Happy Mother’s Day.  I lost my Mom almost six years ago.  She was a great gardener, and I still have some of her plants in my garden.  That’s the thing about gardens, they can keep those that have passed always with you.

April and May have been exceptionally wet here in Massachusetts.  We have Ireland level green though, and all those showers certainly brought May flowers.

One of our few sunny days… the back yard looking to the left…

…and to the right

Tulips, dwarf bearded iris, daffs and narcissus blooming

A new Hellebore “Penny’s Pink”

Epimediums and mini hosta in the hill

Redbud peeking out from behind a spruce

Iris pallida

Dwarf bearded iris

Hosta “Marmalade”

Epimedium “Dark Beauty”

Epimedium “Purple Prince”

The epimediums are stunning this year. I may have to do a separate post if the sun comes out!!!

April showers are here.  We returned home from sunny Florida to rather gray and cool weather here.  Typical spring and we even had a bit of snow.  An assessment of the garden revealed the usual rabbit and deer munching over the winter. Grrrr…..This past weekend was warm, and a few blossoms are peeking out.  There were even a few crocuses that the rabbits missed.  Bluebirds are house shopping and we had a visit from an owl.  I hope the owl stays here and enjoys some rodent dinners!

This view shows the newly cleared area that used to be solid forsythia hedge.  I know there won’t be many yellow blossoms this year, but the wildflowers will love the new area.

Fishing line to keep the deer away, chicken wire cages to keep rabbits away from the tulips

Epimedium starting to poke through

My sister gave me a whole lot of trillium corms for my birthday.  I planted them last fall and some are coming up!

Hyacinths pushing up the ground

An early saxifraga in one of the troughs

A pink corydalis from friend Kim

Someone is watching…..

This is the area where we “hoicked” out the lilac last fall.  Lots of space to move things into after the winter deer fence gets put away.

And lastly, first dinner on the porch.  It must be spring now.

Its spring.  Our time in sunny Florida will be over soon, and we will be heading back home in a few days.  I can’t wait to begin a new gardening year.  Until then, here are a few pix from our rental house gardens.

Amaryllis

Bougainvillea

And a sunrise…

We have escaped from the snow and ice for a bit and are spending some time in the St. Pete Beach area in Florida.  So instead of snowy garden photos to post, I have colorful flowers.  The place we are renting has a butterfly garden.  I know some of the plants – hibiscus, pentas, phlox, lantana, gaillardia but some others are unknown to me.  So I will just post a bunch of pretty but unlabeled photos.  We have seen some butterflies in the garden, and I may try to photograph those for another post.

Enjoy

The garden is snoozing, of course, but we had snow this week so there is a bit more to look at other than cold hard ground.

We also had visitors

The dog was watching the deer and they were watching her

We have had many many cardinals at the feeders as well as other birds

I don’t think we will be using the new porch for awhile

I am happy we have the snow. The plants really like having a warm blanket to snooze under until spring.

The Thanksgiving snows melted and I was able to get out into the garden and cut back the last of the perennials and put up Christmas lights.  This time of year the “bones” of the garden really show through so I though a few photos would be fun.  Here are three taken from the back step left to right  – a panorama of sorts.

There are still creatures about – deer mostly as I think the little bear cub must have hibernated.  The birds and squirrels are at the feeder non-stop, and we had a nocturnal visit from this little flying squirrel.

When its too cold to garden, I bring the garden inside – here are some succulents wintering over in a south facing window

I like to make a “sparkle tree” from a crabapple branch – the light is wonderful when the sun sets around 4:17 these days.

I made this star from milkweed pods and an acorn cap collected on a walk

Winter is here and the garden is resting

Wishing all my readers a Merry Christmas and Happy and Healthy New Year

When we moved here in 2001, there was a small hedge of forsythia behind the fence.  It grew and grew and became a monster 60 feet long, up to 15 feet high, and 20 feet deep.  Intertwined were vines of bittersweet, grapevine, and Virginia Creeper.  We mostly ignored the “hedge” because we didn’t have to gaze at it very often, but once the porch was finished, we knew we had to tackle the monstrosity or be swallowed up.  Here it is back in October.

Starting to cut it back:

Making progress:

We found the groundhog burrow:

Almost done:

There’s a bit more trimming to do and we created a pretty big burn pile to take care of in January, but come spring it should be a vast improvement.