An Update: What has been happening in my Garden

I tend to be an eager gardener who favours the final few weeks of April to get a jump start on work in the garden. The weather is usually a bit cold, but the chill in the air usually means there are no black flies or mosquitoes to torture me. I also find that most perennials, which are still dormant at the end of April, are to sleepy to notice when I up and move them to a new bed.

This spring was so wet and miserably cold however, I was simply unable to get any kind of a head start on gardening. When the weather finally did warm up, I must confess I felt a bit overwhelmed by all the work that suddenly needed doing. For the first day or so, I wandered around the yard like a lost soul, trying to figure out where to begin.

The daffodils opened up and then it started to rain...

It rained for days. I fell behind even further.

The garden soaked up the rain and plumped out into a lush green jungle.

In the shadow of mature trees, most of the back garden lies in dappled shade. The main border along the right side of the yard is some 5 to 10 feet deep (shrubs at the back, perennials in the foreground).

In the past, I used to start work at the front of the bed. Attempting to add a bit of order and a nice crisp edge always seemed so gratifying. The problem was that, as you can see from the photograph above, by the time I could get to the back of the border, the plants had filled in so much that heading into the flower bed was a bit like setting out on safari.

I am proud to say that this year I mended my errant ways and started at the back of the flower bed.

The rain brought out the tulips and quickly did in my Double Flowering Almond (below).

The ferns were more than happy with the wet weather.

The Circle Garden at the very back of the yard is, at this moment, a sea of Forget-me-nots.

On the long weekend, we worked like fiends on the new raised vegetable beds; digging out sod and laying down weed mat for the paths. The weather on Saturday was good, but on Sunday and Monday, it alternated between hot, humid and raining.  We were both exhausted at the end of each day. (This post is already too long and so I will tackle the subject of the vegetable garden in the coming days.)

For today, I end as I started, with a handful of blooms from our crabapple tree.