunday I went on the Wild Flower walk at Mill Hill Regional Park. We followed our naturalist guide up the rocky trail to the summit.  I did not make it to the very top.  Apparently there is a marvelous view that I missed.  The photo above is a tapestry of some of the wild flowers in bloom now.  Drabas, camas, shooting stars, fawn lilies and many more. 

These tiny blue flowers are blue-eyed mary, the pink ones are a variety of thrift or armeria.

Two of my best shots of the calypso bulbosa orchids.  There are quite a few of these tiny beauties out now.  They need a special soil fungus to grow, so I have not found any available at the plant nurseries, yet.  They would be very difficult to grow, with a very short period of bloom.

This is a large patch of camas.  The death camas have white blossoms.  The native people would remove all of the white flowering camas, so that they could eat the bulbs after they had matured.  I have a very nice camas growing in my garden.  I must keep all the 'blue bells' away from it, as the foliage is similar and the blossoms are the same color and look similar too.

a draba.  I am not sure which one this is.  I now have 2 tiniest ones in my little rockery.  This is a macro shot of the plant.. They are very very tiny, also.

A fawn lily.  There are large patches of these lovely lilies.  I have some growing in my woodland area.  I also have a yellow variety. 

This is miner's lettuse with the flowers open.  The photo from my previous post of this flower, had the blossoms in bud. 

There were many of these showy shooting stars (dodecathenon) in bloom.  I have not been successful in getting one to grow in my garden yet.  Perhaps its because the leaves look like they might be a dandilion kind of a weed.

The skunk cabbage were quite a distance away and down from the path.  We were not to go off the path, of course.  These were not very prime specimens of this plant either.  I hope this colony expands and grows larger plants.  The leaves seem to be under attack from something. 

a Trillium.  three petals, three leaves.   There were quite a few of these in the park.  Its nice to see these protected flowers becoming more abundant.  According to our Naturalist guide it takes 10 years for a plant to reach the flowering stage.  I am doubly amazed at the one in my woodland garden that has to blossoms, this year.  There is a large leaved plant growing over the area where this trillium grows.  Maybe they like it crowded, because the one in the front garden is not doing quite so well.  I keep the other plants from growing within its 12 inch diameter circle.  Perhaps it needs more leaf mold and a bit more shade.... a cool, moist root run.

the little yellow wood violets are really very pretty up close.  I have purple violets in my garden and find them very invasive.  These little plants did not seem to be quite so invasive. 

On my walk and in my garden

This lovely spirea, bridal veil, is in the front of my front garden. I have it pruned into a round ball. If I did not prune it the branches would fall over the plant in long sprays. But if left unpruned it would become ratty and stringy in appearance. The bright white just glows against the dark hedge.
white fawn lillies in their natural habitat, except for the ivy that is very invasive and is taking over the planet.
This is an armeria or thrift and a couple other little rock plants. You can see the work I have ahead of me in cleaning up this rock path, though.
The tulips all over the garden are blooming. They are so late, I had thought the squirrel had got them.
I seem to have only one of these lovely red anemones blooming this year. I must get more.
The trillium turns reddish as it ages. It is growing old gracefully.
Every year I see holes eaten in the buds of this peony. Ants making those big holes are out of the question!
the fern leaf peony is putting on a great show now

Yesterday I did quite a few things out in the garden. Mowed the lawn and did some of the edging. Put the lawn clippings around the strawberries for mulch, over the compost. I mixed a bag of sand with a bag of topsoil and added this to the little rockery areas I cleaned. Cleaned up two little areas of rockeries in the front and started the trimming of the thyme circle, which is long over due. I watered a bit in front and back. I did the transplants of the little lupine, the new thrift, an iberis, a phlox. I dug out the old rosemary and replaced it with a new one and a lavendar beside it. I may need to keep both of them pruned to fit the space. Was really quite warm out.

Today was a lazy day. I finished reading my Deverell book last night and stared this new one about identity theft. I am barely past the first chapter and finding it very interesting.

I tweaked a few photos for the Victoria Grid group on Flickr but my heart is just not in it!! Flickr can be so slow and the glaring white makes my eyes hurt. I just cannot seem to find the time or inclination to keep up with commenting friends or group pool photos. The garden beckons and the books, too.