Mid-April Garden

 The white dogwood in full bloom. It was the last of the new trees to fill out, while the red bud is getting its leaves now and so is the pink dogwood. So wonderful to see it first thing in the early morning pre-dawn.

 Behind it in one of the veggie beds is the Siberian Iris, planted with the now over daffodills and crocus. The last to bloom in this bed.

 One of our four fig trees has big new figs on the stem. So adorable. This is not the only one with little figs, but the others are really small. We have four varieties, so we shall see what happens with the rest of them.

 I found just the right table (Walmart.com) and chairs, (Amazon.com) and set them up yesterday, knowing we won't have rain for a few days. The patio was covered with tree buds, making a huge mess, not to mention the pollen which blankets the whole neighborhood. But then we had terrific winds and rain and all is cleared off, no sweeping required. 

Lots of wonderful perennials fill the beds, making planting much easier this year. Plus I added all those hydrangeas and hosta from other parts of the yard, making it a much less expensive planting season. I still have petunias and impatiens to get in, somewhere. 

Last season I believe I shook out some seed heads of zinnias/and or coneflowers over the beds and now I have lots of  sprouts of things...I can always yank them out if they turn out not to be flowers. We'll see.

Seedlings mixed among the hardy geranium transplants. Their second leaves have started appearing, so I may soon know what they might become.

 One of our four clematis is going crazy and I am still waiting for help getting the arbor in place. Sigh. Good help is hard to find.

 Here's another mystery. It looks to me like a daisy, maybe Shasta, but its in absolutely a different bed than where they were planted last year. It's quite vigorous, so I am willing to keep it, if it turns out to be a daisy, but where are the ones I actually planted last season? Never came up. Darn.

On the other hand, here is a huge fennel colony which never actually died back over our mild winter. I shall be cutting out bulbs and grilling them soon, yum.

 

If you should think I am a good gardener, um, here is proof that I am not. This poor hydrangea was planted in loose soil which washed away over the many rains we had, and now is bare root, but still struggles to live. I will transplant it into a better spot. Poor darling.