Shooting Stars and Iris Blooms

The shooting star is at the height of its beauty now. Soon it will fade and we won't even be able to find the plant in another month. But now it is spectacular.

And the white iris is also at the top of its form, with the first blossom on each inflorescence open and the others swelling. Very lovely. The iris season sneaks up on me each year. It seems that no buds can be found and suddenly they are all open. I know this is usually around the first of June, as I have often given a bouquet of them to Terry for his birthday. The whites come earlier than the others.

As noted earlier, there are 8 yards of wood chips in the driveway, and the big chore for this Memorial Day weekend is hauling them around the yard and spreading them out. Its easy in the beds where I have been disciplined and haven't let too many things grow in every little space. But there really aren't many places like that in this yard, so the spreading is slow going, fiddley bits. For the most part, Bill hauls and I fill in the bare spots with shovelfuls, though he did get into making a new border for the bed under the bird feeders and while he dug and installed the edging I hauled a couple of wheelbarrows full.

The east side of the house had become overgrown again with ferns and daylilies. My intention is to clean up that area, and we planted several new hydrangeas and hardy hibiscus, as well as some clematis to climb the new trellis. So today, now that I have given away many of the ferns and ensured that there were enough growing in the woods to keep Bill happy, I cut them all back again and spread a nice thick layer of chips. I'm sure I'll have to keep them cut back for some time, perhaps even spray a bit of herbicide eventually. But that garden does look neater now.

The lilac is blooming, the tulips are mostly fading, but the alliums are coming on. The night temperatures are still not getting above 45, and sometimes down to below 40, so I'm still reluctant to plant things out. The greenhouse is still up, and most things are still safely inside of it. I hope I can plant before the week is done.