As always, May and June are the busiest garden months with dozens of plants in bloom. So, I’ll just drop some photos and captions here to try to stay on top of some of the highlights.

Foxglove, like so many plants and people, have a mixed reputation. I grew up seeing them growing wild in various settings and in gardens and I’ve always liked them. I’ve grown them from seed in various varieties and species, too, but they haven’t really taken hold here in the garden.

I started seedlings two years ago, though, from a mix bought from Chiltern’s in the UK. I planted them among the bulbs in the memory garden thinking they would be the second act after the tulips and hyacinths finish. For once, I didn’t get that wrong. They are blooming now and they are SPECTACULAR!

• 

There are myriad other blooming beauties in the garden and greenhouse right now.

I’m just dropping some photos in here of blooming things around the greenhouse and garden.

Spring is so overwhelming with all the exquisite flowers and the burst of leaves around us here in the Northwest. I took a trip to Happy Valley, Oregon to visit friends this weekend and saw some gorgeous blooms.

I landed home and the garden jumped ahead of me again–so many things blooming or preparing to bloom.

May is a prolific blooming month in the garden. I took a few photos today as I wandered around and did some spot-weeding. The tulips are still amazing, including the big patch of new bulbs, but also the individual left-over artist’s tulips in white and deep pink.

Above is a drastic houseplant rescue. I had purchased two dwarf peace lily plants for employees at work prior to the pandemic shuttering the office. I moved them to my office and tried to keep them watered over the past year. However, because they were so pot bound, it was impossible to keep them appropriately watered and fed during weeks when I didn’t venture to the office. I brought them home yesterday and potted them up today. The first one I put in a larger pot with fresh soil. The second one, I split in half and potted back in the two pots the plants came in. I was ruthless in cutting back their roots and their mostly dead leaves. We’ll see if they can recover from this drastic treatment. If they do, I’ll give them away.

Well, it did rain yesterday. All day. But it feels like it has been a dry spring so far. I cleaned out and planted the (formerly) raised veggie garden today and after I put in spinach, radish, arugula, cress, lettuce and carrot seeds, I watered it really well. There isn’t any rain in the forecast in the next ten days.

I may need to water the memory garden this week, as well, since much of it is under the Douglas fir and none of yesterday’s rain actually reached it.

This was a seed-heavy weekend. I planted a bunch of pots of seeds yesterday. The seeds included veggies destined for the veggie bed or pots in the greenhouse or on the patio including tomatoes, peppers, spinach, eggplants, zucchini, cucumbers, kale, and pumpkins. There were also flowers, including a second batch of Nicotiana langsdorfii, petunias, sunflowers (two types), and marigolds. Some of the seeds ended up on the heat mat under lights and the rest are sitting outside on the potting bench.

The other seeds I planted were morning glory vine seeds of a Mt. Fuji Lavender strain. I put these in a couple of pots alongside Leon’s “Pods” sculpture. This was brother Tim’s idea for a fun way to grow a vine. I did this several years ago, but the vines only made it half way up the sculpture. I’m hoping with an earlier start and some fertilizer, I can get these vines all the way up the sculpture.

Below are some photos from the garden today–lots of beauty and colors!

Last weekend I was able to tackle the Streptocarpus plants. Several of them did not survive the winter–tough to know why. But most of them were just dormant and looking terrible. So, I tipped them all out of their pots and trimmed an inch off the bottom of their roots, put fresh soil and Jobe’s organic fertilizer spikes in each pot (1/3 beneath the plant and 1/3 each in two places next to the plants.

• 

• 

I cut all the leaves and stems away with scissors rather than trying to pull the dead growth away. Pulling flower stems also pulls some of the new divisions away from the mother plant and I wasn’t in propagation mode.

Tulips have long been a favorite of mine and this year they reinforced my admiration by putting on a long and brilliant flower show in and around the memory garden.

I’m super excited that two of the Clivia plants blooming in the greenhouse are light yellow! They also have a graceful form of flowers. I think this is the first time for both of them to bloom.

More and more things are blooming in the greenhouse, too.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

Every day finds more things blooming in the garden, too, despite the cold nights and late-ish spring.

More photos from today of the garden and greenhouse.

As usual, spring has taken me mostly by surprise. And here it is April already! One benefit of the garden is that is gives context to time passing. No matter how busy life gets with non-gardening tasks, just looking outside and seeing the forsythia in full bloom and the tulips brightly shining tells me that we are crossing over from winter to spring.

The greenhouse has timing all its own tied to the way the temperature and light have landed inside those walls. Apparently, the Pleione orchids have been happy with all of it–they are blooming remarkably well this year.

The new tulips along the sidewalk near the memory garden are coming into bloom. One is a species tulip and the other are hybrids that were planted pretty late but didn’t seem to mind.

Here is a holiday cactus in the greenhouse that is blooming late but madly. The color is a bit much for me, but it can’t be ignored.

Spring is confirmed by the blooming of the Forsythia along the driveway, as well as the Corylopsis.

• 

There were a lot of garden chores to complete today. I got a few of them done but left a bunch for tomorrow.

First up, I planted some seeds in the house–Silene pendula ‘Sibella Carmine,’ Nicotiana landsdorfii, Petunia ‘Old Fashioned Climbing,’ Heliotrope ‘Marine,’ and Dahlia ‘Bishops Children Mix.”

Next, I potted on seedlings of thyme, chives, basil, chamomile, parsley, dill, and the first round of Dahlia seedlings. There were hundreds of seedlings that got potted into four-packs, six-packs, nine-packs, and some 3-1/2″ pots (the Dahlias).

My favorite surprise in the greenhouse today was looking at the bonsai-ish Wisteria from brother Tim that I’ve had for close to thirty years. And I saw these:

They look suspiciously like flower buds! I think this plant has bloomed only once before and that was over twenty years ago! This is cause for celebration!

Additional good news came from the updated Clivia flower spike count. I didn’t realize that many of the mature plants were under shelves on the west side of the greenhouse and I looked through all of those today (as best I could, with a lot of twisting and turning in hard-to-reach corners) and found six or seven more blooming plants! So, my best guess is that twenty or more spikes will be blooming in the greenhouse in about three weeks. There are still a LOT of Clivia plants that aren’t blooming, so more work to be done there, but at least a big show to look forward to.

I did some clean-up in the memory garden today, too. That garden looks such a mess and like it will never fill out or amount to much of anything. On closer inspection, though, I can see some positive signs. I did a little clipping and neatening up, but time and a little warmth are all that garden really needs to shine. I took some “before” photos so I’ll remember my doubts on the first day of spring.

• 

• 

While the garden has a long way to grow to be lush and lovely, there are a few blooming elements already that caught my eye.

There is also a clump of narcissi that are blooming near the greenhouse that is particularly graceful.