Finally.....

After a long, cold winter it's finally looking like spring. We've had two weekends in a row without snowfall! And today it got up to around 70!

Ahhhhhhh.

[OK, so that's a bit of a cheat. I bought the Pericallis above at a Big Box Store. What can I say? I'm feeling desperate for color.]

So yesterday was the Ceremony of the Moving the Snow Shovel into the Basement and the Putting the Parkas away till next winter. Today was the first day of the Spring Races.

I'm racing to cut back last year's dead vegetation before this  year's new green grows up and make the job that much harder.

I won with the chives.

But the catmint, Nepeta Walker's Low, might have gotten ahead of me. I have my "short" day tomorrow so I'll scootch out after giving lecture and rush home to try to finish the spring clean up.

And I will make a note that I need even more crocus for next year.

Did I mention I was desperate for flowers? So are the bees.

They were all over my crocus today.

Hmmm... At least the Dwarf Iris were able to grow through the dead perennial. Now how am I going to trim back the dead.... 

It's JUNE!

It's been a long, cool wait here in New England until we finally arrive at the month of JUNE! Warm weather, good gardening, lots to get done before the heat arrives and it's too late to plant anything else.

The iris in my rain garden are still blooming - the early bloomers are done but I have some late bloomers still going strong.

Penstemon Husker Red is not shy about self seeding. Every time I see a plant growing in a crack in pavement like this I am amazed at nature will find a way.

My Centaurea Black Sprite is just starting to bloom. It's much less aggressive than Amethyst in Snow and I really like the contrast between the nearly black blooms and the yellow-green foliage.

Nepeta is going strong and attracting plenty of native pollinators (this is Dropmore, a shorter version than Walker's Low - the blooms are a bluer purple than they look on my computer monitor).

My Cornus Garden Glow is at it's peak - gorgeous leaves, gorgeous blooms. A bit larger than the predicted 3-5 foot. I've started cuttings in the hope that I can plant this somewhere away from the house and take down these oversized shrubs. I can't seem to find it for sale anywhere or I'd just buy a new one and dig these out (and won't THAT be a chore!).

My Hostas are fully opened. I have a fondness for BIG hostas. I plant them inside the fence and the dogs are a good deer deterrent. We're fortunate that we don't have many deer despite bordering on a couple of hundred acres of woods. I think the coyotes are keeping the deer in check. Just don't let your cats run free around here.

At this point if a plant hasn't poked it's leaves up I'm assuming it didn't make it. 

You made it just in time, Helenium!

By the end of this month I hope to have a fresh layer of mulch in all the gardens and to have made progress on the grass removal in the backyard (sadly not a sign of new beds being put in but of pulling grass away from growing shrubs that I didn't clear enough grass around originally).

And I hope my Buddleia are looking better. They died back nearly to the ground this winter. Not a pretty sight.