Very cute

Oh, Meredith......those chicks are precious! How does the pup like them?

I don't know what this is, but it is blooming. These flowers are pretty small and there are a LOT of them, which this photo kind of hides.



This shrub has even smaller leaves than the various Azaleas and small-leaf Rhododendrons in my yard, but my best guess is that it is another kind of Azalea.

Yes, looks like an azalea.....

RobinD said:Oh, Meredith......those chicks are precious! How does the pup like them?

I think she would eat them if I let her!!

Agreed .. an azalea

Lots of things blooming right now...the tall bearded iris are budded...can't wait to see some new varieties I planted last year.....

RobinD said:Lots of things blooming right now...the tall bearded iris are budded...can't wait to see some new varieties I planted last year.....

The only TB I have with buds already is Immortality. I have a lot of new ones to look forward to as well. However I know sometimes they take 2 years to bloom so we will see.

This morning another of the maybe Azalea, maybe other small-leaf Rhododendron in my yard is blooming. The one in my previous post, I wasn't even sure was within Rhododendron. This one I'm sure is some kind of Rhododendron (including maybe Azalea). In a prior year carefully checking details, gave a contradictory result.

Those stalks in a flower are: One pistil, five (for typical Azalea) stamen and what else???
It may be unclear in the picture, but looking from a range of angles makes it clear there are seven total, not six total. The Pistil is obvious. Two stamen significantly longer than the pistil and four stamen shorter than the pistil or is that shortest one with the smallest ?anther? something else?

The Azalea have five stamen. The other small leaf Rhododendron has ten. The ambiguous plants have other numbers and/or vary from bloom to bloom on one plant.

Not fabby pics from the other day.. the iris maybe from Celeste.. baby blessed .. and the anemone were from bent and Becky last year

Finally with the heat and wind, other perennials are blooming besides iris.
Anemone Sylvestris.


Brunnera Jack Frost


Hardy Geranium Samobor

That's a great color on the Iris!

jsf, that looks like another azalea.....because of hybridizing, you can't rely on number of petals or stamens.....love that anenome....not hardy here. Meredith, you are correct about the iris....I'm hoping to find some new blooms, but maybe not......

Yet another small-leaf Rhododendron bloomed today (my large-leaf rhododendrons don't even look close).



This is one of the least successful but never quite dead shrubs of the many shrubs my wife purchased years ago. Most died, others are more successful. This one just slowly declines. Every year, at this point it is covered in blooms as if it were a healthy plant. But it never grows newer or longer branches and as small branches die and break off they are never replaced and each year it holds less leaves than the year before.
I guess I should try aggressively dead heading the blooms after it finishes. I'm never quite sure which parts to remove vs protect in order to get new leaves rather than fruit to replace spent flowers and this shrub may have too many and too small flowers for me to manage that anyway.
Advice for getting it back up to the size my wife purchased (or preferably larger) would be appreciated.

Sounds like it is a dwarf rhodo, so it won't get larger.....you can remove the spent blooms as soon as they are finished, be sure the plant has half day shade, & no lime! If it's near a foundation or concrete walk, move it....it needs acid, & a mulch of pine needles.
Saw a great little geum at the grocery store today....Banana Daiqueri, & I bought it....only paid $4.99.......

I have a few azalea I moved from the old place that are struggling as well .. mine from critter damage last year .. don't seem to be springing back like usual

They can be tricky!

In the general category Azalea and small-leaf Rhododendron, I have two shrubs doing well (one this is the first year it did well) and four (if I'm remembering all of them without walking around the yard) doing rotten.

The Azalea with really really tiny leaves has always done well. It has been there over 30 years (we've been here 29) , takes little pruning to keep at the right size and shape.

The small-leaf rhododendron that flowers very very early is doing well for the first time this year and of MANY shrubs my wife purchased over the years it is now looking the healthiest. I don't think it ever flowered before this year. In Feb something ate almost all the flower buds then I sprayed repellent that seemed to protect the last 5, which opened to 3 flowers per bud. In past years maybe all the flower buds were eaten or maybe the shrub took that many years to recover from transplant. This year, every flower bud that was eaten was replaced by a leaf bud and the new leaves now far exceed the old leaves (which are also still there and green) so the shrub suddenly has over double the leaves it ever had before. Its flowers lasted a while, but long ago. All the rest are still blooming (including the two with red blooms that started late Yesterday).

Three ambiguous (Azalea or not) shrubs that were there before we bought the house got a lot less healthy a couple years ago when choked with weeds and worse each year since, when weeded. Maybe just too old. Maybe shallow delicate roots that I disturbed. When I have time for them, I think the correct thing to do is pull weeds more gently (which barely discourages the weeds) then put down a few inches of pine needles to slow the recovery of the weeds. I have a limited supply of pine needles left, but this seems like a good use. Those are the three shrubs that have two very different leaf types coexisting on one shrub (a common Azalea feature) but more than 5 stamen (but probably less than 10 and/or a lot of blooms lost stamens). Each always had major dead sections, but cutting those out seems to be wrong. Sometimes a dead section recovers after a couple years and anyway those shrubs seem to insist on carrying dead sections, so cutting off dead looking wood makes leaves fall from some other section. But now each one is well over half dead looking and I can't tell what is really dead.

If they are that old, it may just be time to replace them.