What's in Bloom...

So it's time for one of these posts... I took a turn around the garden the other day and snapped some pictures of what's blooming, or soon blooming right now.  Of course that was 2 days ago and now some new things are blooming already!  I'll just have to have another flower post again soon :P

My Eastern Redbud is doing really well. I'm debating taking off the last support for it since it is pretty well established now, I believe this is the third year we've had it.  I love this tree so much, not only does it look beautiful in the spring, it gets cute heart shaped leaves in the summer and almost weeps from the weight of them.  I pruned it pretty heavily last year to take some of the weight off it and it was still very thick and full looking.

Some interesting things about Redbuds that I found:
"The summer leaves are heart-shaped with a defining point.
In some parts of Appalachia, the tree is known as the spicewood because green twigs from the branches were once used by early settlers to season wild game.
The flowers have been used to flavor salads or fried and eaten as a seperate dish."
Hmm, I bet that would make a very pretty salad!

I had pictures of these before but I really like these Superbells that I got as my annuals this year.  They're super cute!  These are "lemonslice"

I kind of lost my taste for petunias after I planted our whole bank with wave petunias and they died shortly after because we had gotten a bad storm :(  So hopefully these guys do better!
These ones are "Cherry stars"

My bleeding heart bushes are in full bloom.  I really love these bushes.

Katy always tries to pick these blooms.  She says, "dats a haht momma! dats a haht!"

I have one lone Azalea bush.  My neighbor across the street has a couple hot pink azalea bushes that make me jealous but really I'd have no idea where to squeeze in more shrubs :P

and along that side of the house my lily of the valley are filling in pretty well!  I remember my mom always loved these flowers and fawned all over them so these have a special place in my heart :)

as well as tulips...

I missed the good bloom time of these red tulips while we were away though.  That's the one thing I don't like about tulips is that they don't bloom long enough!
We "inherited" these bluebells at the base of our oak tree...

they're cute so they can stay ;)

This green "weed" was coming up next to my bleeding heart bush and I thought, "hmm, that looks a lot like a geranium leaf."  I had just planted geraniums behind the house last fall otherwise I would have pulled it.  Under further investigation I believe it is Wild Geranium... which would make it a native wildflower and I'm sure glad I didn't pull it!

Speaking of discoveries... I had posted about this Lithodora that the kids had picked out at the greenhouse a couple posts ago but I didn't actually realize that this was a perennial!

I'm pretty excited about it though :P  I should have realized we were on the perennial side of the greenhouse but with 3 kids all talking to you and trying to navigate through the narrow aisles you can understand how it would have eluded me, can't you? :P

So these spread out quite extensively (up to 6ft) in a low mounding form, which is PERFECT for where I had planted them.  Don't you just love when a plan comes together? ;)

Last year I had gotten ice plant for this corner in my front bed but it hadn't looked very good when I got it and ultimately ended up dying on me.  So I put this dianthus plant in it's place. I didn't get any flowers from the dianthus last year but it's loaded with buds this year and in fact it already started blooming since I took this picture!

The Isotoma I planted last year is starting to peak up in that bed as well although I don't think it will start blooming until the summer, I'm pleased to see I didn't kill it though :P
I had tried to remove all the tulip bulbs from that front bed but I obviously missed a few.  I love the purple tulips that came up though, I can't be mad at them...

I am willing this little clematis vine to grow up our mailbox :P  It was the tiniest little thing that I planted early and we had a couple really cold nights since then and I thought for sure it was done for, but surprise, surprise it's still coming up!

In the butterfly garden:
My Pot of Gold coreopsis:

this gets loaded with blooms

I had gotten some Salvia the other week too and put it in the place where the sedum had been, which had been too much of a bee/wasp attractant for right by the driveway.  I love seeing salvia throughout the summer and am looking forward to having this in my butterfly garden and filling out.

I could have sworn this was aster but it didn't bloom last year and my mom insists it is blooming too early this year to be aster, so now I'm not quite sure.  I guess I'll have to wait until it actually blooms to investigate further :P

I really love how this white Iberis is filling out, I have purple iberis as well but it's not doing nearly as well as the white and it blooms much later (it's still pretty though)

 and the colombine again...

 I'd really like to get some wild colombine but I need to find it first, and then find a place for it :P

We kind of missed the blooming of my magnolia bush/tree:

 

Around the back of the house... the Aubrieta I planted around the bird bath last fall are starting to fill in very nicely this spring:

 

My potted strawberry plants:

there's a couple flowers on them so we might actually get a couple strawberries this year!

Inside the house... I had got Chase this Venus Fly Trap.  So far it hasn't caught any flies on it's own (Ricky had caught a couple and "fed" them to it) so hopefully we don't kill it, it's a very neat plant!

A couple more pictures of random things...  I love spring!

we attempted lunch outside the other day but the Japanese Maple was shedding pretty badly.

and did I mention that we have puppies?!  The are so cute and pudgy and adorable!

and this happened the other day...

I'm such a neglectful mother :P
I was taking pictures of her, trying not to laugh so she'd think it was ok, and also chiding her for coloring on herself and she made sure to point out that it was on her arms and legs as well, haha!

It was washable, don't worry :P

aaand that post turned out to be super long.  If you made it through the whole thing you deserve a gold star!