MAY - GETTING SICK OF FLOWERS YET?

no way, right?!? never! here's a tree peony unfurling...white cercis (redbud) blooming agains river birch bark...
dogwood doing it's thing... pink and purple trees are a bit whimsical, yes?
in the woodland garden, epimedium bandit
and omphalodes...
strawberry 'lipstick'...
the fothergillia my brother gave me finally bloomed!
close up of white cercis... this is what i love about it, the flowers springing from the bark!
here's cercis in the north garden...
the new garden at the front of our house needs more plants; note deer damage to the yews.
watering the emerging potager...
luna hangs out by the square garden...
joe joe poses at the south side of the house.  i removed two languishing hollies from in front of the unsightly retaining wall, and put a white lilac there.

MY BROTHER'S GARDEN

yesterday i visited my brother, a day lily breeder, in the boston area of massachusetts. this garden is about 2 weeks behind us here in lower ny. i hope he forgives me for posting this slightly faded tulip first in my blog, but it is so splashy, i couldn't resist.

my brother likes to collect unusual plants. here he is exposing the shy mouse-tailed ginger (note unopened bud at bottom.)

proud fern opening against the rust color of the house...

uvualria grandiflora...

bleeding heart vine, which will have yellow flowers, up against the house. The house is being renovated, but the colors and textures here are a photog's dream...

day lillies in the back yard. my brother has planted 3000 day lily seedlings this year. some of these have the mysterious "spring blight."

day lily i.d. tags on a fence...

bro's day lily bed at the school across the street... 

copper beech at the school across the street from my brother's garden.

POTAGER UPDATE

yesterday and today, hubs and i built trellises for the cucumbers and squash from old lumber and chicken wire. i planted everything except for the tomatoes and watermelon. you can see the lettuce doing nicely in the center; the carrots and beets are up, the beans are also planted. i've put basil in the small square pots at the back.

here's a garden-level view from the gate, showing the trellises on the seed mounds.

SQUARE GARDEN MAKEOVER

with all this unseasonable heat, i got up early to clean up the square garden... here it is all cleaned up...

two and a half hours later, it was 85 degrees and i'd had enough. here is before the clean up...

aside from general weediness, the pot with alpines had fallen apart (bottom corner), grass had invaded everwhere, the japanese bloodgrass was out of control, camelia needed pruning, landscape fabric and dog poops littered the pebble sqaure. what a mess! it will really look nice when more than just the little camellia are blooming.

APRIL PINKS @ WHITES

with all the garden clean up, i find a rest with my camera therapeutic... luna in a graceful pose...

inside of m. ruby, fast wilting today in the unseasonable 80+ degree heat...

my one camellia success story...

anemone nemerosa's cheerful faces...

m. daybreak in it's short-lived glory...

and the yoshino cherry, blushing from white to pink...

NOW BLOOMING @ GF

here's the potager gate hubs built for me, which serendipitously frames the yoshino cherry...

poeticus daffodil seems to fly in north garden

hosta emerges in woodland garden

daffodil backlit by afternoon sun

curly quince blooming in north garden

daffodils in north garden

epimedium 'crimson queen' blooming in woodland garden with maidenhair fern in foreground

azalea, i forget which one, has really subtle colors in the south garden 

i was surprised by a morel, volunteering in the woodland garden

anemone nermerosa is just blooming all over the garden; this flower is smaller than a dime and has a cute green insect peering at us

yellow epimedium has a profusion of pink buds and stems

prunus 'hallie joviette' was transplanted last year to the front yard, and is still recovering

as the garden becomes more presentable, i'll show larger views, i promise...

RUBY INVESTMENT PAYS OFF!

magnolia ruby, in my garden for about 6 years now, has bloomed most mightily this year, with just a little brown from the cold.  

m. ruby has flowers 9 inches across!

you can see some cold damage on these flowers, but wow!

i'm ga ga, i want to take portraits of each flower.

m. ruby in the morning.

yet another flower; hence my title, gf.

next, m. daybreak will bloom!

HAPPY EASTER

sorry for the lateness of this post, busy weekend.  below are daffs orangerie on the left and tahiti on the right, indoors in late afternoon sun.

mourning dove this morning. this weekend was cold and rainy, but this week will be warmer, i think enough to plant seeds in the potager next weekend.

HIGH RISK INVESTMENT

early blooming magnolias are a risky investment here; blooming in april can mean frost burnt flowers.  here m. ruby prepares for her upcoming show...

m. leonard messel just opened yesterday. the afternoon sun highlights the petals' outer color.

m. ruby again, this bud has not been bleached by the sun, like the one at top.  ruby is the reddest magnolia that will survive in zone 6.

m. leonard messel again.

potager update: hubs is installing a gate in the deer fencing.

POTAGER - FIN

the potager is finished!  today i bought 15 more bags of dirt (i really could use even more) hauled it all in, and completed an "m" bed and the big bed on the right. hubs finished the other "m" bed and the little sqaure one.  i planted the dwarf fruit trees and a few pansies. now hubs is out there finishing hanging the deer fencing.  whew!

if you look closely, you can see the lettuce coming up in the center bed. the sugar snap peas are up, and i added string to the trellis to support them.  perhaps more planting tomorrow...