The May garden was so boisterous and that exuberance is extending into June thanks to cool, wettish weather.
I took the macro lens out and got some great photos today. It is so amazing to get close up with that lens. You see aphids and spiders and all the intricacy of the flower parts.
Dutch Iris and Dame’s Rocket in the memory garden.Memory garden in May–full of flowers!Peonies and columbines in the memory garden.Just two days later in bright sun, memory garden.Foxglove with lots of fun speckles in the throats, memory garden.White foxglove, memory garden.I did a plant giveaway and the parsley was gone in less than an hour!Orchid cactus in the greenhouse.Clematis seedhead on the back patio. So cool!And a closer view with the macro–you can see an aphid!Oxalis flowers.More Oxalis flowers.Sedum, up-close.Albuca setosa bud. And an orb weaver baby. Those tiny spiders are EVERYWHERE!xHippeastrelia bulbs sending up flower buds just a week after repotting them!Orchid cactus up-close.Sinningia leucotricha sending up some spikes with flowers. Sinningia leucotricha flowers with more buds forming and these amazing furry leaves!Masdevallia flowers in the greenhouse.Geranium flower–intricate beauty on a weedy plant.Even closer.Another kind of Geranium, also weedy, and also intricately beautiful.The peas in the veggie garden are blooming. And kale is flowering there, too. So cheerful, I haven’t the heard to cut them off.Chive flower from the veggie garden.Catmint, a pollinator magnet.Catmint flower, close-up.Valerian flowers.Lupine flowers.Columbine, up-close.More fantastic Geranium flowers.Foxglove flowers with speckles and fur.Yet another Geranium, nodosum, with a great flower.Okay–another Geranium, sanguineum var. striatum, in the memory garden.Peach-leaved bell flower.Poppies.Yet another Geranium, and not last one. This is pyrenaicum ‘Bill Wallis’ or at least a distant offspring.Alliums really shine under the macro lens. This is christophii.Euphorbia characias.White foxgloves, close up.The weedy red clover is beautiful in detail, and a pollinator favorite.Probably my favorite cultivar of Columbine, this white one.Side view showing the great, long spurs.Geranium pratense.Rose in the memory garden.Bistort in the memory garden.Linaria with a bumblebee. I can never quite get the focus on the bees and the flowers.Oregano from the memory garden.Lavender spike close up.Poppy from the memory garden close-up.Rose flower in the memory garden.Peony about to pop in the memory garden.Peony bud, up-close.Peony stamens–dazzlingly complex.Santa Barbara daisy. Most were cut down by the hard freeze, but a few survived.Another Columbine.Antoher shot of Allium christophii.And another.Orange-butted bumble on a blackberry flower.Lathyrus niger from the driveway bed.Allium ‘Purple Sensation’Allium Purple SensationScuttelaria altissimaGeranium phaem–the flowers are like a watercolor painting.Raspberry flowers soon to be something even better.Aronia berries forming all over that shrub.Even invasive buttercups have beautiful, shiny flowers when you get in close.Remember spittle bugs from childhood? Treehoppers live inside.Close up of Japanese painted fern.Rhododendrons have been putting on a brilliant show the last three weeks or more in the front yard.Two of these cultivars surround our front window.Love the close ups, too.This monster shrub is in front of our bedroom window. It has never bloomed this well.Blackberry flowers are interesting–these are a little past their prime from Wild Treasure cultivar.There are so many flowers and soon to be berries on Wild Treasure.Another Allium–not sure which one.A different Allium. The detail is ridiculous.Oh wait–another Geranium!My garden helper, Rafa, keeping tabs on everything and hoping a rabbit will hop into his yard.
