Backyard action

Today I saw a ruby-throated hummingbird pause at the white azalea flowers in our back yard, then sit for a moment on a rhododendron branch. No picture, alas.

A couple days ago, this was the state of play in the back plot I redesigned last year:

The big allium! And the lungwort and dead nettles are doing terrifically.

Forget-me-not returning beautifully

The plot as a whole (with nothing added yet this year), as compared to last year on May 19, below - so three weeks away. Those forget-me-nots have spread nicely!

Lurking under leaves

I finished raking today!

I found a few things lurking under the leaves.

There were two of these little lizards (although both pictures are of one). Last year I mistakenly identified these as salamanders, but as my dad pointed out when he saw a dead one a couple weeks ago, they have scales. So lizards.

Why are the alliums coming up already (foreground)?! Is this very bad? Is it because the leaves kept the ground warm?
Also the nettles and forget-me-not still look very much alive, despite winter. We'll have more frost later this week so we'll see what happens.

And what are these coming up in front, in my tulip patch? Crocuses from last year, it looks like?

Not pictured: some fat slugs, which were dispatched.

Plants in the back plot at last!

I finally made the time to get plants (from Williams Nursery in Westfield, where Linda Williams very kindly picked out specimens for me before I arrived) and put them in the back plot per my design! The biggest hitch was that while my design had called for nine lungwort plants, they were a shocking $20 each (quite large, and messy-looking), so I cut back to three and put in some perennial forget-me-nots and dead nettles instead.

Note that the plan above is from the opposite perspective of the photo below - picture sitting on the chairs in the photo, and sketching the plan. So, for example, lungwort is on the right in the plan, but the left in the photo.

Light-colored plant in foreground is wormwood. Small plants are ageratum. 2 plants with pink flowers in foreground is forget-me-not. Large green-leafed plants at back of plot are asters. You can't really see the dead nettles or lungwort behind the topiary.

Also, Williams did not have moonbeam threadleaf coreopsis in stock, so there are a few gaps yet to be filled. And, as anticipated, I'll need to wait till fall to add the ornamental onion, because those are bulbs.

On right, lungwort. Dead nettles visible between the asters.

I also got some brachscome (it did so well last year), portulaca, and lantana to fill in some gaps in the front, and some ageratum left over from the back plot went there too.

Ageratum, Spanish bluebells (from planting last fall), and brachyscome.

Brachyscome, next to what's left of the daffodil leaves.

Portulaca (between last year's wormwood and daffodil leaves)

Lantana, nestled below the peonies along with lavender.

Finally, digging in the front, I turned up this guy:

Friends enlightened me that Catholics may bury St. Joseph (upside down, facing the house) in front of their home to speed its sale! Who knows how long he was buried, since we believe neither of the last two sets of owners were Catholics.