It’s been so long since I’ve posted a look at my garden so I thought it’s time to do it. I work pretty hard on my gardens so I love to share what I’ve gotten done or more importantly, what is blooming. Most of these photos were taken in May, possibly the very last of April. The latest was taken yesterday. I’ll have to split up the photos into at least 2 posts and maybe more. So I’d love to have you check back.

I’ll start with this gorgeous white flowering shrub. It’s a mature Maries Doublefile Viburnum. Scale is hard to imagine, but it’s huge. I love to look back at older posts of my gardens and they’re plenty on here. Just type in garden in the search bar to see some.

The above photo and the one below is probably the very last of April. I just love how the dark skeleton of the black walnut tree shows up in this photo over my greenhouse. Purple iris blooming and my Jose re-blooming lilac, which is so divinely fragrant. The leaves were starting to fill in and now it’s fully thick and lush with the exception of the black walnut tree which have only started to fill out. They are always the last to get their leaves and the first to lose them. That form though… swoon.

Here’s my Purpleleaf Sandy Cherry. It’s already past blooming, but the leaves are the reason I grow it, look at that gorgeous color.

Below this image caught my eye while pulling my plants out of my greenhouse. I overwinter a lot of tropicals in there along with many summer annuals, some I’ve had for years. The sun was on it’s way down and I looked up and saw this clematis with all those buds being beautifully backlit with sunshine.

This next photo was taken just four days later. The thorny branches you see in front is the bougainvillea I overwinter in my greenhouse. It drops its leaves on a whim or if I let it dry out too much which is easy to do in the greenhouse. It will flush out completely though, it’s a tough plant. It’s been in the same pot for years, it deserves a new pot with fresh soil as it’s a knockout all summer.

Next is the same clematis just two days later. Notice the bougainvillea is gone. That’s because we had a rare late frost/freeze warning for two days in May. Our last frost date is April 18th in my zone 6B. I usually have my plants out by the first week of May and this year was it was about that. So I emptied my greenhouse and then less than two weeks later, I’m piling them all back in. Better safe than sorry. It got really cold too, for May. I think here it go down to about 35 F.

I got them back out of their “quarantine” just last week and the greenhouse is once again empty. Well empty of plants that is. I don’t think I’ve mentioned it yet, but I have plans of doing away with the greenhouse this year and expanding my art studio in this space. It’ll be a big job, the rafters will have to be rebuilt because they were built for the size of the polycarbonate and the sides will be taken down and insulated walls will go up and a real roof will go down. Hopefully skylights will be installed. I can hardly wait, but I’m not holding my breath. I know how these things go.

Here’s one of the greenhouse tenants, a beautiful asparagus fern. I love these and have had one for years, it was my grandmothers. It’s wild and crazy, looks scary but is soft… kinda reminds me of my hair. Hah! Minus the thorns.

Let’s go back upstairs to the front yard side garden. These nice size clump of old fashioned white iris is at full bloom here. They smell heavenly and are quite tall. All weekend we’ve had buckets of rain and they’re not looking so great now.

Next is another old fashioned iris, this purple and white beauty. That pretty red bush behind it is a barberry.

Next is Solomon’s Seal. This is a gift from the woods. I never planted this but I leave it because I think its elegant arching stems and form is beautiful. This is a closeup of the flower buds. It will flower and then develop berries. This plant is poisonous, so if you have young ones around or dogs that chew on plants, I’d skip this one. It may be too tempting as the dangling fruit looks like candy, I think.

So let’s go down my rustic steps I installed several years ago. Would you believe the post I wrote about this DIY project is my most visited page of all time? If you’re curious, you can see how I made these rustic steps here… all by myself, too I might add. They still look great and I still love them.

Come on now, Zoey, the Studio Dog is patiently waiting for us in front of the greenhouse. This is Studio Gardens. I call it that because under the deck inside the house is my art studio. There are two decent sized windows so I can peek out at my garden and koi pond. I also have a door that leads to the greenhouse in my studio.

These beautiful purple blooms are another clematis vine called Mr. President. It’s living happily on a wrought iron trellised archway. It’s at the far end of the gardens.

Okay that’s it for the photos today except this last one of my son, Asher, and myself on Mother’s Day this year. He’s taller than I am now at 14 (we’re both standing). Not sure when that happened, sometime over the winter I think. I love this photo of us. It was chilly that day. I’m so happy he smiled, that’s not always easy to get a photo of. He’s still my baby though. Do you think he looks like me? Not so much these days.

Come back to see more, I already have a ton of more photos from the last week. I figured this was enough photos for one post though. I may post more painting posts in-between, I’m not sure yet. I’d love to have you back either way.

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⬅︎ Hitting a Milestone / Current Challenge ➡︎

Learn more about me on the ‘About’ page under the additional links menu. I’m an artist – a painter mostly and an avid gardener. I paint a variety of subjects including birds, koi fish, my gardens, ponds and flowers as well as anything having to do with nature especially trees and tropical scenes. I also enjoy painting abstracts and have started created more and more of them. My most favorite thing to try to achieve in my painting is is mystery and telling mystical stories.

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