I really love your weeping larches! We have a little bonsai larch and it loses its needles each winter -- makes me think it's dying -- and then in early spring I see these cute little green puffs starting. Are your weeping larches deciduous? I wonder where I could get one -- my sister and I have oriental gardens with Japanese maples, which we grow in the shade of the house or under the canopies of larger trees. I have two very large (50+ years old) orange trees, and we built up beds underneath them where I grow ferns and shorter Japanese maples under them. Do you think a weeping larch could survive in that type of environment? I would dearly love to get one!

Bobbie, I just searched for a weeping larch here in the ATP database, and it's there -- but absolutely no pictures! Would you consider posting your weeping larch pictures to the database?

I agree. Love the stone wall!!!

Lunaria.

I love lunaria! Happy spring plants. The heck with the money coins in the fall. They are messy looking but necessary seed productions if we want this biennial to come back.

Best viewed enlarge.

Back yard fence area - plain lavender




Lavender and white, up the street




Variegated leaves show up only on the second year





White on variegated with arabis (blooming well over a month) show up nice on barn red cottage





Lunaria and Virburnam carlesii next to front walkway

I love this plant. I managed to only have one plant come up this year. I think the seed pods are a lovely addition to the garden. I like any plant that has unusual seed pods.

Your photos are sooooo pretty. Thanks for sharing, Mona

Ah, Lunaria, thanks for reminding me of this plant. Used to grow these and
forgot all about them. Blame daylilies for that. They have me
sidetracked on many things.

Really looks great with the viburnum too. Striking combo.
Thanks for the images.

Not familiar with the arabis. I'll have to check that one out.

4/26/12 later in the day as clouds were forming for a spring shower.

Forget me nots - love them self seeding. They grow were they want - must have moist area. Finally, finally, they are under the apple tree this year!

Don't forget to enlarge the photos!





Pink Impression with Peony unfolding over them, looking towards the forget me nots





Gunnera - planted last fall - love these big leaves - must have wet area. Royal fern behind it unfurling. I love contrasting foliage.





Rodgersia just unfurling - leaves will be large like Gunnera but lobed. Flower bud is even emerging. I have several clumps. These were not even visable last week. I love spring!




Comphrey - once you have it, you will always have it!!! Clumps have been taken from here to share. Healing herbs. Always keep some spring leaves in the freezer. Clumps stand 3 ft wide and 3 ft tall.



Jack in the Pulpit - used to have 3 - they are not liking their damp area. One estate I work on has hundreds but they are in a very very wet place.



And my favorite photo from yesterday - my old Magnolia 'Liliput' bush. Using 'portrait' on the Rebel and obtaining the blurry background!

Very lovely Bobbie. Are the forget me nots invasive???

Yes, if they like your damp area!

They are biennials, growing first year, flowering the second, so if you don't want more, don't let them seed or hoe in late summer the babies.

I love them, and have the woodland spot where they are welcome!

Over the brook, they are amongst my seedlings, so I always have to pay someone to pull them up. About 3 hrs work. I have them put the piles where I may want them to seed. This year they will go to new estate job.

Thanks, I really don't have room for them but at my summer cottage I would have plenty of room, only don't know if the deer would eat them.

Lovely, lovely. I really like the Forget me nots and the lovely pink tulips.

Wow Bobbie, talk about serenity. Such beautiful surroundings. I like
contrasting foliage too. Gunnera, another unknown too me. Love it.

BEAUTIFUL!!! Thanks for sharing them. Mona

Bobbie, it is such a treat to see all these photos! When I visited your garden, I was so amazed at all the textures, foliage types and colors, different heights, etc. of your garden. I could only imagine what it looked like other than daylily season.

Maybe seeing your photos IS so much fun for me because I have been to your garden!

Gosh, your lavender is beautiful. I used to have lavender here here but slowly they all died out.

I had 2 large clumps of lavender at one time. I only have one clump left. They do disappear after a time.

Trying to figure out what you think is lavender. I don't grow lavender! They like rocky hot, sunny, dry areas. There are some that are hardy, Munstead, being one. I love the Spanish/French lavender the best. Not hardy here though. Such an interesting flower presentation. On one estate, I do have Lady Lavender growing for about 8 years. Perfect spot for it, I guess!

I think I have Munstead. Have had it over 10 years. They start to get real nasty looking. You have to cut down all the dead parts. The one I have left isn't looking the best.

Tis a dismal May so far. Has allowed some flowers to 'hang in there' longer than normal with the lower temps and grey skies.

A few things to add today (another drizzly day).

First and only Median Iris (is that what the medium short iris are called?) Got this one in a trade for a daylily. Reminds me of the taller later Stepping Out Iris. Very welcome in the little garden at the foot of the side steps.




The Centaurea montana which self seeds all over here - and very welcome except when they self seed in the middle of a daylily! Here is one at the corner of my tomato patch (not yet planted). I cut these down 3 times during the season and they come back and flower each time!



The the dwarf/mini iris. The yellow is a seedling and the purple, my favorite, is Grapesicle. With lamium Beacon Silver, which also seems to have self seeded this year. Perennial Border.



Celandine Poppy, a wildflower brought over in colonial times for medicinal purposes, and lunaria - also ostrich fern and gooseberry seen along the fence with old window pane




And by now, you must have noticed that I am into 'texture'! Here is a Snow White mullein - this year it will send up it's flower stalk, and Artemesia 'Power's Castle'. I love grey in the purple, plum, lavender garden!