Going 'round the garden - part 1

We had an absolutely beautiful weekend, so despite the fact that it's still two weeks to our "safe gardening" date,  I decided to tempt fate and get things in the ground.

I really didn't have much of a choice. Dave was getting tired of having no table space, and all the sprouts were getting to the point where they really needed to be transplanted. And, my bulbs had arrived from Holland and needed to be planted. So I picked up some soil on grocery day, and come Saturday morning, I was out digging and raking and planting

As a result, the former food garden has merger with the house roses and expanded a little.

The garden now contains sunflowers (yellow and red), garlic, chives, lupine, milkweed, irises, lilies, sea holly, columbine, poppies, anemone and lavender (plus the roses on the end). Admittedly, that seems like a lot - and if it all survives, I'll be in trouble. But I'm counting on the fact that some of the sprouts won't take, and many will be picked off by birds and squirrels, so in theory, there should be more than enough room for what survives.

Now the astute readers may be thinking... "hey, I don't remember you planting any Columbine or Lavender seeds..." and you'd be right. The "Little Bee" lavender I planted last year didn't survive the winter, so I picked up a small "English" lavender plant in the hopes it will be a little more hardy. and as for the Columbine...

Year after year, I've been waiting for the Columbine I started from seed to bloom. I'm sure it's finally going to happen this year, but the garden centre had this one....

... and just look at those buds...the flowers will be bright red. (still no idea what my other ones will be.) My poppies also didn't make it so I grabbed a few of those too... (Oriental Wedding (white with a purple/black centre)

Over in the Little Bee garden

Not much new here. As I said, the lavender croaked, and the poppies and armeria I had in here didn't come back, so it seemed like a good place to relocate the dianthans from the tree garden. They will provide a nice bit of early summer colour while the roses are are warming up.

And in the Big Bee garden

Everything is nice an established... columbine, delphiniums, daises, echinacea, cupid's dart, bachelor buttons and a little bit of sedum. But for some strange reason, the black eyed susans kicked the bucket. I was quite upset, because not only was it a nice large plant I'd started from seed, but it was one of the few that flowered well into fall.

Thankfully the garden centre had a replacement! Hard to say if it will bloom this year (its a biennial), but at least it can use the summer to get well established.

And there was one other small addition

 I haven't seen any toads in the garden... but if they show up, they'll have a nice place to chill. It matched my ceramic mushroom chimes so well, I couldn't leave it in the store. (I do have to get Dave to get those chimes out of storage....)

Up the side of the house...

Another mismash - irises, lilies, gladiolus, lily-of-the-valley, sedum, sparaxis, peonies and a little leftover milkweed. It's hard to say what this garden will look like when it fills out, but the plan is to get it nice and established like the Big Bee garden. The big win here are the peonies

When I took some roots from Dad last year, I wasn't very optimistic. We had a hard time getting them up, and when  I transplanted, they never perked up. But as you can see - they are coming back quite nicely. I won't see flowers this year - and maybe not even next year too  - but when they do flower, they will be a show stopper!

For now, all the excitement in this garden is around these guys

Just a few more warm days and we''l be surrounded by the heavenly scent of lily-of-the-valley.

And don't worry - I haven't neglected out front... but we'll save that for another day...