Late Spring Bits and Pieces In the Garden

It's becoming more beautiful each day and feeling more and more like summer. 

 The trees have been shedding their seeds and pollen and it's been very messy!  The giant Sum and Substance hosta is huge and the Empress Wu to the rear is getting larger each year.  Something (likely a deer) chewed off part of it so it would have been even larger.  The hostas are still filling out so they'll be getting larger yet.

I went with red this year as my predominant color.  I just got the border planted around the fountain area.  It's going to look great once the plants start to fill in more.  I also chose a lot of other colors for my planters.  I wanted to be surrounded with a lot of color. 

 This is a path area to the rest of the back yard and it was being overtaken by the Sweet Woodruff plant.  This morning I removed a bunch of it to open the path back up.  The Sweet Woodruff has a hairy root system that sends off runners but it's not real hard to remove.  The roots are not real deep and pull away easily enough.  I like how it fills in and softens things.

Further out back a big ash tree fell and got hung up on some maple trees.  It's at least 50 ft. tall and now we have to decide on whether and how to remove it.

By the deck I planted a Sarah Bernhardt Peony (which I don't think is going to bloom this year), two Pink Columbine plants and further down some Cleome.   I call this my pink garden area!  The Dutch Iris are coming on strong so it won't be long before they're blooming.

 I bought some Variegated Sweet Iris and planted two of them out front on the island.  I think they compliment the blue spruce tree and the hostas.  There are two milkweed plants that jumped  in by the daylilies.  I'll leave them since we are all trying to be more conscious about the Monarch Butterfly's needs (although I may regret it in my garden).

Orange Marmalade Hosta- has been slow for me but this year it looks really good.  I credit the easier winter that we had for most everything looking good this year.

I found some peony cages and the Peonies are doing quite well with them.  The third one you can barely see is to the left and almost eaten by the Blue Spruce.  I keep saying the spruce is done getting wider, but each year it continues to widen out!   I really have to move that peony this fall.  They all have flower heads so it won't be long before I can enjoy them!

 The columbines are blooming now.  The big blue spruce is moving in on them too!  Dan suggested we may have to open up the bed again and move the plants.  I would love to do it although it's a huge task.  We shall see!

I had Dan remove two Yew shrubs from the front area of the house.  I have been changing this area up for a few years.  I have some older Arborvitae (cedars) I want to yank out too that are around the corner.

We put in a Minnesota Snowflake Mocorange.  It's not supposed to get larger than 5 to 8 ft. tall and the same for width.  It has buds all over it so I can't wait to smell it.  We're looking at hiring some strong young men to clean out all the lava we put in there 20+ years ago.

A couple of quick shots of the fairy garden.  It's in slow motion so I won't show it all yet.  Still waiting for the tulip plants to die back a bit so I can shear off the plants and finish the fairy garden.

 See the little purple viola to the left.  It came back from last year and I relocated it back there.  I just love their sweet little faces!

These are some Pansiolas I put in.  It's a new crossbred pansy and viola that are supposed to be more heat tolerant, don't need dead heading and should bloom all summer.  We shall see!  A lot of my annual plants quit blooming because of the stretched out cool spring weather we have had but they should be blooming soon!

A quick picture of the back area.  Things are steadily filling out.  The lilac topiary is about to flower too- can't wait since this one smells divine!  As soon as my other annuals start flowering better I'll show you my planters.

Thank you as always for your visits!