Early Garden Blooms

Yes, it is summer-time at my place, and though I still want to weed here, and sow more there, I'm already taking photos of the earliest blooms in my garden and yard. Oh what a delight!

I hope you enjoy these photos as much as I enjoy sharing them with you.

I have at least 4 lilac bushes on my yard, (the oldest seems to only show its blooms to the neighbours on the west side), but I'm showing you just one close-up. Of course lilacs blooming time is May and those flowers are all brown and dead already.

My rhubarb plant by the rain barrel pulled a first- time miracle for me. It was growing something like a big yellow bump or growth on a tall stem the week my sister Elsie was here.

(Since she is an agricultural expert, I asked her if that was some kind of plant cancer; she said, "No, it has to do with seeds, and you will have bigger, thicker stems now.")

I'd never heard or or seen a rhubarb plant go to seed. The plant grew taller than the neighbour's fence. I puzzled over this wonder every time I saw it, and - well, I decided that I will do an experiment to see if I can start more plants from seed.

Guess what! I just looked it up online this morning and apparently it works, but it takes 1-3 years to get viable plants that way. Well...? I'm still quite curious, so I'll try it, but I guess they will have to be house-plants through the winter.

Hmm.?? Would they make good Christmas gifts?

Remember on Victoria Day my ESL friends came to help me sow my garden? Well, some of the rows were sown too deep, so they have not come up, but some have, so here are the Spinach and Chinese Cabbage rows. The zucchini on the other side of the sidewalk are now growing like crazy.

I've given the rest of the garden a wait of a few weeks to make sure in which rows nothing is coming up, and have re-seeded most of them now. I may still get to sow something else in 2-3 other rows.

(If you like these photo tours, just let me know!)

Just one more today. When I moved here 17 years ago I brought along Mom's 9 Irises, and planted them close to where my rhubarb plant is now. They were in the shade, and crowded with weeds. When I was expecting Gary to come clean out dead branches in the tree I decided to dig them up and move them in case he trampled them.

To my utter surprise I found that the 9 plants had become 42! So I spread them out...some in the front yard flowerbeds, some along this western fence, some here, some there. But that only gave them room to multiply some more! I'm nor sure of the present count.

When they bloom they only last about a week - if I'm lucky, and this past Sunday's rain opened them up! So I've been going around to catch good photos of them.

The ones along the west-side fence have had more direct sun and so they have petals browning off already, but when I went out this morning to check, these under the trees were still looking perfect!

Oh. Do you see the chives in the bottom right corner? They are in bloom today too!

(I've almost made a habit already of carrying my camera in my jean's back pocket).

Maybe that's enough for today; but I do like to show off my garden. It gives me so much joy!

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