Maltese Cross

Shasta daisies and the first maltese cross blossoms

Hummingbird on top of the tree snag

The Maltese Cross are popping open more and more each day. Saw a little hummingbird visit one of them this morning. They are attracted to the red color of the blossoms and enjoy sipping the nectar. Hummingbirds also like the trumpet shaped flowers of fox glove (altho I didn't plant any Foxglove this year) and the delphiniums are another favorite. The delphiniums haven't opened yet. but it won't be long now. They have tall stems of flower buds just waiting to burst open on a sunny morning. 

Cup shaped flowers like lavatara are also popular.  The hummingbirds will still occasionally visit the feeder and partake of the sugar water, but they prefer flower nectar and also tree sap if they can get it.  

I have also seen hummingbirds at the columbine flowers as well. My columbines are at their best right now. They will continue to bloom till the end of July, but not much longer. The columbines in my wild bed will bloom later because they get less sun there and so develop slower.

More columbines, my particular favorites

My sedum is doing especially well this year. It has star shaped flowers in both pink and yellow and green and white variegated leaves. This plant is easy to grow, is not fussy about soil type or even how often you water it.  It stays relatively short about 12 inches in height at most. There are other types of sedum that grow a lot taller, but I don't have any of those. One of my Manitoba friends has them and they are one of her favorite perennials.

Scabiosa, another short perennial. 


This cute little plant with the weird name is in its second year in this flower bed and it doing well this year. It's supposed to be attractive to butterflies, although I haven't seen any there, and it is drought tolerant once established. Scabiosa is a type of Pincushion flower. It will bloom well into the fall with these pretty little lavendar/ blue flowers. 


Every day is a new discovery out in the garden. Remember the thrill of hunting for Easter eggs as a child? It's rather like that! 


On an edible note, we had a wonderful salad today made from swiss chard, spinach leaves, green onions and a tomato from our veggie garden!  I added some radishes that I had bought at the Farmer's market on Saturday to top it off. There's something very gratifying about going out in the garden to harvest your own vegetables that makes all the effort and hard work worth while.


I almost forgot to mention, I made 7 jars of rhubarb jam today from the plentiful rhubarb out in the garden. The 3 plants are huge this year.  We certainly appreciate their efforts!