And Now For A Little Color….

The variety of color and texture of the plants in the garden at this time of the year is amazing.  Lily-of-the-Valley can be found on all sides of the house and the aroma is heavenly.  Some are white and some are pale pink and the contrast of those little hanging bell shaped flowers and bright green upright lancet shaped leaves is lovely.

Lily of the Valley

The kerria is huge and happy.  The double yellow flowers of this Japanese kerria will remain for a few weeks and will brighten the back of the bed even after the dogwood blooms have gone.

Kerria

The bluebells came up right on time…haven’t spread any…appear pretty much as they did last year at this time.  (I’m glad I started this blog because now I can go back and compare what’s happening now with what happened last year).

Scilla a/k/a Bluebells

The pale pink rhododendron is in blossom but the deeper pink at the other side of the house has not yet started to bloom.

Rhododendron

The maidenhair fern is gigantic…which is just fine with me.

Maidenhair Fern

However, I don’t know how the “ghost lady” fern feels about its neighbor moving in on its territory.

Ghost Lady Fern

The same goes for the heuchera.  The ajuga is moving in as is the blue star juniper (which you can see a little of at the bottom left corner of the photo below).

Heuchera and Ajuga

The azaleas are in bloom.  I’ve got pink, red and white.  White is my favorite.

Azalea

The varigated hostas are doing well.

Varigated Hostas

And my beloved giant hosta is doing really well.  It’s over 4 feet across right now…just about the same size as the maidenhair fern.  It’s okay with me if they take over the entire bed.

Giant Hosta

The little bright blue “birds-eye” germander speedwell, part of the veronica family, is popping up on the borders of many of the beds.  I’m sure a lot of people would consider them weeds and pull them out…but I think they are gorgeous!

Germander Speedwell

We had rain last night and the forecast is for heavy rain later today, so I ran out and took this photo of the tree peony.  The flowers open so quickly and don’t handle heavy rain too well.  I love these plants.  Even after the flowers have gone, the foliage and structure of the plant delights me.

Tree Peony

And that’s the way it is, May 23, 2014.  Over and out….

I’ve Got the Blues

We’ve had two days of badly needed rain and today is cool, breezy and beautiful.

Raindrops on Mayapple Leaves

 I have several small blue wildflowers blooming now.  Two of them I have identified and two are unknown to me.  The baby blue petals and pale yellow centers of the Forget-Me-Nots are familiar to most.

Forget-Me-Nots

The ladder-like leaf formation gives Jacob’s Ladder its name.

Jacob’s Ladder

But the other two blue wildflowers are mystery plants to me thus far.  (UPDATE SEE BELOW! MYSTERY SOLVED!)  I’ve researched my books on wildflowers and I’ve searched on the internet but no luck.  One is low to the ground, has four roundish medium blue petals trimmed in white with a white center (you can see two little ones at the bottom of the Jacob’s Ladder photo to the right as well as pictured below).  The leaves are a little fuzzy and have a serrated edge….kind of looks like a mint but just don’t know!

Mystery Blue #1

The other mystery blue has long slender almost grass-like leaves with even longer stems of blue flowers with a touch of violet…many small flowers line the tip of each stem.  This is not blue-eyed grass, this is something else.  But what it is, I have no clue.  If anyone reading this has any idea what these flowers are, I’d love to hear from you! 

Mystery Blue #2

And, although I mentioned the ajuga in an earlier post, I just have to include a photo here with the other blues….

Ajuga!

Blues outside….blues inside.

Blues on my Windowsill

Oh boy, do I have the blues…

And that’s the way it is May 12, 2013.

UPDATE:  Mysteries solved.  Mystery Blue #1 is Bird’s-eye Speedwell / Germander Speedwell which is a Veronica.

Mystery Blue #2 is Scilla commonly known as Bluebells.

Bluebells (Scilla)

The photo above shows the Scilla with flowers fully opened.  This is classified as a perennial and I couldn’t identify it as I was searching wildflowers!  It is a bulb.