Spring, West Front Yard in Front of Fence

I am tickled it is spring, and we are seeing more and more coming up.  Not all of the milkweeds are up yet.  They seem to be one of the last to come up.  I went around taking lots of photos of the beds last night, because we were expecting a storm with hail, which we got, but thankfully, there was not much damage.  We are expecting a possibly severe storm tomorrow.  I hope we fare OK.

Our yard is going to be on our local Wachiska Audubon Society garden tour on Father's Day.  Because of that, I removed the plants that were in front of this sidewalk on the west edge of the yard, and put these steps from another spot in the yard here, so people can come out of the area where the tree used to be.  The path into it is narrow, and a "one way".  I am actually making a number of changes, mostly because of the tour, but am having lots of fun in the process.

I am trying to put the plant labels next to the first examples of each plant that will be seen.

Each kind of plant I have, such as one of my favorites, Fremont's clematis, is also in another flower bed somewhere in the yard.  Not all beds have every kind of flower, though.

Pussytoes and prairie petunia are also in several of the beds.  Prairie petunias are one of the last flowers to come up in the spring.

I don't remember where I got the couple of clumps of merry bells that are in this bed, but would love to find some more.  The foliage on the right is stiff goldenrod, which I thinned quite a bit, hoping there will be less leaning.

I don't remember what this is in the middle, but am thinking it may be a clover of some kind.  I tried transplanting one that was too close to another plant, but it came apart from the roots.  I have several prairie smoke geums, the plant on the right, around the yard.

I see gray-headed coneflower, New Jersey tea, liatris, Riddells goldenrod, and foxglove beardtongue in this photo.

Rabbits have been munching on this.  Do you know how to tell the different kinds of liatris apart?  I had some cultivars, Kobolds that seeded out some.  I am thinking with all of the natives ones I now have, I want to get rid of the Kobolds.

We are heading east, and seeing some of the plants I already named.  There are some bare spots I want to fill.

I am not sure what the two plants in front are.  I believe the middle one is white blooming flowering euphorbia.

Rabbits are eating on the foxglove beardtongue on the right, but not the one on the left as much.

Here is a closer view of one of the plants I'm not sure of the name of.

This is looking back to the west.

This is red root, a relative of New Jersey tea, blooming before the New Jersey teas even have flower buds.

This evening, I got Larry to help me finish digging out the spirea closest to the fence, to make room for the milkweed that came up in the area last year.  That's a Heuchera richardonii in the middle, a native coral bells.

I hope your spring is going well.  I'm thinking those of you in the north should be having some things up and blooming by now.  If you are in the path of the storms, I hope you stay safe.