This page will probably grow faster than any of the others and the new pictures will always be at the top. If you´ve never seen this page before, you should probably start at the bottom and work your way back to the top, otherwise, you´ll get to see my garden ungrow.

Click on any of the thumbnails to see the full size photo. File sizes for each full size photo are listed at the end of the description or beneath each thumbnail.

	I always wonder, when I see cute little flowers like these, if perhaps similar sights are what prompted Lewis Carroll to write such adorable antics into Alice in Wonderland. Those perennial scented Geranium (Pelargonium) sure look like a choir singing and that Clematis has a decidedly tipsy air about him.
Geranium (38 K)		Clematis (36 K)

	Name that shrub!
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This shrub is a real puzzle. I wanted something for this spot that would make shade, and had berries. There´s a wild Black Cherry tree growing in my back yard so I went exploring on the stone wall nearby and found this as a two foot tall but very nicely shaped little tree. So I dug it up and moved it to this spot about eight years ago. Some horticulturist I am. I thought sure this had the same leaves as the cherry but it not only isn´t a black cherry, it´s a total mystery. Even my arborist son doesn´t know what it is. This is how it looks as it begins to bloom in the spring.
	It´s definitely a bush, rather than a tree, even though I´ve managed to keep it looking tree-like. It sends up new shoots everywhere, even across the walk. I put up with its bad manners because it has the most wonderful white flowers every June. The entire tree takes on the appearance of a dusting of snow and it´s totally covered in those littles clusters of white buds.
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	By the end of two weeks, the entire tree is a profusion of these white fluffy flowers. For over a week, the tree is visited by dozens of bees and other pollenators. Then each individual flower drops and a small, round, green berry develops in its place over the summer. In the fall, the berries turn white and the birds have a feast.
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It sure would be nice to know what this is, but I think I´ll keep it, even if I never find out.

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Of my old roses, the Hybrid Tea Chrylser Imperial always blooms first. It´s also the first to remind me that some roses have truly incredible thorns. But this rose is so red and so lush and velvety that I brave those thorns and cut the blooms to bring indoors as soon as they´ve opened.

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It´s hard to believe something so ugly could produce something so pretty. Guess it´s a perfect example of why you should never judge a book by its cover, or a Poppy by its bud.

	I guess there´s no way around it. I´m just going to have to dig up this Weigela and move it so it has room to grow. This shrub only blooms next year on this year´s growth, but it keeps growing right out across the path, forcing me to cut it back constantly. Every branch would look like that one growing up the barn roof, if it weren´t for my incessant but very necessary clipping.
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This new rose (The Fairy) is turning out to be a real winner. As the blossoms age, they fade to almost pure white before the petals drop and they don´t turn all brown and ugly like many of my roses do. I also don´t see any sign that it intends to stop blooming. It seems like there are dozens of new little buds every time I look. (34 K)

Sea Pinks (Armeria plantaginea) are such cute little things. This one is called Pink Shader. They´re less than a foot tall when they first start blooming, but once they get going, the flowers are about 18" tall and their blue-green foliage looks great all year. They look great in cut flower arrangements and they bloom again and again, right through the summer. (33 K)

	Things sure have grown a lot in just three weeks. The view from my swing is looking better and better and the path is finally devoid of bales of peat, bags of mulch, and tools. All of the heavy work is done. Now I just feed, weed, water, and enjoy. And, of course, take lots of pictures.
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	These Woodstock wind chimes make the most wonderful sound and the neatest thing about them is if anything ever happens to them the company will fix whatever it is and keep them going for years and years. They´ve replaced that little knob on the top twice, and never even charged me. All I had to do was stop by their booth at the County Fair.
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This year I hung them from that low branch as a reminder to duck. Unfortunately.. sigh.. I never notice them until I hit my head and make them ring. (Something about this plan isn´t working.) By the way, those three small maple trees are babies that I grew from a few of the thousands of little helicopter seeds that fall from the two big maples every spring. Actually, that isn´t such a big accomplishment. Those seeds sprout everywhere in my flower beds.

I think flower beds look wonderful when they´ve been freshly mulched, don´t you? I go through about a dozen large bags of mulch every year. You´d think my flower beds would be ten feet tall from all the cedar chips I put down. I never have figured out where it all goes. Maybe the worms eat it. (47 K)

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This sweet little rose is the newest in my collection and I just love it. The rosebuds are only about 1/8 to 1/4 inch and the newly opened roses are about 1/2 to 3/4 of an inch across. Even the fully opened bloom is only about 1-1/4 inches across. The tag says it´s a Polyantha, which means it has about a dozen blossoms on the end of each stem instead of just one or two and its name is The Fairy. What a wonderfully appropriate name! I can easily imagine a fairy dancing about this bush and picking a blossom or two for her hair. I had to plant this one right outside the kitchen window so that I can see it as often as possible.

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One of the neatest things about owning this camera is the whole new way I´m getting to see the plants that I´ve grown for years. I never knew, for instance, how very similar the flowers of the Spirea were to those of Sweet Alyssum. But there´s a definite quirk of Nature at work here. The lovely, tall Spirea (left), that you can walk right up to and bury your face in, has absolutely no fragrance at all. The deliciously sweet-smelling Alyssum, however, grows to barely six inches tall (center and right), forcing you to crawl on the ground to enjoy its scent. Perhaps Mother Nature is as dyslexic as I am.

		What a difference a week makes! The only thing wrong with Spirea is that it doesn´t bloom like that for months on end. I sure wish those flowers lasted longer.
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	I´ve admired the Oriental Poppy in catalogs and in other folk´s gardens for years and I finally decided to try them in my own. They´re really rather pretty, in a rumpled sort of way. Mother Nature must not like ironing any more than I do. Maybe she should try Permanent Press Poppies.
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This was my second major project of the season. Until two years ago, when 17 blizzards did them in, there were four 15-foot arborvitaes planted here. This year, I decided that the area needed a retaining wall so that it could become the home for this year´s Mother´s Day gift from my Arborist son - two Burning Bush - or is it Burning Bushes - I´m never sure. Once I had finished the wall and planted the new shrubs, they looked so lonesome that I decided about four flats of Impatiens and Sweet Alyssum were called for. Since I built the wall from a variety of cement blocks that I´ve had for so long that I´m not even sure where they came from, some were wider than others, so I decided to get creative and build it so that I could plant flowers in the holes. It should make for an interesting effect.. I hope.

This flower bed was a major project this year. The lawn had slowly crept into it and entirely too many plants had died over the winter for lack of snowcover to protect them from the winter winds here on top of the mountain. It took nearly two full days to remove about a foot of lawn along this 80-foot bed. One rose was totally lost and several more are barely making a comeback and a lot of new perennials were needed to fill in the bare spots. And this year I decided I´d plant bunches of gladiolus for cutting. That´s what all those little white markers are for - to remind me where each bulb is planted. (45 K)

	Purple flowers are so very pretty. Especially when they smell good, like the Lilac planted close enough to my kitchen window that I can smell it when I´m washing dishes. And it´s even better when you can cut a snip or two of Chives to add to an omelet. Yes, purple is good!
66 K	54 K

Japanese Maple (52 K)	Crabapple (53 K)	Lilac (54 K)
Each of these trees was a Mother´s Day gift my son. Are you starting to notice a pattern here? Yes, he´s a very generous son. But he´s also an Arborist who has great taste in trees, and he does a very nice job of keeping mine shapely and disease free. Sometimes, he even plants them for me, all the while reminding me that he´s not a Landscaper, he´s an Arborist.

	About ten years ago, my son gave me a single Hosta plant. Every few years since then, I´ve had to dig up Hosta to divide them and find them new homes. Many stayed here, but many more went to friends and neighbors. They don´t get nearly as big if kept in the shade. The plants under the deck are actually older divisions than those three-foot wide ones out in the sun next to the lawn.
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These few Tulips were an Easter gift from my son and his wife several years ago. The pure white Hyacinth (a gift from my youngest daughter that same Easter) had finished blooming by the time I got this camera but they make a great backdrop for these hot pink Tulips. I really should plant more spring bulbs, but somehow the winter always seems to come on so fast that I miss the time in fall when bulbs should be planted. Maybe this year...(55 K)

The garden swing is such a pleasant shady place to sit and relax. Sometimes, it´s just to take a breather from the weeds or get out of the sun and others it´s to read a book and sip on a glass of iced tea. I can sit and admire my handiwork or swing my youngest grandson to sleep for his afternoon nap while I read him a story. I think every garden should have a swing, and every gardener should get first dibs on sitting in it.
		51 K

	I planted those two Swamp Maples as four foot tall saplings in 1974, a year after I moved into this temporary home while I saved for a real house. I long ago decided that I´m perfectly happy right here. I have plenty of space indoors, and these Maples finally got big enough that I could hang that swing way up high so that it swings with a soothing long arc. I have a lovely yard in a nice quiet corner of the park. What more could I ask for, except maybe more time for gardening and this swing.
53 K

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