I know it rained some in April, and by the looks of our blooms it was a decent amount. Yay, it’s May! Always so much to do in May with cleaning up the garden and building new garden and rearranging old garden, that the blooms sometimes escape capture. They can be missed in our hurry to prepare for the next series of blooms. Anne and I often play the did you see game where someone says, Did you see the species tulip in the bed outside the door? And then someone replies, Yes, it’s awesome! Did you see the little mini-irises next to Buddha? Yes, how about the daffodils down by the bridge? They look great this year.

Images on Flickr

And now as I type this Anne tells me there is a new bulb, a fritillaria, open next to Jane Magnolia in the front bed. I’ll need to check it out in the morning. Sure enough, there it is.

Anne often wins at this game.

Our magnolias are blooming, but the flowers are fleeting. They are a magical sort of tree/shrub.

We had a nice showing of sunflowers this year. Most of them were volunteers, and most blooms are done now. I do enjoy a good volunteer. The birds seem to like the dried blooms. We will most definitely be feeding the birds more sunflower seeds this winter. Sorry to mention that season already.

(Here is the sunflower set on Flickr if the above slideshow doesn’t play for you.)

Click any of the images in this post for a larger view.

Daisy with expired allium bloom

Double Hollyhock

Single Hollyhock

White Cone Flower (echinacea)

Click the image for a larger view.

The flowers have been spectacular this year. Everywhere I look, or everywhere Anne tells me to look, I find amazing color and photo opportunities. If only I could invest in a slightly better camera. Is it Murphy’s law that dictates the more incredible scenes available, the less charge the camera seems to have/hold? I guess that isn’t really the camera’s fault…. it’s the battery. Still, the camera, battery and those responsible for keeping it charged were momentarily in synch a few days ago and I captured the cone flowers above.

Around the other side of this center-of-drive bed is a nice patch of blackberry lily (also called Leopard Lily – Belamcanda chinensis) (above). The blackberry-esque seeds come later in the season we are told. We are also told to not eat them. This patch is entirely new this year – a sweet free addition from last year’s (or was it this Spring?) Eastern Iowa Garden Exchange plant swap.

Just one more – verbena bonariensis (purple in the foreground, yellow yarrow is in the background). I like the latin name of this plant. The common names don’t seem as interesting (Purpletop Vervain? Brazilian Verbena?). These tall, slender and branching blooms are all over the place this year. I like ‘em. They can spread around somewhat invasively, but they bloom long and add height to the garden.

There are many more blooms around the garden. Just about all our photos (good ones and less good ones) are loaded to flickr – check the link on the side menu.

When we receive seed catalogs in the Fall and Winter month, it feels like no seed ought go unplanted. It also feels like we have a duty to explore new vegetables and flowers that we’ve never grown before. Toss in a bit of a challenge and we can’t really help ourselves. That’s how we wound up ordering and planting two varieties of artichoke. 

The challenge of growing artichokes in this climate is their biennial nature. Under normal circumstances, artichokes like to endure a cold period before setting chokes. So you need to set them outside early in the season so they are tricked into thinking they survived the cold. But you can’t let the little plants freeze and you can’t let them bake in a cold frame. We did the latter. It was a beautiful day and we went to work without raising the lid of the cold frame. Almost all of the artichoke we started from seed died that day. The few that survived, we planted. And a couple, as you can see, set chokes. Delighted as we were, we are not sure when to harvest. But I’m pretty sure this one is past it’s prime.

Whatever the reason, hollyhocks are looking fantastic this year! Of course, for us anything is an improvement as this is just year two for these hocks – and they do not flower their first year. But everywhere we look, hollyhocks are looking grand. The life of a hollyhock is relatively short – maybe only two or three years. But it should drop seed if the dead heads are allowed to remain on the stalk. They prefer well-drained soil and full sun – or so I’m told.

A hodgepodge posting for everyone this morning. Just in a hodgepodgy kind of mood. Some might call it lack of focus. I call it multi-tasking. First up is the bathroom progress. It’s not going fast enough for my liking, but it going. Still many questions remain — mostly about drainage.

Meanwhile, poppies have opened up everywhere. Even in the affectionately named “disaster bed”, the poppies have busted out with sparkling red bloomage.

And finally, the cutest neighbor’s dog ever — Buddy found a new comfortable location. I think he might like that it’s a bit too high for Jake. Or maybe he wants to go for a ride.

Cardinal Climber

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