Bright spots of color on a gray day

It is nice to see some pops of color when the sun isn't shining - too often this year! I am astounded at how large my Lady's Mantle grew (upper right of photo).

My little shade garden

It is always fun to watch my shade garden grow each spring. I have six Hosta 'Gold Standard', several Astilbe plants that bloom white and pink, and several different types of ferns, including Autumn fern, Japanese painted fern, Ostrich fern, Hart's tongue fern, Tatting fern, and Royal fern.

Staking plants with English Y-stakes

Well, plants are finally growing enough to need stakes! I used up all my Y-stakes (about 30) this week.

I also planted two flats of wax begonias ("Cocktail Vodka' - what a fun name!) as edging. I need to get one more flat to finish the border.

Bearded Iris

One of my favorite iris. Everything is a few weeks later than usual this year.

Hardscaping with Stones

Last week we had our favorite "excavator" guy, Noel Hess, bring and install two truckloads of 3 - 4 man rocks. He created four solid steps up to the hillside garden area. He also installed about 20 big rocks in the large berm area along our lower driveway, and he placed more on the upper berm and hillside.

This weekend we shoveled 35 yards of bark! I was pretty careful to keep away from most plants. I had put compost around many landscape plants a couple weeks ago.

Here are some photos showing the results of our work this week.

 You can see the new steps on the right:

This is the "berm" next to the lower driveway:

Here are two photos of Noel at work on the steps:

Doublefile Viburnum - my favorite landscape shrub

The Doublefile Viburnum look fabulous on the hillside. In fall 2009, I started some additional ones from cuttings. These are doing well as they get well established.

These bushes look terrific in May when blooming, but they are such a lovely shape that they look nice through fall. As a bonus, in late summer the leaves turn a striking bronze.

Lupine

On May 20 I planted five new blue Lupine plants in the lower garden area in SW corner. I will add more later to create a bed that is striking when someone walks up my driveway. I added three more and think I will still add another five or seven.

Dutch iris

Here is a photo of the first Dutch iris to bloom in my garden this spring. It was taken May 20, which is later than usual due to our cool spring weather. Several Heuchera surround the iris in this bed near the walkway to the front door.