Time for Blooms!

We've had so much going on around here, that I almost forgot to get a post together for Garden Blogger's Bloom Day, hosted by Carol, of May Dreams Gardens.  Today, I was glad the rain held off a little so I could go around taking photos of blooms.  I have posted some of the flowers already, others, I noticed, but wanted to wait for bloom day to post.  Also, there are some I just discovered blooming today.

I'm starting with what's blooming in the curb beds.  We didn't take the leaves off as early as usual, so some of the blooms may have been delayed in opening.  There are only two of the 10 or more tulips that bloomed well last year.  There are some rabbit chew lines on these, so I'm thinking the others may have been eaten down completely.  The rabbits ate more plants to the ground last year than in the past.  I was hoping they wouldn't cause as much damage this year.

Grape hycinths with a hyacinth:

'Prairie Smoke' Geum:

Already, we are having some blooms doing their final bows of the season.  That always makes me sad, but full of anticipation to see what will bloom next.

I have trouble remembering the names of many of my perennials, especially those that I have more than one variety of.  Some of the daffodils are finishing up, and others are just opening.

The first bloom of a perennial geranium just opened.  This one blooms all summer.

There are not many blooms in the largest front yard bed yet.  These tulips will turn pink as the blooms mature.

Now, we're viewing the blooms in the bed in front of the house.  I'm still enjoying the hellebores.  Some of them haven't bloomed yet, which makes me think they probably won't this season.  They are growing new leaves, though, so maybe they will bloom next year.

There is only one bloom stalk on the bergenia so far, but it's a welcome sight.

There are more blooms on the east side of the house and back yard.

Pasque flowers continue to be one of my favorites for early spring bloom.  Plus, the foliage and seedheads look good into the summer.  I think I read recently that they sometimes go dormant in the summer, but I don't remember these doing that.  This is one of the two pass-along plants in this bed.
 

Cool, the phlox are starting to bloom!

The Virginia Bluebells are doing well.  I am so tickled to have some!

I am also pleased that the bleeding heart that was moved from under the tree shows no indication of stress, and is now opening its blooms.

I wish daffodils had a longer bloom time.  Can you see the hellebore on the left, and the pasque on the right behind the pots?

The 'Yellow Lady' is looking like the 'Orientalis' to me.  They sure don't have the splotching the ones on the tag do.  Oh, well, at least they are blooming.

I got these pasque flowers at an annual plant sale a few years ago because I wanted more than the other two I have.  It's hard to tell from the photos, but their color is a bit different, they are a little shorter, and they bloom a few days later than the other ones.

I sure like the way this tulip has lots of blooms.

The basket of gold will be blooming about the time these daffodils are finished.

The violets are starting to bloom.  I remember enjoying the ones my grandmother had in her yard, so I am willing to pull out some to prevent them from taking over, and let others grow.

These are still my favorite hellebores so far.  I've mentioned that when I looked at photos from last year, the blooms were yellow.

I love the pink and yellow on these!

In front of the vegetable garden, there area some tulips blooming.  A couple neighbor friends gave me these a number of years ago.  I don't remember what the original ones looked like in the first clump, but there are now two kinds there.

I like them both.

These are still the same as they were originally.

I don't remember if I mentioned that we have a 100% chance of rain tonight and tomorrow.  The 100% has been there for a few days.  I don't recall the forecasters being 100% sure of rain that far ahead.  I am thankful, and am enjoying the sound of it on my garden window.  We really need rain, but I hope it doesn't delay the stump grinding too long.  I am still in the process of selling my idea for the size of planting bed I want where the tree was, and would like to start getting the soil ready once we come up with the size it will be.

I have visions of tithonia, lisianthus, large dahlias, stocks, and other medium and large sun loving annuals in there.  In the fall, I'd like to fill it up with early to mid spring blooming bulbs, leaving room for more annuals next year.  I think I'll draw up a tentative plan to show him. 

I hope you are well, and enjoying spring.

I was talking to Larry today about what a nice bunch of newer blogging friends I have.  I still have the old ones, but we don't get to each others' blogs as much as we used to.  This will be my third growing season of blogging, and I am feeling like a lot of my posts showing what's growing and blooming are kind of re-runs.  Yet, some of you haven't seen them, and this is partly a journal for me to look back and see what was blooming when, so I'll just keep plugging away.

If any of my old friends are visiting my bloom day post, and haven't been here for awhile, please look at my previous post.  It is not a rerun.  We had to have our tree taken down because it had holes in various places that had caused the wood to rot.  It had become unsafe.

Next week, a reporter from our newspaper wants to come talk to me about garden blogging.  She had emailed me awhile back, saying she was going to do an article on local garden bloggers.  She emailed me again today, saying she liked the post about the tree coming down.  There is only one other local blogger that I know of, but we'll see what happens with that.  I told her Ben, from The Deep Middle, who I noticed is planning  his first GBBD post for tomorrow, is actually a writer, but I just like to talk through writing.