I’ve gotten so behind in gardening that I have to keep telling myself there is still time.  Thankfully, my brother came by on Saturday and helped me catch up on a few things.

One of the main things I hadn’t done yet was to uncover one of the veggie raised beds and plant it.  Brother Tim helped me with that, and Leon helped screw the rotting boards back together to last one more season.  We pulled the leaves off it that had been there all winter/spring and then I added some organic fertilizer and we planted some seeds.

Sorry for the overexposed photo, but the sun was out–SHOCKING!  We planted beans, pumpkins, crookneck, and round zucchini squash, along with calendula and endive in the small bed.  Granted, it is late to get things started, but I am hopeful that the warm soil and great weather will move the plants along quickly and we’ll get some surprises late in the season.  This is the first year I haven’t started or grown tomatoes at all–such a tragic addiction…

We have clouds today, but no real rain.  I’m having to water everything already–pots at least twice a week and garden once a week.  With the declared WA draught, I’m unsure how long I’ll be allowed to water things, but I’m trying to keep everything going…

I planted about two dozen kinds of seed, as well, with Tim’s help.  Most are perennials destined for the orchard garden.  I transplanted the red alpine strawberries, too–had about 15 of them.

Below are a bunch of photos just to show what’s going on in the `garden–not much narrative here and lots of pictures, but I’ll add what I can at a later date.

This is one of the Oriental Poppy “Pizzicato” series that I grew from seed close to 20  years ago.  I neglect these and they are surrounded by the thuggish Dracocephalum (unknown species), and yet they bloom every year.  And there are some great colors.  These are some of the seeds I started Saturday, just to get some new Pizzicatos going for other areas of the garden.

    You can see how the dracocephalum is crowding around the poppy.  But they have fresh, bright foliage and sprightly, cute, blue flowers.

Here is a close-up of the Dracocephalum:

Another color in Pizzicato:

A bee visiting the polemonium.

Another poppy–I believe this is Papaver atlanticum.  This is a happy reseeder and is  always welcomed in my spring garden.

Campanula persicifolia–goes great with the poppy above.

Below is a surprise!  It is Nicotiana langsdorfii.  I grew these from seed maybe 15 years ago and they persisted for a few years and then died out.  Somehow, one started up in a pot in the greenhouse randomly last year, and I potted it on thinking it was N. alata, which I have had in the greenhouse for several years.  I was very surprised when the plant I set out in the orchard garden bloomed with these beautiful chartreuse flowers!

Below is the inside-out flower, Vancouveria, which I have planted in the Douglas fir bed.  It is thriving now that the meddling hardy geranium has been rooted out of that bed.

Another great campanula–poscharskyana.  I have this one in several places.

Here is a close-up of the Cheddar pink, Dianthus gratianopolitanus.  The flowers are lovely, but the spicy fragrance is what keeps me coming back.

Another fragrant beauty–Hesperis matronalis Alba–this one reseeds, as well, and I’ve kept it going for about five years.

Yet another reseeder–Lychnis coronaria.  I’m a sucker for these incredibly generous plants–bright and boisterous and so very easy.

I often think herbs are wasted on us, as we don’t cook often and forget that we even have them!  But I am a sucker for salvias, and the classic herb sage is in that tribe, and is lovely in bloom, which no one ever tells you!

Here is a fun plant–Chinese Golden Podded Peas!  These are especially easy to harvest, as the pods are so easy to see, and they taste great.  Our dogs are huge fans, which means we only get about 1 in 10 of the peas!

A lovely rhody in the woodland garden.  Many people feel rhodies are overused in our area, but it is tough to argue against them in May when they are in their glory!

A pair of this lavender rhody resides under our living room picture window.  Unfortunately, they are much too large to live there comfortably and we prune them within an inch of their lives every year.  I have big plans to move them when I redo the front yard and get them out away from the house where they can grow to their hearts content.  After last year’s pruning, we only got two blooms!

I’m not a huge fan of hybrid roses, but we have a few around the yard.  This is the floribunda “Europeana”, and it is a lovely, pure red.

Below is the delicate flower of one of my favorite hardy geraniums–G. nodosum.  The leaves of this variety are shiny, unlike any other leaf in the garden, and they really shine in part shade.  Beware, though, that this delicate beauty has a hidden agenda:  territory expansion.  And given the right conditions, it will seed rampantly.  It is not difficult to weed out, and I have not found it to be invasive in my garden, but a friend’s garden to whom I “gifted” this plant was quickly overrun.

Leon’s labor of love–the pond in the woodland garden.  He has struggled mightily to get the water to be clear.  I’m embarrassed that I am the gardener and yet the prettiest place in the yard is the woodland garden and pond that he manages!