The rain finally stopped for a little while, and I wandered into the gardens with my camera again.
Actually, this first photo was taken a couple days ago while driving home. I spotted these little flowers blooming along the road. I will have to do a bit of research to find out what they are. I keep finding little treasures along this stretch of road. It used to be only one lane, but was widened to pass two vehicles. There are new things popping up where the roadside was cleared during the widening. Good thing there is not much traffic so I can take time to stop and take photos.
I have always loved variegated leaved plants, and finally now have a couple of these variegated Phlox subulata. The Nettleson's variety has wonderful leaves with white and pink tinged edges along with the pink flowers.
These buds are from one of the Peony varieties I splurged on last fall. This one is supposed to be a not too double deep coral color. There are ants on these buds already!
It looks like there will be no flowers on these variegated Convallaria, or Lily of the Valley plants. They were planted last summer, and I am happy to see that they survived the winter in their new home.
These are in another garden…. I have had the pink variety for many years, and they have spread out nicely in their part of the garden. The fuzzy white area in the lower corner of this photo is the tail of Cuddles the cat who was following me around.
Here is another flower that I was really happy to see return. I have planted this type of low growing Phlox in past years, but the deer ate them down each time I planted them. I tried a different garden and now have 3 fast growing clumps! The dandelions are everywhere, too.
Here is what I am battling in many gardens…. lots of weeds! Can you find the Hosta trying to show itself?? Thankfully Hosta are pretty sturdy, and battle with the weeds pretty well. This Hosta is "Krossa Regal" and will get to be really huge by summer.
This is how I wish all of my gardens looked. This Hosta with a clump of Lamium next to it only have a few weeds to compete against right now. I am trying to get low growing plants to take over the spaces under the Hostas and other taller plants to keep the weeds down.
After much time spent weeding, here is what one area of the back yard garden looks like right now. The Hostas in the previous photos are along the wall to the left of this photo. This garden is shaded by Black Walnut trees, and I have finally found a nice selection of plants that grow well with them. I keep dividing my Hostas and moving them around to fill in bare spots.
Down in my garden in the woods, I found this little gem a few days ago. I didn't have my camera with me and didn't get this photo until after we had heavy rains, so the leaves are a bit dirty, but I am so glad this little new addition seems to be happy with it's new home. I planted a lot of new perennials last summer, many who had been living in pots for quite a few years like this one. It should be much happier in the ground!
Up to the Lilac garden where they are all coming into bloom! We have many different varieties and colors of Lilacs collected over the years.
The strawberies are blooming!!! I can't wait for berries this year… I just need to get mulch on these or they will be buried in weeds like everything else.
Here is the cat that got his tail in the earlier photo. He was checking out the surroundings from the trellis over one of the raised garden boxes that have been neglected for many years. I hope to put these back into use this year.
The rain didn't take all the flowers off the almond tree… I got some really neat shots of some of the remaining flowers. I didn't know we had an almond tree until Ken told me what it was….. A nice surprise! Pink flowers instead of the white on the apples, pears and plums. We won't have almonds, though until we get another variety of almond or a peach tree to cross polinate with it, but the flowers are pretty in the spring.
This brings the garden tour to an end for this photo session. I am getting lots of flowers to play with in new quilts to come…. Lots of ideas are forming….
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