Easter = Spring

Happy Easter! I am enchanted by all things spring in my neighborhood right now. The grass is so green you would think it is not real, and trees are starting to explode in leaves.

As you are facing the house, this is on the left, but I'm looking down the hill at the three new allium I planted in fall, plus the foxgloves and anemones returning for action.

This is a previously planted allium but what's interesting is that behind it, there is a single stalk of an allium that did come up and bloom last year - but it has no leaves this year. Wonder what happened, and will it bloom?

Apparently I should have pruned the baptisia to the ground last year. Must get on it now!

The backyard hydrangea starting to leaf, and the ever-reliable bleeding heart, which will probably perish when work begins on the yard.

Daffodils close to the house.

Daffodils along the back wall of the back yard, planted my first year in the house and returning strong! Not all of them did so.

These may be the only hens and chicks that survived the winter.

I am still hoping these are self-sown Larkspur in the foreground - also note the healthy-looking allium transplanted from the back yard!

Hydrangea and mystery weeds.

Remember I was worried this peony wouldn't come back? Wonder if it will bloom this year, unlike last year?

Lilac is preparing to bloom

Glorious lungwort in the back plot, about to be displaced with our planned yard work.

This phlox patch grows every year, to my delight

Robust poppies, but not sending up any flower stems yet

These very little purple-flowered weeds (a violet variety, perhaps?) are scattered around the back yard and we like them

This is one site of the seedlings we transplanted earlier this month from our mini-greenhouses. Frankly they were too little to transplant but the timing of our vacation last week was such that I thought we might as well stick them in the ground and see what happened. I bet a few of them will make it.

Another seedling site

The foot of one of the back yard trees. I like this scene. Kind of fairy-friendly.

The perennial tulips are returning!

The viburnum is blooming beautifully. Both bushes.

High point of the action

On the one hand, the plants are busting out all over the place. The sweet peas reached the top of the lamppost. The zinnias are a mile high. There are about 20 freaking accidental tomatoes getting bigger daily, and some sort of accidental vine, too. Pumpkin? Watermelon? Other sort of melon?

On the other hand, attacks on the plants come from all fronts. The deer. The recent lack of rain. Even a goldfinch. A goldfinch! I ask you how I am supposed to choose between my love of flowers and my love of pretty birds.

In short, the action in the garden has reached fever pitch. And we are getting close to making major and majorly exciting changes in the back yard - more on that soon.

An Eastern Tiger Swallowtail butterfly visited our zinnias on July 10. I read later that butterflies love zinnias.

Emma was enchanted by the butterfly.

Just recording what's going down with the anemones, lavender, and delphinium on July 11. I should not have cut back that lavender so severely after last season. The one I didn't cut back is the size of Cleveland now.

It's not easy to see, but only abominable deer could nip off my sweet peas at this height.

The Larkspur at their peak on July 11. Lovely.

This was July 11 - they're even taller today!

Surprising success stories: portulaca (middle) didn't even exist a few weeks ago; must have gotten a late start from seeds last fall. And the parsley has returned, triumphant!

Tomatoes on July 11. Heaven help me, I'm rooting for 'em.

The olive-colored blur in the upper middle of this shot is a female goldfinch, photographed through the dining room window. It was plucking off leaves of our zinnias.

This is what the zinnias looked like after the goldfinch attack!

General state of play on July 18. The zinnias have gotten kind of ridiculously tall.

Remember the gypsophila? Pity it, nestled at the base of humongous zinnias and accidental tomato plants. Next year I need to not plant stuff around this and see what happens.

Here's the hen-and-chick's swan song bloom. It's not even pretty, really.

The OTHER sweet peas are finally blooming. But this lamppost was largely a bust,

I am pretty sure a baby baptisia is growing in the uphill shadow of this rock.

This is the baby in question.

Our furthest-developed shishito pepper! Apparently they grow 2-4" long.

Yeah, these raspberry limeade zinnias stole my heart.

Sweet peas on July 18 - where do they go from here?

Accidental tomatoes on July 18, unstoppable....so far. NOBODY TELL THE VILE SQUIRRELS.

Persisting in the face of death and destruction

Before we delve into the ugliness, here is a lovely arrangement of salvia, lavender, and Shasta daisies on July 3 that still looks pretty good today.

And now let's get real, below: the vile deer have chomped the blooms off my new hydrangea. I don't think they've ever been after the hydrangea in back, so it didn't occur to me this was among their interests. But I looked it up, and sure enough, deer "occasionally severely damage" hydrangeas. So I have set myself up for failure, or a lot of anti-deer spray.

But now back to the soothing things that have not been eaten (yet) (and only thanks to anti-deer spray).

Cornflowers and zinnias.

Zinnias background; peppers foreground. Peppers are flowering now too.

July 3 - the unmolested hydrangea in back.

As it did last year (http://aylwardgarden.blogspot.com/2017/07/late-bloomers-and-revolting-beetles.html)  this rhododendron bloom so much later than the others. This is on July 4!

Speaking of late bloomers, the magnolia threw out a few additional blooms in the past few days, too. I'm not complaining. But I'm maybe a little confused.

The first tomato has been born in defiance of the squirrels that will surely spell its demise, not that I care, because I absolutely am not attached to my accidental tomatoes. [Inwardly steeling self for impending tragedy]

What is this hen-and-chick doing? Is this normal? OH MY GOD I JUST LOOKED IT UP AND IT'S GOING TO FLOWER AND DIE. No one prepared me for this agony.

This grasshopper(?). I have nothing good to say about him.