Q: If April showers bring May flowers, what do May flowers bring?
A: Pilgrims.
Did schoolchildren here on the West coast tell that silly joke too? Growing up in Massachusetts, living for 25+ years only one town away from Lexington and Concord, where the American Revolution began, I was raised with a very concrete awareness of early American history. That little tidbit is, of course, neither here nor there.
It's Garden Bloggers Bloom Day, hosted by Carol Michel of
May Dreams Gardens. In the case of this May, our May flowers have brought even more May flowers. Also, yes, we're having showers, but we really could use some heavy rain. Here in the PNW we are heading into the dry summer season with a major deficit of precipitation.
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| The lilacs at the end of the driveway are again loaded with flowers, although I do nothing to them. |
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| The scent seems to perfume the entire neighborhood |
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| Chives in the herb garden are flowering |
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| And the ornamental Alliums too |
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| One Brugmansia flower survived the recent repotting |
One of my Daturas, grown from seed last year, is finally flowering. It never grew big enough to flower last year, so I dug it and overwintered it in the greenhouse. But now I'm sadly disappointed. It was supposed to be a double purple flower.
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| Not a double flower |
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| Only the backside is purple. |
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| Abutilon 'Red Tiger' enjoying some fresh spring air |
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| California poppies have started opening on these recent sunny days |
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| Centaurea dealbata |
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| Lunaria annua/Honesty/Money plant |
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| Achillea |
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| Primula bulleyana |
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| The very last Dicentra 'Valentine' |
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| Thalictrum |
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| I'm not sure if the fab foliage is photo-bombing my shot of the 'Gold Heart' Dicentra flowers, or if it's the other way around. |
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| Enkianthus |
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| Clematis 'Josephine' |
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| My bear grass (Xerophyllum tenax) is flowering after 5 years in the ground |
I have a variety of self-sown Columbines flowering all over the garden.
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| And our PNW native Aquilegia formosa |
And, in the category of incipient flowers:
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| Magnolia macrophylla |
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| Callistemon 'Woodlander's Hardy' -- the shrub is covered in these cool flower buds |
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| A second Callistemon is also going to flower heavily |
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| Peony 'Cora Louise,' an Itoh peony |
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| An herbacious peony is all set to burst |
A couple of Bromeliads are getting ready to flower too.
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| The Cardiocrinum gets taller every day |
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| I'm excited to see it open |
Are you celebrating Garden Bloggers Bloom Day? Lots of garden bloggers do. You'll find Carol Michel's post at May Dreams Gardens
here, as well as links to other bloggers around the world.
