Pretty white blooms

Happy Anniversary to Lisa and Guy! 15 (or 14?) years ago today they got married and gave this Silky Dogwood as wedding favors:



The Snow on the Mountain that we brought with us from Cold Spring is also in bloom (yes, that is Chocolate Mint mixed in there):

Lots of purple

The money plant / silver dollar plant is still going strong, and the rhododendrons are blooming, I'm amazed at how they are practically the same exact color!



And I am *so* excited that the irises are *finally* blooming! These blue and white ones we brought with us from Cold Spring. I did our landlord a favor and thinned her iris beds. :-)



These yellow ones were here when we bought the house. Mrs. Pampalone stopped by one day soon after we moved in and told us these were award winning irises, I should have asked her if *she* won the awards, or if just the plants did before she acquired them.



I wanted to show you the lily of the valley "patch" that came to us from my Mom's friend Barb. This is where I took the shots for Christa's birthday post.



This is something growing on the hill that was here when we moved in. Is this some kind of honeysuckle? It does smell sweet.





And again I'm thrilled with the silky dogwood growth. :-)

We have compost!

We started composting maybe three years ago, and last year we got a little bit, but this year we hit the compost jackpot! Well, okay, not a jackpot, but that big ole' pot is filled with compost we made. I spread it around some select plants in the perennial beds that I thought could use a little umpf. It's a good thing Steve isn't afraid of the critters that tend to hang out in the composter. Twice I have opened the top to find a snake curled up all cozy on top of the compost. Now I bang on the sides a bit and give whatever is in there a minute to get lost before I open the top.



It doesn't look like much now, but I decided to go with Bleeding Hearts and Columbine in that empty spot where we took out the allspice. How strange that the bleeding hearts are white! I'm assuming that's from being in a box too long while shipping? Steve asked me if I was sure that wasn't the root. Um, yeah, I'm sure! There's a little primrose in front, too, that has been there all along but never blooms. I'm hoping next year it will bloom and spread a bit like the others have now that it has sun.





I was VERY excited to see all this new growth on the silky dogwood! Yay! It might take 10 years, but I'm hopefuly it will grow big and strong again.



The azaleas out front have started blooming. It's pretty cool how we can see how much sun our yard gets. Everything on the west side of the front steps is just a little bit behind everything on the east side of the steps, because the east side gets more sun.

It was supposed to rain today, but it hasn't...

yet. Now they're saying it will rain overnight and clear out by midday tomorrow. I hope so!

Our backyard smells like heaven for two reasons:



The pear trees are blooming.



and what's that behind that pear tree? Lilacs........



Soon we will have a profusion of money blant blooms! There were a few of these in the yard our first summer in the house, I'm assuming Mrs. Pampalone started them. They are biennials, and bloom the second year. (That's what biennial means, right?) They reseed like mad, and we have them in all sorts of places, in the beds, on the hill, it's all good.



So we have this empty spot where we used to have a Carolina Allspice. Mom doesn't think we should have taken it out, but it creeps into everything and we just didn't love it, so out it went. This lone tulip came up there this year, it must have needed the sun.





Here is what is left of the Silky Dogwood from Lisa and Guy's wedding that the tree guy accidentally cut down this winter. I'm still a little mad about that, but look - new growth! I have hope that it will someday come back and be as big and beautiful as it was before.