My Garden in May

You may recall a post I did a short while ago titled, "April Showers Bring May Flowers". Well...the month of May did indeed bring a second flush of flowers to our garden.

I took these photographs at about 4:30 in the afternoon with my trusty and well used Cannon Rebel SLR. I love this time of day when the shadows are deep and the light is soft and golden...colors are crisp and the stained glass effect of the sun shining through the leaves just takes my breath away.

Truly a beautiful day with turquoise skies, Bees buzzing...baby Birds calling...being surrounded by all this lush growth and smelling the sweet scent of spring...its like living in an arboretum...my own little patch of paradise. 

 

 I am still amazed every time I walk around our half acre property...the folks who lived here previous to us did a wonderful job of planting a wide diversity of different plants, trees, shrubs and perennial flowers. Come July and August will be able to harvest Blackberries, Currents, Blueberries, 
Thimble-berries, Figs and Cherries. You can see the unripe cherries below...I find the bark covered with lichens to be an interesting study of color and texture.

 

And the Tree Peonies...spectacular dinner plate sized specimens that are truly stunning to behold.

 The tree peonies in our yard our huge and at least 10 years old...a rare plant that you don't get to see very often. I truly treasure them and believe that I am one lucky gal to have not one variety but two.

My red Tree Peony surrounded by yellow and orange Poppies

 Below is the highly fragrant Yellow Tree Peony...lots of blooms but again...I wish they could stay around longer.

Vivid Poppies and Poppy pods...

 Little perennial Pansy's.

 

 

Giant Poppy pods ready to burst with big red blooms...interesting shapes, so strange and alien looking.

I couldn't resist purchasing some of these Chartreuse colored Primula flowers...they look lovely in amongst my other shade loving plants.

 

 Columbines with complicated lacy petals...I love this color combination.

A bee is busy collecting pollen on a wildflower..

Wild west coast Roses that smell just heavenly...below a Honeysuckle is ready to bloom.

Purple & white Columbines

Lacey and delicate white blooms...

 

Our big back yard Cedar tree is festooned with Clematis Vines in full flower.

 

Lily of the Valley...fragrant and sweet.

Soloman's Seal...a Native American woodland plant that loves dappled shady areas.

Currants slowly ripening in our spring sun...

My all time favorite...the Lilac...its scent brings back many a childhood memory.

And last but not least...our Little Jasper behind our garden gate.

A little note of Gratitude
I wrote a pretty intense post a short while ago lamenting the fact that I was in the middle of dealing with a flare up of an auto immune skin condition...it was bad and I won't downplay that...but things have improved considerably since then and I am now on new medication which has worked wonders for me so far...thank goodness!!! I can breath a sigh of relief and get on with my life...one of which is taking care of my garden. I also want to mention how overwhelmed I was with notes from all of you...notes that brought tears to my eyes and made me feel so good inside...I want to say thank you to all of you who reached out to me...you made what I was going through endurable, you made me feel like I wasn't alone and that there are others out there struggling with issues of their own...you are all good people with big kind hearts...

Warmly, Susan