The Early May Garden

The days and nights have been warm

and the garden has flourished.

 The mailbox garden is looking nice.

 Baptisia australis or false blue indigo.

 Bearded iris.

 Another bearded iris.

 Tradescant, an English rose.

 Another English rose, whose name escapes me at the moment.

 This is the rootstock, Dr. Huey.  

The original rose died.

I like Dr. Huey, so I have kept it.

Many modern roses in this climate are grafted 

onto Dr. Huey as it is a strong rootstock.

 Yet another bearded iris.

 My foxgloves are doing wonderfully.

 The Money or Honesty plant is going to seed.

This plant is grown for the decorative seed pods.

 Stokesia.

 Oenothera speciosa, or showy evening-primrose.

 Nigella, or love-in-a-mist.

 Lambs ears.

 Clematis.

 Close-up.

 Columbine.

 Another one.

 And another one.

 Spiderwort.

You don't want to brush against this plant when it is wet,

or you will find that will be dyed purple.

 Clematis going to seed.

 Gertrude Jekyll flowering up through the 

butterfly bush.

 A garden vignette.

 The mock strawberries are fruiting.

These are not good eating.
But they are pretty, so they are staying in my garden.

 The first garden bouquet of the season.

 Oh no, not again!!

Really?

Those Mutinus elegans.  Phft.

Out in the Garden

Today the weather was in the lower 70s 

and it was bright and sunny.

Time to head out to the garden and get to work.

 

 I always start with the mailbox garden bed since it's

the first thing people see when they arrive at the house.

This is the before shot.

 And this is the after.

It took me about an hour and a half to get to this point.

I pulled up the dried stems from the perennials and broke

them up so that they could go on the compost pile.

I cut back the volunteer tree that insists upon growing

in this bed year after year.

I did save the two tallest stems to use as stakes

as they were relatively straight and sturdy.

Gardeners always reuse and recycle!

I trimmed back the butterfly bush.

I dug up part of the bearded iris that had stopped blooming.

After gently pulling apart the rhizomes (the fleshy roots),

I replanted some of them in a different area,

I then potted some of them for our county's 

Master Gardener annual plant exchange

and I gave the rest to our new neighbor.

Now I just have to repeat this process with the rest 

of the garden beds.

 Meanwhile, out back the daffodils have begun to bloom.

 The hellebore is blooming.

 The anemone is blooming.

Spring is springing up all over!

Happy, happy spring!

Spring Flings

Welcome,

and join me in a meandering tour of all things spring.

My bearded iris is blooming.

As is the Baptisia australis,

or False Indigo.






The chives are also in bloom.



Bonus, the blooms are edible.



Just remember to rinse them off first

to get rid of the little bug-wuggies.





My Little Kim lilac is in full bloom.



Lovely.

This columbine is also flowering.

One of my azaleas is happy to greet the spring.

This beauty is an English Rose,

created by David Austin.

Please meet Gertrude Jeckyll.

She is a highly fragrant rose

and a perfume industry has sprung up in England

to harness her heady scent.

Think old-world roses,

think a heavy, heavenly scent

and you just might come close to

imagining what this lovely lady smells like.

I really do wish you could smell this rose.

Unfortunately,

Gertrude Jeckyll is very prone to black spot

and is a somewhat weak grower.

But if you catch that scent,

then you are hooked.

This is the new bed by the new deck.

I placed several perennials in here,

including but not limited to,

yarrow, mallow, artimesia, peony,

garden phlox, echinacea, yada, yada, yada.

In the foreground is my new rose,

the Knockout (tm) Rose.

Some annual nigella (love-in-a-mist) have reseeded here also.

The dear husband is spreading mulch over newspaper.

The newspaper will help to block out the weeds

and will also eventually break down and feed the plants.

Very nice.

Thank you, dear husband.

These plants will take off now that they have been mulched.

This morning the storms rolled through.

At 8:45 AM it got so dark that the solar lights turned on.

Now, that is dark.

A little while later the seasonal stream that runs through

our neighbor's yard and ours filled with water.

A seasonal stream means that water only flows in it

during a heavy rain.

I went out after the rains and caught some of

of my flowers in bloom.

The foxglove is flowering.

Just don't mind the bindweed and the

locoweed.

I haven't gotten to this part of the garden yet.

One of my peonies is showing off.

Another Gertrude Jeckyll rose is blooming.

I really wish you could smell this rose.

And now on to another sure sign of spring

in Southern Indiana.

Morels!

I picked out four morels

from my local grocery store.

The sign on the bin read $59.99/lb.

And now you know why I only got four

and why I also purchased a package of Crimini mushrooms.

However,

after leaving the store,

I realized that the store had only charged me $37.99 a pound.

So, for these four morels, I paid $3.80 or 95 cents a piece.

Still a pricey proposition

but better than it could have been.

I shook out the morels and then rinsed them three times

until no more bug-wuggies washed out.

This was the first time I ever had bug-wuggies in the morels.

Go figure.

I wiped the Crimini mushrooms clean and cut them in half.

Then they sauteed in olive oil and butter over high heat

until browned.

Once they were nicely browned,

I seasoned them with freshly cracked black pepper and

sea salt.

Never salt mushrooms while they are cooking

or they will sweat and steam rather than saute.

The Foodie Boyfriend has found a new love.

These were good.

They were better than good.

They were great.

And that is why these elusive delicacies

cost up to sixty dollars a pound.