Sara has been asking about the veggies.  I’m a week late in getting this post done, but the veggie beds did get planted over Memorial Day weekend.  In the upper bed there are nine different kinds of tomatoes, sugar snap peas, cukes on a trellis, summer squash, zucchini, and pole beans.  In the lower bed, there are herbs, strawberries and a few iris I am holding over until I can find a place for them.

View from the other side

Our town has a wonderful little Memorial Day parade and it goes right by our house on the way to the cemetery.   Some veterans ride by in vintage cars, some march.  The boy scouts, girl scouts, police dept and firemen ( and trucks) parade by as well.  There’s a Revolutionary War drum corps and people in period dress. The Minutemen have their muskets and they are fired from time to time.  Little kids ( and big ones too) cover their ears at the sharp report.   Its a great parade.   Here are some red, white and blue  flowers from the garden in honor of Memorial Day and our Veterans.

Peony – ‘Early Scout’

White lilac that came with the property

Wood hyacinths

Solomon’s seal

Hydrangea

Amsonia from friend Karen H.

White bleeding heart

Baptisia

Blueberry blossoms

The red chairs – a place to sit and contemplate

Such a sad phrase –  “end of May”..  but glorious June is around the corner.  As May winds down here are some scenes from the garden this past week..Allium rising above the daylily foliage

Transplanted Hellebores amidst the Bleeding Hearts and Wild Ginger – Asarum canadense

Euphorbia polychroma – Pincushion Spurge

Prairie Smoke – Geum Triflorum

Hosta ‘Marmalade’

A primrose gift from friend Effie

Forget me nots and an unknown yellow companion

The slope

Some perfect heart-shaped leaves of European Wild Ginger – Asarum europaeum

Esther snoozing in the green stuff

These Jack in the Pulpits came from Connecticut where I grew up.   They go everywhere I go  and are really doing well here in front of the porch…..

An unfolding bud…

Up close

The shape, form, and color are just magnificent.. looks like a cobra doesn’t it?

The shade garden is full of different forms and shapes.

Solomon’s seal

Jacob’s Ladder – my mom gave me the first piece of this when we moved into our first house  – W. Simsbury , CT

Japanese painted fern

Fairy gardens are popular these days.  I have always like miniature plants in the garden and granddaughter E. likes fairies.  I made this little woodland garden last week for a centerpiece.  Some moss, wild violets, may flower, ferns, a wood anemone,  star flowers and forget- me- nots.

May apples – Podophyllum peltatum.   I got a piece of this from friend Wendy a few years ago, and I think she got it from friend Peg… it has spread most delightfully..  here it is unfolding

And here it is with a blossom

Phlox stolonifera

Woodland phlox  – Phlox divaricata..  this came from friend Martha

The forsythia is still hanging on due to the cool spring.   Pear blossoms are declining and a breeze is dispersing the petals into a fluttering whiteout.  The crabapples are popping but not in full bloom yet.  Lilacs are in full glory  and of course we are supposed to get heavy rain.. it seems like we always get a rainstorm when the lilacs are at their best.. the branches are so laden with blossom that they droop very low.  Therefore, I was out in my bathrobe this morning (lilac colored, so I blend) taking some pix before the showers come.

Three different colors in the front yard

Some old fashioned lilacs out behind old man willow – these used to reside  up in the main beds.. thank goodness we moved them when they were smaller

This beauty was in the garden when we moved here.  It took a hit in the October storm a few years ago , but has come back nicely..

This is a close-up of the blossom.. it has a pinkish hue and smells divine

Sand cherry on the left, flowering almond on the right

Sand cherry close-up

Flowering almond: when I was in 1st and 2nd grades we lived in an old Victorian house in Keene, New Hampshire.  There was this beautiful pink shrub in the side yard  that I adored.. one of my earliest garden memories.  I always wanted one but never got around to getting one.  When we moved to this house in 2001, there was a flowering almond in the garden.   I moved it from its original site to where it now blooms..   simply spectacular.

Eastern redbud:  my town has a group called Friends of the Trees.  They plant roadside trees where they think an area needs some beautification.  A few years ago my friend Suzanne G. asked if I would like some redbuds.   Well, yeah. Here they are in the area between my property and the neighbors.. looking over the lupine meadow (wait til you see that in bloom).  I live in a pretty great town, don’t you think?

I grow many kinds of iris –  the little guys in the rock garden,  tall bearded, siberian, the stunning japanese ensata, and louisiana.  They will unfold on their own time schedule.. some have begun..

Iris reticulata:  These little beauties grow in the rocky soil at the edge of the rock garden and  in the nooks an crannies of the shade garden.   They originally came from in front to the smokehouse at my childhood home in  Connecticut.  I think they were there when we moved in to that house which was 1957.. so they’ve been around awhile.

Dwarf bearded iris:   The purple ones come from my friend Betty

I got these at the garden club plant sale, I will have to find out who donated them

Ah. ..  its fairyland  in the garden .. tinkerbell time.  I love epimedium.   My sister Amy brought me a piece of one awhile ago, and I fell in love with the genus.  A few years back, my garden club had Karen Probst from Garden Vision Epimediums come to speak.  She brought plants to sell.  Major damage to the checkbook, but oh my they are gorgeous.   I learned that some are spreaders (whoops had to move those) and  some are clumpers.  I have  some of  the names but they have blended together a bit so I’m afraid I’ve lost track of a few.  Some started blooming a few weeks ago, some just popped today.  Welcome to fairyland……

E. pinnatum ssp. colchicum

E. grandiflorum ‘Spring wedding’

Lavender and white keeping company

E. x versicolor ‘Sulphureum’

E.  x rubrum

E. alpinum ‘Shrimp girl’

E. x ‘Domino’

E. x ‘Lemon zest’

Unknown

Unknown

E. x perralchicum ‘Frohnleiten’

E. diphyllum ‘Variegatum’

E. x ‘Kaguyahime’

More purple and white

A huge clump of E. x  rubrum in front of the porch

We’ve had a few warm days in a row and new things are  blooming every day out in the garden.  I am way behind in my pix and posts.  My garden club just concluded a successful plant sale which has kept me really busy for two weeks helping to get all the plants potted up.  Now I can back to my own garden….

Jeffersonia diphyllum started blooming about 10 days ago.  It is also called twin leaf and was named for Thomas Jefferson.  The blossoms last a few days, but the leaves will stay around and the shape is quite lovely.

Mossy saxifrage:  these little cuties are in the rock garden

Trillium cernuum – nodding wakerobin

Trillium luteum

Lathyrus vernus “Albo-roseus’ – this is a new plant for me this year.  It was purchased from Garden Vision Epimediums in Phillipston , MA.

Gentiana acaulis:  the color is spectacular.  They remind me of Switzerland.