The dahlias are beautiful right now, even in harsh, bright light! And there are some other lovely flowers in the garden. So here is a photo dump from this week.

I counted the flowering plants in just the memory garden and came up with 30 different types in bloom! Amazing! My gardens feature decent color starting about mid-April and usually running through mid-July. Here are some of the beauties in bloom right now.

I have some backup plants ready to fill the gaps in the borders this year, hopefully helping to bridge the flower gap from mid-July onwards. They include Rudbeckia and Nicotiana. The N. alata seedlings from last summer overwintered (mild winter) and have been blooming for several months now. They are pictured above.

The garden explodes into bloom so quickly, from a few species flowering to dozens seemingly overnight. This has been an excellent year for flowers, with just enough rain to keep all the plants happy.

The peonies were especially brilliant this year. They have taken a long time to really fill out, but it was worth the wait!

The poppies (Papaver orientalis) are still blooming, although the rain today might be challenging their delicate beauty.

I am a huge fan of Lychnis coronaria, but not the straight species with the almost impossibly magenta flowers. I like the muted white or soft pink cultivars. They just fit into the landscape better.

Linaria is a weedy perennial, but the purple is so pure (or maybe just to my color-challenged eyes), and “weedy” just means generous in my memory garden, where it can be tough for plants to take hold. The hummers like it, too!

One garden surprise is this hybrid tea rose that Leon brought home from his Mom’s home after she passed away many years ago. This rose has always struggled. This is the very first year it looks healthy, strong, and full of flowers.

And the orange rose in the memory garden is about to explode after a really hard pruning in late winter.

I have a weakness for the simplest roses, both in form and scent. This is the weedy arboretum rose that has seeded around our yard. I let it bloom, then cut it back to the ground to try to contain it.

Speaking of scent, one of the best fragrances I’ve come across in flowers comes from valerian. I have only ever smelled it in my garden, from the one seedling that survived the packet planted three years ago. The fragrance is subtle, with hints of vanilla, but very distinct.

Last but not least, the Verbena bonariensis plants sprinkled in the memory garden are blooming. Aside from native plants, these are the pollinators’ favorites.

Wow! Spring came very quickly this year. So many flowers all around the yard have come and gone in the last month.

Leon loves dahlias, so I purchased some from Swan Island, a nursery we visited a few times in Oregon. I planted them with stakes in front of his Bedrock stone studio–it will be interesting to see how they grow.

And below are more recent flower pics. Every day brings something spectacular and new.

We had some very wet weather right in the heart of tulip season this year, but it did not dampen their spirits much, and the bloom show continues now in early May. When I ordered the tulip bulbs last year, I was not so careful in matching perfect color combinations. There were some serious color clashes! But there were also some gorgeous individual flowers and some fun combinations. It was pretty random…maybe I’ll be a little more careful last year. But probably not.

Here are some of the great photos from this year’s show:

When Leon’s sculpture studio was abruptly closed in October, we decided to create a new space for him to carve here in our yard. That meant removing a garden to make room. What had been the orchard garden was razed to create a flat, clean space for a new outbuilding. There were several great plants in that garden that I wanted to save, but we were in quite a rush–there was no real prep for transplanting, just a quick dig-it-up-and-move-it event.

Ultimately, I moved three David Austin own-root roses, a hellebore, and a grafted Asian pear espalier. I felt pretty good about the hellebore. It came out with lots of soil and roots. I was unsure how the roses would do. They had minimal roots and seemed rather fragile. The poor pear tree had the bulk of its major roots deep behind the fence, making them impossible to dig out; it was transplanted with almost no roots at all!

Amazingly, so far, all of these plants are doing great!

All three roses have strong new growth!

I’m still most worried about this pear. While it is putting out new growth, which is great, I know sometimes trees have hold-over energy they use to bloom and leaf out, and then they need the roots to provide their energy for the rest of the year. I would not be surprised if this tree, so aggressively torn from the ground, ends up dying after it leafs out and blooms a bit. I hope it doesn’t! It would be so great if it survives and it clearly is trying.

Here are some photos of a few other flowers in the garden today. Spring started a bit early, but then stalled out. It is finally really coming on.

Below are a batch of photos from the garden and greenhouse over the summer. There were some amazing flowers this year!

Here is a photo dump of recent blooming plants in the garden and greenhouse.