April/ May Showers =May Flowers

Things are starting to green up. :)

Tulips at east side of house 

We have had so much rain in the latter part of April and the first part of May, but I am pleased to see that many of my perennials are popping out of the ground now, showing satisfying new growth. The flower bed next to the house is the most advanced. The tulips are growing tall and look like their blossoms will pop open at any time! That's always such an exciting time when the first tulip of the spring opens. The buds show just a hint of color...

My Pasque flowers are blooming as well in my stack stone bed.
The monkshood in my angel bed are growing well and I can see that my heliopsis (false sunflower) is trying to take over the centre of that bed. Sigh! It will be a major undertaking to cut that back to manageable size. I will try to dig up some cuttings for the Plant Swap coming up in 10 days.

Rock garden: day lilies are growing well as are the bearded irises, and of course all the quack grass. 

I have been digging quack grass shoots out of both my stack stone bed and my rock garden and I have dug out massive amounts of the perennial white daisies as well. Many of the clumps were half dead or overgrown and I tried to replace them with younger ones which won't grow as vigorously and also tried to limit how many were in that bed. I want to leave plenty of room for my rose bushes which are happily showing some shoots on the branches now!

I have also spent quite a number of hours digging perennials (6 delphiniums and 6 Maltese Crosses) out of my long perennial bed to divide them and remove the thick masses of grass that have woven themselves into the plants, then replanting them into the flowerbed. Many of the perennials went into the ravine/compost where Mother Nature can look after them or compost them back to the earth.  By the time I finish gardening, (years from now, I hope), the ravine next to out house will probably be full and it will be level with the rest of our yard, LOL!

Columbine showing signs of life. :)

Tomorrow:
Plant vegetable seeds in the nicely rototilled veggie garden. :)