May and June. Soft syllables, gentle names for the two best months in the garden year: cool, misty mornings gently burned away with a warming spring sun, followed by breezy afternoons and chilly nights. The discussion of philosophy is over; it's time for work to begin.
- Peter Loewer
"Time for work to begin". And boy, is he right! Mowing, planting, weeding, starting vegetables, potting annuals, trimming spring blooming bushes, starting a new compost pile, new beds, walking the yard looking to see what survived the winter, and what didn't, the list just goes on forever!
Of course there is also the new blooms on the roses, the iris in full glory, the smell of the honeysuckle and the fledgling birds in the trees begging mom and dad for just one more feeding before they go off on their own.
Please follow me into my backyard and I'll show you my irises.
My iris garden is spectacular this year! I had a neighbor come by just to tell me how pretty it was (I could barely get in the back door my head was swelled so bad)
I've been working on it for several years now and finally it's paying off. I've been mixing in new varieties, pulling out some of the older iris that were there when I moved in, and fighting the more aggressive common types that want to come in and choke out the prettier ones.
Each day it looks a bit different as the early spring bloomers fade and the later ones come on. They're each glorious in their own right too.
I bought some new varieties last fall and planted them up front just to see what they look like before moving them back to the big garden. Not all of them bloomed, but the ones that did are pretty cool.
So that's what's going on in my garden, what's happening in everyone else's in mid May?